Lurker > Thorn

Xenoblade 3
Nier Automata
Trails Into Reverie
Trails of Cold Steel 3
Persona 5 Royal
Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Tales of Berseria
Caligula Effect 2
Trails of Cold Steel 4
Blue Reflection 2

idk something like that

Left off Soulsborne games, Nier Replicant, some other remasters-but-some-new-content, and Zero/Azure, etc. or else like Xenoblade 3 might be the only one safe lol.

Edit: If we're saying Automata doesn't count... I think TWEWY2 might have been my last cut?

Does it have to be an RPG? Can I nom 13 Sentinels?

If not, sure, Berseria is a fun time.

XIII_Rocks posted...

2400 users currently facing the ban hammer

it has been an honor

Congrats! I should really make more of an effort myself. I swelled up to about the same weight myself by the end of last year but while I quickly dropped like 10-15 pounds of it after a few changes in diet it's basically plateaued there.

Trump's second gag order violation hearing underway (technically just concluded - no ruling yet though I think, believe the judge wants to get the jury in and not waste more time.) DA specifically said they wanted fines this time not jail because they didn't want to disrupt the proceedings.

Bunch of absurdity in it - including Trump's lawyers bringing 500 pages of shit to try and justify this, up to and including handing the judge a thumb drive. But this one in particular got me because it's literally a GameFAQs ToS argument. Confronted with Trump making comments attacking the jury, their defense is "We didn't name any specific juror!!!"

https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1786035458834669924

After Republicans obstructed (voting to adjourn to avoid voting on a repeal) and blocked it for a while, Arizona has passed a repeal of the 1864 abortion ban that their Supreme Court ruled was now in effect.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/arizona-senate-passes-repeal-1864-abortion-ban-sending/story?id=109827722

Granted, this simply means that instead of this near total ban being in effect, the law will revert to the 15-week ban that Republicans passed in 2022 but it's better than nothing.

Arizona's Senate voted 16-14 to repeal the 1864 law. All 14 Democrats joined by 2 Republicans. One of those Republicans suggesting they hoped that by repealing this law they can stand a better chance of thwarting the ballot initiative that Arizona will vote on this November to protect abortion rights.

Still, it needs to be 90 days after the end of the legislative session for the repeal to take effect - and theoretically the GOP could drag that out until the end of June so there still could be a few months where the 1864 law is in force in Arizona.

While I believe Congress can simply decide to pass a bill to reschedule a drug if they want (and have done so in the past.) It's otherwise left to DEA and other related agencies. The process to reschedule takes forever though - Biden initiated it quite some time ago (nearly a year ago) but the steps take forever to get through, and I think even this wouldn't quite be the final one.

Basically DEA asks HHS to review the medical and scientific evidence and give a recommendation. HHS then goes through a process with FDA to conduct said review and return their opinion. Then DEA does their own review while taking the HHS opinion into account.

Like even from here it ends up going to OMB for a public comment period, etc. etc. Bureaucracy is sloooow. But I think this would be the most significant step.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/dea-plans-back-reclassifying-marijuana-drug-sources/story?id=109795806

DEA reportedly will recommend reclassifying marijuana from Schedule 1 where it currently is to Schedule 3 (ketamine, steroids, testosterone being some others in this class)

Wouldn't legalize recreational use on the federal level, but would - as far as I understand - basically legalize it for medical use, requiring a prescription.

When asked by TIME if he sees why many Americans see talk of a dictatorship as contrary to the principles of America, Trump says no. "I think a lot of people like it."

cool cool

https://twitter.com/ianbassin/status/1785311810675233198

May get TTYD eventually but otherwise gotta keep fighting the endless war against the backlog.

pezzicle posted...

Labrador Retriever or golden? Is that the same thing?

Nah, they're different breeds.

but both are among the GOATs

AFAIK, getting jailed for violating a gag order is a pretty unusual action. I think the judge is basically issuing the maximum fine he legally can, then noting that the fine is trivial to someone like Trump and that while he'd like to be able to issue bigger fines as a deterrent - perhaps escalating them if he continues to violate the gag order - he legally can not and therefore the only option he has left on the table is jail - and making Trump and his lawyers aware of that.

Getting tossed in jail for a first time offense of violating a gag order (in this case. I know there are the others but I don't think he can use those here) was never on the table. It would honestly be an extraordinary action and honestly would likely support Trump's claims of political/personal bias. So the judge basically did the only thing he could do instead - issue the maximum fine, explain both that he understands the fine is useless to a wealthy offender but that the law doesn't let him go any higher - so since he can't up the fine in the future his only other recourse is jail.

Now, granted, I'm skeptical that any judge, this one included, would actually go for it - but to this point I think his actions in issuing the fine and warning are the best he can do here. I assume that when they hold the hearing for whatever violations Trump committed between April 18 and April 30/today it'll still "just" be fines because Trump would have committed the violations before this warning was posted.

It's what happens for any violations Trump makes from this point onwards where we'll see what happens. If Trump keeps doing it and the judge continues to only issue fines then then I think we can call it out as weak. I suspect that's what'll happen but it hasn't yet.

I guess less importantly, despite Trump repeatedly lying about it being rejected - Merchan also said Trump can go to Barron's graduation.

Result of the first gag order hearing the NY Criminal Trial:

The Court finds Trump has violated it nine times (of the ten instances brought to its attention for this hearing) and imposes a fine of $1000 for each violation (the statutory maximum) and orders that all the offending instances be taken down.

https://twitter.com/MacFarlaneNews/status/1785305490370519227

In the judge's actual order stating this, when it comes to the punishment section, the judge explicitly talks about how the fine he can impose for contempt in a criminal case is bound by law to $1000 and notes that while such an amount may work in most cases, notes that that is a pretty useless fine (in terms of achieving the intended outcome - stopping the offender from continuing the behavior) when the offender is wealthy enough that the fine is basically nothing to them. And therefore he explicitly warns that jail may be necessary for continued offenses.

Order from the Court states...

However, the Judiciary Law does not vest the Court with authority to craft an appropriate punishment when a $1,000 fine will not achieve the intended purpose. While $1,000 may suffice in most instances to protect the dignity of the judicial system, to compel respect for its mandates and to punish the offender for disobeying a court order, it unfortunately will not achieve the desired result in those instances where contemnor can easily afford such a fine. In those circumstances, it would be preferable if the Court could impose a fine more commensurate with the wealth of the contemnor. In some cases that might be a $2,500 fine, in other cases it might be a fine of $150,000. Because this Court is not cloaked with such discretion, it must therefore consider whether in some instances, jail may be a necessary punishment.

THEREFORE, Defendant is hereby warned that the Court will not tolerate continued willful violations of its lawful orders and that if necessary and appropriate under the circumstances, it will impose an incarceratory punishment;

The instances covered by this hearing were from Trump's social media and campaign website over April 10 - April 17. I'm pretty sure the DA has since brought even more instances before the Court between then and now that I believe also have their own hearing scheduled. Presumably such instances won't trigger the "we might jail you" warning because this order only came today but IDK.

My first thought was Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth but really I would have to think about this for a bit and I don't have the willpower for that right now.

Xenoblade 3 and Trails in the Sky the 3rd would be up there.

I'd say Castoria should be the highest priority tbqh but I don't know if you have access to some of the mats she'd need assuming you grabbed them from the Pure Prism shop for Morgan earlier lol.

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Yes, I would love to see that, actually.

k

https://twitter.com/USA_Polling/status/1785003259351978030

But like also you're picking just that Morning Consult/Bloomberg poll and staking everything on that. Morning Consult itself says today they're tied per their website and Biden is doing better now than Super Tuesday. Fuck, that MC/Bloomberg poll has Trump doing better than Trump's internal polls in places like Arizona.

We've had this discussion like literally 9 times the past 9 months but while we're just now starting to creep into the period where polling has historically been better than throwing darts at the wall (though I say again it gets better around the conventions which are still months off) I open up 538 and still get the feeling we're seeing the same 2022 tactics where R-leaning pollsters flood the zone with garbage polls to distort the averages and lay the groundwork for the media to talk about red waves and shit like "why are Dems losing women/black/Hispanic/young voters? is there a nostalgia for maga?" Like these polls with crosstabs where the black vote has shifted to Trump in a demographic realignment bigger than anything since the Civil Rights Movement? I'm supposed to just nod and accept shit like that non-critically? Something is broken here.

Like I'm looking at Michigan on 538 and it has Trump leading the average. I'll note MI is the one place your chosen poll has Biden up. So why is this? Because some group, ranked 82nd on their rating lists dropped a Trump+15 MI poll in there. I'm going to assume even the most doomer take isn't having Biden lose MI by 15 points. (btdubs morning consult is at 116th)

I don't really want to go all poll truther or anything, but polls have just been pretty fucking wack lately. Clearly it started back in 2016 when they missed out on how Trump turned out MAGA voters but it feels like they've just been adrift the past few years and don't know how to correct for this. Ever since 2022 Dems have basically outperformed the polls by a fair margin and overperformed the political landscape of wherever they're running, often by double digits. So at this point I'm pretty skeptical of polls regardless of what they're saying, even the Biden up ones.

The closest thing we have to a pattern we can look to in the actual elections is that Dems have been fucking fired up since Dobbs and that it has not slowed down regardless of polls suggesting otherwise in those races.

I do think Trump can win this election, don't get me wrong. But if I had to guess I still would favor Biden. But Trump's chances are not nothing and that should motivate people to ensure they get out and vote.

idk you want me to post republican pollsters finding biden up? because i could because they have

Not sure I find the job approval polling convincing because I think we're in a new age of polarization where no one is going to have good numbers there (and you generally see that reflected in how the number has been dropping down for the recent presidents to the point where you could almost have it sorted by date) and because that hilarious Obama outlier aside there's not too many polls in each sample.

Labrador Retriever
German Shepard
Shiba Inu
Chihuahua

Some tough choices here. Except for Labs - the pinnacle of the doggo universe

Yeah, it's basically running lottos to amass a stockpile and then when you're caught up on story, using dead time (no events going on) to run free quests which are the best for dropping the mat(s) you want.

You can eventually get to a point where you're pretty good on mats. Unless you're trying to upgrade every Servant you have to 9/9/9 in which case it never ends lol. But if you're fine with leaving lesser used ones at like 4/4/4 or whatever then you can eventually work your way to a position where you can have enough to skill up a Servant at will if you obtain them for the most part.

FWIW, I was thinking of the original GSC Whitney (granted I haven't played HGSS). that rollout as a kid was deadly lol

azuarc posted...

I must be the only person who watched a video of Drakengard 3, and kinda shrugged and went "eh, so?"

there's just so much going on there that you kind of have to play to fully realize

That fucking camera going nuts towards the end, the timing, that you die if you miss even one note, that the game's performance is kinda shit so you might just drop framerate even if you don't need the camera and are musically inclined enough to simply respond to the music you can still be fucked. that last fucking note.

I mean, if you want to argue there's a difference between "difficult" boss fights and "bullshit" ones I hear you. To use KH again, I think Lingering Will is generally a fair fight - just very tough. While Mysterious Figure is just some straight-up bullshit. But eh.

I know it's optional and a superboss but my KH pick would probably be Mysterious Figure (BBS) just for how ridiculous that fight is lol

Raka_Putra posted...

I understand the argument that Whitney is not actually THAT hard in the grand scheme of things, but to me her infamy and longevity kinda pushed her to the forefront.

Yeah, I sorta agree. Like, personally, I'd put the Drakengard 3 Route D Final Boss on this list no questions asked.... except idk if Drakengard 3 itself is known/infamous enough to justify it.

Oh. Right. I guess I never posted my thoughts on how all that went.

I listened to the oral arguments and basically agree with that take. Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch all very much seemed like they wanted to grant some amount of immunity and while the liberals and Barrett seemed to reject Trump's nonsense for what it was that leaves Roberts as something of a kingmaker and while I'd put him as the toughest read on his lean from the arguments I also expect his "my legacy!" pearl clutching will lead him to want to avoid a 5-4 and get as close to a unanimous ruling as he can - which will necessarily require making concessions to the Alito group.

I don't think he'll go as far as Alito did (who seemed to openly be looking for a line he could draw that would put Trump on the side of immune but to keep the raised hypotheticals of "Order the SEALs to assassinate political opponents" subject to prosecution) and with no sense of irony claimed that not granting immunity would make it more likely for presidents to try and abuse their power to maintain office upon losing an election. He and Thomas both tried to trip up DOJ with what they thought were "gotchas" by trying to bring up stuff from history and asking if they would be liable to criminal prosecution. Alito brought up FDR and internment (a favorite tactic of Alito is to concern troll like this) and seemed to short-circuit when DOJ said "Yes." In his seeming surprise he asked for an elaboration and DOJ basically replied "Because Korematsu was finally overturned, yes, it would be. But because this Court had endorsed such a position - perhaps wrongly - it probably wouldn't have been liable at the time." and Thomas brought up something and asked why wasn't it prosecuted by DOJ... leaving out that said operation was ordered by JFK... who DOJ would not have considered charging post-presidency for a pretty obvious reason.

But I can definitely see him going closer to Kavanaugh and Gorsuch who kept going "Oh, we don't want to talk about this case teehee. We're just super worried about future presidents~!" and jumping at the chance to devise some test to distinguish between "official" acts which he'll say are immune and "private" acts which won't be and then telling the lower courts to sort it out before they can go to trial - thereby adding months to the proceedings and pushing the trial well past the election. A technical ruling against Trump but one that completely achieves his objective of delaying the trial under after the election - where, should he win, he can just order DOJ to dismiss the case entirely. Not exactly a novel take - I think media outlets were openly predicting such an outcome before oral arguments - but I was actually surprised Kavanaugh and Gorsuch were so openly sympathetic to Trump's case here. I thought if it was just Alito and Thomas alone pushing for this shit it was possible that they would just shut it down but now I have very little optimism of such a complete rejection.

Pretty grim shit.

Snake5555555555 posted...

Ornstein & Smough are THE iconic difficult Soulsborne boss if you ask me. The contrasting fighting styles, the relentless pressure, the mid-fight transformation popularizing the concept of multi-phase boss fights, being the halfway-point skill check roadblock for the game. A perfect combination of difficulty and thematic weight. I think you don't get a future fight as challenging as Malenia without them.

Yeah, agreed with Ornstein & Smough as feeling like the iconic Soulsborne choice.

I actually think I might go with Isshin (Sekiro) before Malenia but that's probably just a me thing + giving Isshin bonus points for being a required and final boss (in most routes) while Malenia is optional.

Not sure I'll have a list for this honestly, would have to think. Whitney seems like a pretty good pick though.

QB for Florida State. Who got injured at the end of the season and so the committee decided to snub them from the playoff despite being undefeated.

not making the playoffs is good prep for being a jet though

aaron rodgers in another qb room with someone named jordan

(jets take jordan travis)

MZero posted...

Years, even! Wii came out it 2006, Brawl in 2008.

........so it was. i am now more confused with myself than ever lol

...Ah, right. South Dakota not North, my mistake. I should have gone to sleep hours ago - between that mistake and all the typos I kept making and had to correct both before and after posting just lol

My mind is playing tricks on me or something because I could have sworn Brawl was a Wii launch title but looking at it now it was months apart?

Edit: I guess if we're considering most likely I'd elevate Metroid some as well. Probably too soon for Pokemon? And definitely too soon for Xenoblade. But I interpreted the question as more akin to "most deserving" or something like that.

I mean it's less she "wants" to be involved in politics and more that she's already the Governor of South Dakota. It's just she's also been floated as one of the top contenders for Trump's Vice President pick this time around.

...It has become increasingly rare for me to still be shocked at some of the psychotic behavior displayed by major GOP figures but uh... ...this one got me.

Content Warning: Animal Cruelty

https://www.thedailybeast.com/kristi-noem-reportedly-describes-executing-her-pet-in-new-book-i-hated-that-dog

So, like the URL gives you the tl;dr but the details just make it increasingly horrific - and this is a story she's telling. The media didn't find this out through investigative reporting - she's just putting this out there.

Honestly, the account in the article is... really bad... as a middle ground I'll try to summarize it with a bit less detail but I guess still assume the Content Warning in place even in my attempts to give a summary:

Basically, Noem recounts a story in which she had a 14 month old dog that she alleges had behavioral issues. She says she took it on a pheasant hunt hoping it would calm the dog down but says she (the dog) instead "ruined" the hunt because she was "out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life." On the way back home from the hunt she stops to talk to a local family and the dog escapes the truck and attacks the family's chickens. She cites this incident as her realization that "[She] hated that dog" and that it was "untrainable" and "[she] had to put her down" and shoots the dog in a gravel pit.

And apparently doing this gives her some epiphany that she also should kill a goat she owned because it was "nasty and mean" and went to execute it in (seemingly the same) gravel pit - but botched the initial attempt and failed to kill it with the first shot and had to scramble to get more ammo to finish it.

And she's a leading VP candidate for Trump.

Personally? Xenoblade. let them cook.

But I voted Pokemon because I think it could be the most successful.

Queen

kind of a tie between the song and the stand - but mostly the song

That was a S2 episode I think - unless it happened in S1 too and I totally forgot lol.

Congrats on you both getting Castoria (and thereby winning F/GO)!

Shogun watched/beated: Really great mini-series. Better politicking than Game of Thrones, IMO. Definitely recommend a watch for anyone interested in it.

---

Mob Psycho 100 S2 also beated:

Also a really excellent season. Loved watching the increased focus on Mob's development and growth. I think Mogami was the most compelling (and dangerous) villain what with the trapping Mob in a dream world and nearly succeeded in breaking him had Dimple not gotten there in time. Plus needed ??? mode to win. But Touichirou was a pretty good final boss, particularly when it basically when Mob's "power ups" was him running through ways to redeem him before finally going "Nope. I just can't find a way to do it, I've failed. And so now we'll both lose." and wrecking him. Otherwise I wasn't too into the whole Claw stuff (In S1 Reigen basically carried it with his antics lol)

Hope S3 hits Netflix soon, really looking forward to watching it.

Bills trading down twice to teams who then took a WR with that pick when Bills lost Diggs is pretty funny. Even moreso when one of those teams was the Chiefs lol. You'd think they'd want to avoid ever trading down with them unless it was some crazy package.

While I think the Jets probably should have taken Bowers, again, my rule is "just draft OL" so I can't be a hypocrite and be that mad

Maniac64 posted...

"Just impeach the person doing a military coup" is so stupid.

How exactly is that a solution? You think they won't use the military to shut down the impeachment hearing also?

It got worse. Later, Barrett of all people picked up where Kagan let off and presented the hypothetical (kinda paraphrased because I'm working from memory of listening to the arguments so I'm probably a bit off on the wording):

Barrett: "Using Justice Kagan's example let's say a president orders a military coup. Let's say that, for the sake of argument, he is impeached and convicted for it. Your position is that even then they would not be subject to criminal prosecution unless there was a statue that clearly stated the President could not do so?"

Sauer: "There would need to be a clear statement, yes."

Background: Another thing that Trump's legal team was arguing here was that unless a law explicitly says the President is subject to a criminal law (a "clear statement of Congress") that they can not be prosecuted for it. A law saying "anyone" or "any person" doesn't count - it has to explicitly name the President.

Yeah, I don't really have the desire to jump through all the stupid hoops Fandom has put up. I guess that's what they want but whatever.

Jets have gotten like zero production from TEs recently. Like, I wouldn't be mad if they got an OL because my standing rule remains "just draft offensive linemen jfc" but TE sorta is a need IMO.

Aecioo posted...

Bowers to the jets
Bowers to the jets
Bowers to the jets

Please!

unless he's taken before then it should be an easy decision for them

can't wait to see how they jets it up

Went Atari > Sega > Microsoft

I agree with the idea that Sega actually becoming a competitor to Nintendo in the early days mattered in terms of showing there could be competition even if they eventually lost and Sony took up the baton. May be overlooking Microsoft's role in PC gaming I guess but IDK.

Leafeon13N posted...

This is also the top topic on the nintendo switch board.

Again, fandoms goal here wasn't to make this a safe place. It was to make sure bigots couldn't properly have their worldview questioned.

Its a warped view of the term inclusivity.

I mean, yeah it's like case study #234756 of conservative techbro "inclusivity" which is just the newest brand of "you can't call out my speech but I can call out yours" previously, and still, known as "cancel culture."

Netflix only has the first two seasons so I'll be in the same boat!

Been a while since I watched anime on Netflix and yet again I was diverted from Violet Evergarden (it will happen eventually) - this time by Mob Psycho 100 S2. Watched roughly the first half of it so far (Episode 7, I think)

So far, really good. Glad to see some more focus on Mob and Reigen's relationship.

It's Tyrod Taylor.