Castle Magus

"This is a formal apology to anyone who knew me when I was twelve."

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(Video contains some spoilers for not just Lunar: Dragon Song but several other games as well, which are mentioned in the video's description.)

Hmm, so, as of today, I learned that Lunar: Dragon Song is a thing that exists. I loved the other Lunar games, so it's weird that I've never even heard of this one before now. And I actually had a Nintendo DS in the time frame it was released, too.

And... it seems I may have dodged a bullet there. That said, based on this video but having not played this game myself, I'm not sure I would call this the worst RPG ever made. I mean, yeah, it kind of sounds like ass, but I'm sure I've played worse.

I mean, Ultima IX: Ascension[1] exists, after all. Look, the Ultima series was great. I even sort of liked Ultima VIII: Pagan, despite the atrociously shitty platform jumping (though, to be marginally fair to myself, it was [oddly, in retrospect] the first game I ever played in the Ultima series). And the early games are still good (if super ultra dated by today's standards). But Ultima IX was barely passable at best and putrid dogshit at worst. I mostly blame Electronic Arts for this (even if it wasn't just EA's fault).

Oh, and Dragon Age II, which is the game that essentially killed the Dragon Age franchise as far as I'm concerned. (Well, that and the fact that Dragon Age Inquisition apparently has one those early bird Denuvo forever-licenses on PC, which means I'll almost assuredly never play it). I mostly blame EA for this one, too (even if, again, it wasn't solely EA's fault, I guess). The first game (and, to a lesser extent, its DLCs and expansion) was rather good, though.

And Quest 64... um... the only thing I remember about that one now is that it was called Quest 64. So... I dunno, maybe it's not as bad as Lunar: Dragon Song?

And that's not even counting the myriad RPGMaker slop games that exists on Steam and the like nowadays. Sure, there are some decent ones in there, but there are some real stinkers in there, too. And these days, I only extremely rarely feel like digging through the pile to try find any potential gold, and I usually only do so via word-of-mouth from elsewhere.

[1] - Spoony's whole Ultima Retrospective series was pretty good. Disclaimer: it's been many years since I first watched this, when it was originally made, so I'm not sure how well it may hold up today, given that Spoony's brand of humor was... pretty brash. Man, I still kind of miss Spoony, even so... even if he's sort of back (after having gone off the deep end for several years) and occasionally does videos with that Conversations with Curtis guy (i.e. Paul Morgan Stetler, the guy who played Curtis in Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh, a game that Spoony LPed back in ye olden days).

Good.

Perhaps if more asshats like this were imprisoned in other countries for their stupid, worse-than-worthless horseshit, there might eventually be fewer such asshats like this (looking at you, Paul brothers).

That said, even this one particular fuckwit has already been arrested in other countries, so... maybe not. Then again, this time, he has actually been sentenced to six months hard labor, so I suppose it's possible this might cure him of being a complete dipshit on the Internet. Time will tell, I guess.

Link to comic.
Link to blog.

This is another one of those "the associated blog is actually of more interest to me than the comic" comic posts.

(EDIT) Yet another post to fall victim to that bizarrely still existent "can't have 'Hidden ' in the subject line" bug. (/EDIT)

Fucking clownshoes waste of time and taxpayer money. And Lauren Boebert is a waste of oxygen.

Full headline, for the usual reasons: "Night in the Woods publisher Finji accuses TikTok of creating 'racist, sexist' and uneditable GenAI ads for its games"

"Finji is 'unable to view or edit the AI-generated versions of its own ads,' which includes a 'sexualised, racist and sexist representation' of one of its characters"

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"'I have to admit I am a bit shocked by TikTok's complete lack of appropriate response to the mess they made,' [Finji CEO and co-founder, Rebekah] Saltsman told [IGN].

"'It's one thing to have an algorithm that's racist and sexist, and another thing to use AI to churn content of your paying business partners, and another thing to do it against their consent, and then to also NOT respond to any of those mistakes in a coherent way? Really?'

"'What really is utterly baffling is what appears to be a profound void where common sense and business sense usually reside,' she continued.

"'Does TikTok want me to be grateful for the mistreatment of my company and our game? Based on the wild response through the weeks of customer service correspondence we have received, I think this is their stance and take on their obvious offensive and racist technology and process and how they secretly use it on the assets of their paying clients without consent or knowledge.'

"Saltsman added: 'This is just simply embarrassing, but not for me as an individual. For me, I am just super pissed off. This is my work, my team's work and mine and my company's reputation, which I have spent over a decade building. My expectation was a proper apology, systemic changes in how they use this technology for paying clients and a hard look at why their technology is so obviously racist and sexist. I am obviously not holding my breath for any of the above.'"

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So, yeah... I guess that's the freshest hell involving gen AI being unleashed by uncaring asshats for nefarious purposes.

The game in question is Usual June (a game I have not yet played myself). While I haven't seen these racist/sexist ads (nor am I going to seek them out, because TikTok), I can, sadly, easily imagine how disgusting they probably are.

Well, on the "bright" side, TikTok is US-owned now, so maybe Finji can sue the shit out of TikTok and, hopefully, get at least marginally better results than if it was still wholly owned by China. Or maybe not, I dunno. *vague gesture in the direction of the current US "justice" system + shrug + weary sigh*

(EDIT) So... as someone who does not and will not ever use TikTok, I've just got to ask... is this shit normal? (Note, only one of those was AI generated, as far as I'm aware. The rest were made by humans. WTAF.) (/EDIT)

A post on John Scalzi's Whatever blog.

Actually 11 thoughts, because he adds one more in the first comment. That one might even be the most important one, really.

Full headline, because too long: "Critical Role's Matthew Mercer argues cringe culture discourages authenticity (and I kinda agree with him)"

"Critical Role's Matthew Mercer says the word 'cringe' is overused, and it denigrates people for being their authentic selves"

I don't "kinda" agree with Matt Mercer here. I absolutely 100% fully agree with Matt Mercer here.

Also, to me, simply saying "cringe" is, itself, cringe.

...how did this webcomic go from being one of my favorites to becoming a massive festering shitpile over the past half-year or so? Like, almost everything from the moment Joyce and Dorothy chose to actively and very publicly cheat on their then-current boyfriends (at a genocide protest[1] that neither of them personally cared about, in the midst of a police crackdown, during which pink tear gas clouds were framed by the cartoonist as if they were romantic sakura petals, no less [yes, really]) up to now has just been complete dogwater.

Well, pretty much everything directly involving Joyce and/or Dorothy since then has been rancid poo, anyway. Any scenes not featuring Joyce and/or Dorothy (and which also didn't involve other characters asking "Where's Poochie?"talking about Joyce and/or Dorothy) have been (mostly) fine.

I say "(mostly)" because aside from that, everything to do with the genocide protest itself and pretty much any of the scenes involving follow-ups to the events of the genocide protest (whether Joyce and/or Dorothy were in those scenes or not) haven't been especially super-great, either. Such as the police raid on the dorm most of the female main characters live in, ostensibly to look for Amazi-Girl, who was last seen kneeing cops in the face during the crackdown on the protest and helping people (including Joyce and Dorothy) escape from said crackdown and which is presumably what led to the body Amazi-Girl shares with Amber (it's complicated) getting beaten to shit later that same (in-comic) day. (The raid on the girl's dorm ended on a "comedic" wet fart with basically nothing of any real consequence resulting from it, for what it's worth [aside from the Amazi-Girl suit being "safely" sequestered elsewhere, I guess].) Or like how two of the teachers at the genocide protest who ended up in jail for at least a couple days[2] had to be/could only be bailed out by former students (one of whom was, yes, Dorothy), apparently.

It really sucks, because I've been following David Willis comics since the Roomies!/It's Walky![3] and Shortpacked! days. And, really, at least prior to last June/July or so, Dumbing of Age itself was good, too. Hell, I remember chatting about the crossover between It's Walky! and Fans! back in the old OtakuWars! chatroom on IRC... that's how long I've been following this stuff. Now, though, I'm close to just deleting my Dumbing of Age bookmark and washing my hands of the shit altogether.

[1] - A very thinly veiled "ripped from the headlines" version of an actual genocide protest at Indiana University, by the way.

[2] - In comic time, that is. Real life time was, again, more like half a year or so.

[3] - Never read any of the Joyce and Walky! stuff, though, because most of it was locked behind a paywall at the time, years ago, and I haven't given enough of a shit to look back into it again since then. Apparently it's not behind a paywall anymore? Hell if I know.

"Return the power to the workers and separate your boss from their teeth."

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(As the video warns, mild spoilers for Night in the Woods, incredibly heavy spoilers for Tacoma.)

The video starts with a story about a man who almost froze to death in a transfer truck and then got fired by the company he worked for because he abandoned the trailer rather than freeze to death. A story which, though it was not mentioned in the above video, also involved a certain asshat who would later go on to be a current Supreme Court justice.

So... whereas the previous Night in the Woods video essay I posted mostly discussed Mae's mental issues, this one (by a different guy) uses NitW and Tacoma (along with mentions of Rockstar Games and Telltale Games and others) to talk about how and why Capitalism sucks turgid, encrusted, rancid asshole.

"Working on video games almost always comes with a catch, and most frequently, that catch is crunch."

Just going to say it again: crunch is dogshit. It is counterproductive. It is damaging, both to the product and, more importantly, to the people making the product. As I've also said before, this has been known for decades. Yet, it still happens, to this day. (I'll also say it again, the main thing I learned during my four years at DigiPen was that, ultimately, I really didn't want to be an employee in the video game industry.)

Regarding the Tacoma ending super-spoilers, yeah... like Ted Faro, fuck Sergio Venturi.

"My home, North Carolina..." Ha ha, hey, that's cool. *sentence and paragraph continues* Ah, yes, so depressing. As someone who also lives in The South™, let me just give a hearty "Fuck The South™." That's what North Carolina gets, when the entire state legislature of North Carolina is controlled by the GQP. (It still amazes me that we've had a Democrat governor for the past three terms, including the current one.)

Then back to comparing all that to Tacoma and NitW. Man... too bad Elon Musk doesn't possess enough teeth to share with every employee he's ever wronged in his putrid life. (Donald Trump, either, for that matter.)

Want another game that handily fits this theme? Mouthwashing. (If one doesn't care to buy and play that game directly, one could watch a full LP, found here, done by Woolie and Reggie.)

And nothing of value was lost.

"Awards no longer transfer points," though? That's a pretty good idea, because, at the very least, it should nullify all the asinine "clown farming" that was going on before, where assholes/trolls would make rage-bait posts, just for the purpose of getting gullible fools to give them clowns (and, more importantly, the Steam points associated with them). Because that's all the clown was ever used for, to indicate disagreement and derision of opposing opinions (whether stated opinions were "legit" or just for trolling). That won't stop people from using one of the new ones (like that shitty looking "Funny/ROFL" face, probably) to continue to express disagreement and derision, though.

*weary sigh*