Gunitneko

[Gunitneko]

[ulibeanz]

ever notice how men criticize games like animal crossing and stardew valley on the basis of “the entire game is just doing tasks” without recognizing that “kill bad guy” is also just a task but violent?

[ulibeanz]

”it’s so boring all you do is talk to people and do tasks so you can buy new things” yeah and all you do is press a bunch of buttons to kill people so you can buy new things? perish

[ulibeanz]

my activity page has not known peace since i made this post i have hundreds of insufferable gamers crawling up my pant legs now but luckily i have a secret up my sleeve… i too am a gamer man. im immune to the gamer venom   

[atrius97]

This has the same energy as that post that’s “Red Dead Redemption is just Barbie’s Horse Adventure with violence”.

[salkryn]

The people arguing that this post is a strawman because it ignores the nuance and tactical depth of CoD while simultaneously ignoring the nuances and complexity of AC and similar games are so tantalizingly close to getting the fucking point…

[Gunitneko]

Actual Play Podcast Recs

[completelycarly]

Honestly, I’ve listened and/or watched so many hours of them at this point, somebody else should benefit. I love all of these very, very much and don’t really have favorites, so I’m gonna start with the smaller fandoms and work backward.

1. Campaign Podcast (Star Wars/Skyjacks)

System: Star Wars uses Edge of the Empire. Skyjacks uses Genesys.

Medium: Podcast

Status: Campaign: Star Wars (complete); Campaign: Skyjacks (ongoing)

A group of professional Chicago-based improvisers get together to roleplay found families like you’ve never seen. Every character is loveable and clever, even the ones who shouldn’t be (looking at you, Tryst), but the best parts are when they’re all together, bickering. Kat and James do a superb job wrangling groups of players who work hard to make life as difficult for their own PCs as possible. Mostly just shenanigans and heart - so, so much heart. I’ve laughed harder listening to this podcast than almost any other piece of media. Also, nobody in space or on airships is straight. 

***The Star Wars game requires little-to-no preexisting Star Wars knowledge to enjoy, which I know because I enjoyed it so much and have maybe seen two of the original movies all the way through. 

2. Neoscum

System: Shadowrun

Medium: Podcast

Status: Ongoing

Do I understand the rules of Shadowrun? Absolutely not. Do I enjoy the heck out this podcast anyway? Absolutely YES. I’m still working through the backlog of this one, but I’ve heard it just keeps getting better the longer you listen (and I already like what I’m hearing). Another (equally hilarious) group of Chicago-based improvisers roleplaying found families, but this time it’s a group of criminals driving cross-country in an 18-wheeler named Xanadu to complete jobs against shadowy governments and the companies that run it all. Heists and hijinks. Lots of dirty jokes. Hot demon ladies on motorcycles. What else do you need?

3. Dimension 20 (Fantasy High/Escape from the Bloodkeep/The Unsleeping City)

System: DnD

Medium: YouTube videos, College Humor’s DROPOUT site, and upcoming Twitch livestream

Status: Fantasy High S1 (S1 complete, S2 coming Sept. 2019); Escape from the Bloodkeep (complete); The Unsleeping City (ongoing but I haven’t gotten there yet)

I saw this video of one of the characters continually failing insight checks and asking characters if they’re his dad, and I was sold. Brennan is a truly solid DM who firmly believes in the Rule of Cool, creating badass and ridiculous NPCs, and making his friends cry. I highly recommend starting with Fantasy High, but if you watch Critical Role you might want to start with Escape from the Bloodkeep because Matt plays a gay knock-off Nazgul with an inferiority complex and improbably bad luck who’s trying to bring back the Dark Lord™ with a bunch of other ridiculous baddies. Fantasy High is about a bunch of teens with high fantasy powers attending a high school that trains would-be adventurers, and their first big boss battle is against a lunch lady and a monster made of animated creamed corn. Yeah, you heard me: creamed corn. 

4. Friends at the Table

System: Oh god, so many. Here is a good list. Generally systems based on Powered by the Apocalypse and Blades in the Dark.

Medium: Podcast

Status: Seasons in Hieron (onoing, but ending in the next few weeks); Counter/WEIGHT (complete); Marielda (complete); Twilight Mirage (complete); Bluff City (Patreon exclusive, S1 complete)

I think Austin (the GM) describes it best at the beginning of each session when he says it’s a podcast about “critical worldbuilding, smart characterization, and fun interactions between good friends.” The worldbuilding of FatT is honestly baffling, and they work so hard to make the game inclusive and diverse.  Seasons alternate between fantasy games set in Hieron and sci-fi games. Lots of googling dogs, off-mic laughing, mechs, leaning into the failures, gays, and sometimes crying. If part of the joy for you is how much the players obviously love each other, listen to FatT. 

Also, shout-out to Jack de Quidt for making the best podcast soundtracks I’ve ever heard. They’re a genius. 

Not listed because you probably already know about them but dearly loved: The Adventure Zone and Critical Role 

[Gunitneko]

[epitome-of-odd]

I’ve been laughing at this for a solid 5 mins

[Gunitneko]

[c-cassandra]

Lies!

[Gunitneko]

[jttbcmfandoms]

Harry Potter series: Spells are very specific, with very specific pronunciations, enunciations, and wand movements.

Fantastic Beasts: Point and shoot. Just point and shoot, man.

[Gunitneko]

[no-url-ideas-tho]

why isn’t anyone allowed to be wrong anymore? it’s okay to be wrong. no one should be terrified of every tiny little mistake they might make. being wrong, and realizing you were wrong, is how you learn and grow and change.

[elfwreck]

From How Children Fail, by John Holt:

People have not been “allowed to be wrong” for decades. What we’re now seeing, is floods of people who are still stuck in school, still facing authorities who are telling them, over and over again, that wrong answers are a sin and a crime, and they should be ashamed of ever having them, and certainly they should never share them in public.

[Gunitneko]

[tgpgifs]

JAMEELA JAMIL by Ramona Rosales for Stylist Magazine (2019)

[Gunitneko]

[kelofthesea]

시발비용 = Fuck-it Expense

[kelofthesea]

Someone wrote an article about this!

[whiskeyandlead]

Same bro

[Gunitneko]

[lord-kitschener]

I just saw some article about how leg makeup is a summer beauty essential, and that’s how I know we’re in hell! Ladies, it’s your duty to #empower yourself by covering your entire fucking body in a sarcophagus made of contoured concealer ($275.50 from sephora) so that the general public doesn’t end up vomiting en Masse and forever shunning you after being forced to witness how unforgivably disgusting, offensive, ugly, and un-instagrammable your uncovered skin is!!!!!

[thelnfinitywar]

[princessnijireiki]

I saw some products the other day labeled “workout-ready makeup"— not just waterproof or sweatproof, which would make sense, because I live in Florida (it’s hot, sweat-proof anything is important, right up there with sunblock sometimes); or even euphemistically referring to sex, because this makeup was packaged and shelved alongside the sort of “teenybopper” makeup selections aimed at junior high & high school girls.

No, it was marketed under the concept… that one needed makeup to be ready to work out, and which would itself outlast that workout. Stuff like blush & contour… not waterproof mascara or anything, but on top of that, to make sure your cheekbones & nose look shaped up before you hop on a treadmill.

Who the fuck is that performance for? Why the fuck is that even a thing, let alone a thing some people (including kids) are gonna see & fully think is necessary?

[Gunitneko]

[penroseparticle]

My favorite thing is that Europe is spooky because it’s old and America is spooky because it’s big

[meduseld]

“The difference between America and England is that Americans think 100 years is a long time, while the English think 100 miles is a long way.” –Earle Hitchner

[burntcopper]

A fave of mine was always the american tales where people freaked out because ‘someone died in this house’ and all the europeans would go ‘…Yes? That would be pretty much every house over 40 years old.’

‘…My school is older than your entire town.’

‘Sorry, you think *how far* is okay to travel for a shopping trip?’

*American looks up at the beams in a country pub* ‘Uh, this place has woodworm, isn’t that a bit unsafe?’ ‘Eh, the woodworm’s 400 years old, it’s holding those beams together.’

[bedlamsbard]

A few years ago when I was in college I did a summer program at Cambridge aimed specifically at Americans and Canadians, and my year it was all Americans and one Australian.  We ended the program with a week in Wessex, and on the last day as we all piled onto the bus in Salisbury (or Bath? I can’t remember), the professors went to the front to warn us that we wouldn’t be making any stops unless absolutely necessary.  We’re headed to Heathrow to drop off anyone flying off the same day, then back to Cambridge.

“All right, it’s going to be a long bus ride, so make sure you’re prepared for that.”

We all brace ourselves.  A long bus ride?  How long?  We’re Americans; a long bus ride for us is a minimum of six hours with the double digits perfectly plausible.  We can handle a twelve hour bus ride as long as we get a bathroom break.

The answer.  “Two hours.”

Oh.

[derinthemadscientist]

English people trying to travel around Australia and wildly underestimating distance are my favourite thing

[marzipanandminutiae]

a tour guide in France told my school group that a particular cathedral wouldn’t interest us much because “it’s not very old; only from the early 1600s”

to which we had to respond that it was still older than the oldest surviving European-style buildings in our country

[iguana-sneeze]

China is both old and big. I had some Chinese colleagues over; we were discussing whether they wanted to see the Vasa ship (hugely expensive war ship which sank on it’s maiden voyage after 12 min). They asked if it was old, I said “not THAT old” (bearing in mind they were Chinese) “it’s from the 1500s.” To my surprise they still looked impressed, nodding enthusiatically. Then I realised I’d forgotten something: “…I mean it’s from the 1500s AFTER the birth of Christ” and they went “oh, AFTER…”.

[ceescedasticity]

My dad’s favorite quote from various tours in Italy was “Pay no attention to the tower – it was a [scornful tone] tenth century addition.”

[copperbadge]

My last boss was Chinese, and she said when her parents came to visit her from Beijing they pronounced Chicago “A very nice village.” 

[blondegingersaxon]

This post keeps getting better