Minimum standards in entertainment are not something you can browbeat into people and there's nothing you can do about how propagandised and shitty all western entertainment has become, other than not give it any money or attention. The furthest I'll go with people is to be vocally scathing of any wokeshit show I've been duped into trying in the past few years, although examples of those are getting scarcer since I've just given up trying anything new. It's all shit.
The western world is too dependent on America for its entertainment (as well as all its political cues), so until America sorts out the intersectional feminist psychosis it's been riddled with for the past decade, you will have to dredge the archives for older media to enjoy. But there's plenty there.
I'm assuming it's this but not sure: https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1100,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F820d98d2-15d0-41a8-b7ea-7ac2c828e805_2672x1476.png
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.23.21268276v1.full.pdf
Worth also noting that the red bar of covid-attributed myocarditis is too high even as it stands, due to undercounting the true number of covid cases.
I actually do have a problem with all ages versions, even though I recognise some devs see them as a financial necessity.
It's a way of trying to dilute a piece of work into being marketable to everyone, but by making the sexual content optional they develop a kind of psychotic split tone within the same story - extreme content and pandering for the horny, yet cheeky smiley happiness for the self-deluded and everyone else - and become weird disposable trash as a result. Some of the stuff that's managed to make it onto Steam in All Ages form really makes me laugh, almost in bewildered outrage, when you know what it really is, and especially considering some stuff that's been booted from the platform for simply being risque. All Ages versions are the reason that the only officially available English version of Cross Channel - a great story - is some badly translated censored trash on Steam, when that entire VN revolves around sexual violence and trauma. And in fact the All Ages version of the game in this topic seems to be the fundamental reason that the West is getting a censored version of it - because we're getting the port of the Japanese re-released All Ages. They're not a new phenomenon for ero-games and it's not specific to non-Japanese versions; this kind of re-release, with safer, censored yet more polished and substantial content is pretty common even with some Japan-only games. Having changed so much of their original vision for cash, the devs see no problem changing even more and telling everyone to go spin.
A shame because the art for this one looks kind of nice. It's entirely possible that the dev is just some out of touch auteur who thinks that speaking as boldly as possible is the best way to defend his creation, but he's late to the anti-fandom party and happens to be talking in far too similar a way to the 'we don't want these kind of fans' SJWs that every sane person over here is sick of. This isn't our first rodeo, bitch, we might not have keigo but we recognise humility when we see it, and when we don't.
I just think lewd game makers should skip Steam entirely and try to galvanise their fanbase into buying on stores which don't have ridiculous censorship rules. That would negate this stupid charade entirely. Obviously the conventional wisdom is 'Steam release = more money', but outside the bigger name games I'm not convinced this actually holds true well enough to offset the drawbacks. Besides VNs being niche in the first place, they're usually priced too high for normie impulse purchases, while those who know the games by reputation will often seek them out in their least bastardised form from other stores - assuming those other versions exist. Speaking of which, grab Full Metal Daemon: Muramasa from the JAST store if you want a great, deep story about alt-historical fiction, sword dorkery, buddhist philosophy and magic samurai power armour. Of the few examples of questionable translation choices I've seen in it (there are always some), none related to wokeshit or censorship.
'What we do know already, backed up by much academic research, is that MASS-VACCINATION DURING A PANDEMIC, with a jab that has not been studied for long-term side effects, could be doing more harm than good.'
This was the 'dangerously irresponsible' (- courtesy his own radio colleague) tweet which apparently lit the fuse on the end of his career. It's top to bottom common sense, and in fact it's too gentle with the truth. The jabs are almost certainly doing more harm than good.
Even if we as a collective are retarded enough to ignore, as we apparently are, the impact of a treatment which hides symptoms of a respiratory virus without appreciably lowering infectivity, there is still an absolute truckload of bad news for pro-vaxx cultists to deflect. Most recent would be the Nature Medicine paper which shows that Pfizer and Moderna are now proven to cause much more myocarditis in young men than Covid does: https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1100,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F820d98d2-15d0-41a8-b7ea-7ac2c828e805_2672x1476.png https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.23.21268276v1.full.pdf
That Nawaz and others are being clamped down on this hard should not be a surprise. What surprises me is the lack of pushback and violence, yet. Myself, I'm a NEET with very little to protect, but even so, any finger at my doorbell or hand in my pocket over this better fear being chopped off.
Some bearded pegleg types down at the harbour mentioned 9anime.to, just make sure ye have a decent adblock says I, I mean, they said.
McCullough has been advocating for direct exposure to covid in order to build natural immunity for a long time, perhaps even since the alpha strains. I remember him saying so in interviews with Alison Morrow. I disagreed with it then because despite the fact that natural immunity appears to be the checkmate against covid, those early strains seemed to be legitimately a significant risk to the elderly. Ivermectin seemed a much more preferable countermeasure than direct exposure back then, considering what we've been able to glean about it's efficacy in India and Japan.
Nowadays, I can see the reasoning. Why fuck about with Ivermectin? That's just another selection pressure for covid to grow and evade. Just catch Omicron. You're almost certain not to die, even in comparison to earlier strains which were overwhelmingly non-fatal, even as a fat old geriatric, and by the end you're protected.
IMO Erased isn't something to be scared away from for fear of being put through the emotional wringer. There are some bleak and sad situations, but the main character's assertiveness gives the story a lot of momentum and positivity. But the scenes of childhood innocence may prick a tear duct.
It might be saccharine to the point of toxicity but I love Natsume. Nyanko-sensei is a great creation considering that cat-form is a larp which he becomes accustomed to, just as Natsume is initially a means to an end for him, but over time he comes to care about the noodle armed kid more than the book of friends (or so we can surmise - he never admits it).
I got some mostly stale recs as someone else who doesn't keep up with anime very well. If you used to be into anime you probably know them, but if not then here's some sentimental slice-of-life flavoured offerings:
Uchoten Kazoku/The Eccentric Family - probably my favourite anime. On the surface level it's about 3 different factions in Kyoto based in Japanese folklore: tengu, tanuki and humans. On a deeper level (imo) each of these factions are metaphors for parts of the same human experience, and the whole show is about determining your role in the world, the inevitability of loss and death and the cosmic food chain. At the start it might seem like it's goofy and about nothing, but stick with it and you'll find it to be extremely character driven. The ears look weird at the start but you can probably get over them if I did.
Barakamon - anime about a snobbish city-born creative type (calligrapher) having to move to the country and find out exactly what makes life tick, with the help of cute kids. Unusually for this kind of setup, no surreptitious pedo undertones. Heartwarming.
Natsume Yuujincho/Natsume Book of Friends - a contender with Uchoten Kazoku for my favourite anime, but Natsume is shamelessly the more popcorn one. It's marketed under the 'shoujo' tag because it involves fat kitty and a cute sensitive boy whose main friend circle is boys - as my best guess - but really that yaoi bait is just a small sprinkling to keep the masses watching. It's about a teen who can see spirits and solves ghost problems (a la mushishi), but imo it's got more heart than mushishi which always zones me the fuck out. Extremely relaxing.
Erased/Boku dake ga inai machi('the town lacking only me') - quantum leap/time leap murder mystery setup. Guy becomes himself as a kid all over again to solve something that happened to someone else in his past. It falls into slice of life because it focuses a lot on the small details of what made him appreciate life as a kid. Better than most isekai because the threads of his present day life are not abandoned completely. Considered weak as a 'mystery' because the culprit is guessable very early, but to my mind it's not about that.
Truck sim (preferably Euro, on night time routes in the rain) with christmas web radio is the one for me. Although it makes me sleepy at the best of times so all the moreso when full of Christmas dinner.
Exactly. My standards weren't even very high; I look after elderly family so I'd be prepared to take a risk or 2 with some sub-optimal treatment if I could be convinced it helped to limit the spread.
Skip to now. All the data suggests the vaccines are not just sub-optimal but that they're ABSOLUTE FUCKING TRASH at BEST. Most likely they're actively making the spread worse, before even factoring in any side effects. If I were to get a vaccine now, the only thing I could be guaranteed of would be a lower chance of developing symptoms, ie. a lower chance of noticing I even have covid, should I get it, while still remaining infectious towards my family.
And yet the push to take the vaccines has gotten stronger with every new piece of data that suggests they're useless. The clear signal is that the elites do not care what we think, and that goes double if you're among the ever-shrinking minority who can demonstrate any ability to think at all. Well my response is I don't care what they say. I would rather suck a shotgun than roll up my sleeve at this stage.
Best thing that possibly could have happened. Nature made its own highly infectious vaccine in the form of Omicron, with literally a safer track record and fewer side effects than the clotshots so far. Better still, it's served up to us by the subservient pro-jab dogs who carry Omicron in their systems and spread it around the world, while they enjoy none of the broad spectrum immunity benefits, since their immune systems are already calibrated to the half-baked nanoparticles that their pharma overlords cooked up in a rush. We just wait while these immunisation eunuchs - immeunuchs, if you will - gradually serve us the best available covid countermeasure on a silver platter.
Gracious man that I am, I would be inclined to thank the vaccinated for creating this variant with their leaky jabs. However the vaccines are so shit at counteracting covid that I'm not convinced they provided enough natural selective pressure to foster Omicron at all. Worldwide stats show that every strain of covid remained so infectious among the vaccinated that Omicron didn't need to evolve to escape the control offered by the vaccines, which was worse than nil.
They probably created some of the Delta strains though and they might continue to turn people into covid variant factories, if people are complacent about tolerating any forthcoming shitneedles. I was open-minded about Novavax and Valneva a while back, but no longer. Fuck all these jabs, fuck your mandates, fuck them all for muddling so many human minds and hearts (the latter through myocarditis), I'll settle for an Omicron infection ASAP and a recovery cert soon after.
The cinematography is midwit great, i.e. it fools people into thinking it's deeper than it is. 2049 was the same way. Lots of long, unnecessary slow panning shots over drab, subdued landscape.
I get this with all of Villeneuve's stuff. I remember thinking Sicario was some of the dumbest shit I ever watched, particularly the ending - but I can't remember exactly why because it was simply not very memorable. I rarely abandon movies mid-watch but I did so for both Arrival and BR2049 because they were respectively incredibly boring and incredibly stupid. You wouldn't think so to hear anyone talk about his output, so the only explanation for the mismatch in content vs reception is the fact that it all looks so gorgeous and feels contemplative.
People are very suggestible. When presented with something that is very obviously trying to be calculated and contemplative, they rarely reach the conclusion that says 'wait a minute, there's actually nothing much worth contemplating here.' 'Midwit great' is a good way of putting it.
Shadow Tactics was a really good time, especially if you're in any way familiar with the old Commandos series. Queuing up your actions and firing them all off successfully to spring a big silent trap that takes out multiple guards is very satisfying. Good soundtrack too. I've been wanting to play their newer game, Desperados 3, but it's a bit pricey and I heard not quite as good.
I recently got back into Brigador and I'm clicking with it much better the second time round. Trying to keep my momentum up with Yakuza 5, but feeling a bit of burnout with that series. Also continuing my readthrough of Full Metal Daemon Muramasa, but since I'm doing that in it's original language it's been a project that's taken much of the year. It's great though.
yw man, if you're enjoying the album even a fraction as much as I am then you're out of the claws of this global mess for an evening at least.
I am a hybrid snob and curmudgeon combined, so I haven't had anything good to say about any new music for years, yet I think this shit is great, for example 'Esoterically Excoriating The Exoteric' is just masterful. The tiny clean outro at the end of the album, in 'Every Watchtower...', hits my imagination so hard. Anyway fuck it, enjoy it how you will, I'm just glad something like this manages to exist, all the better if I'm not the only one.
Also as regards the Sabaton vid, I generally hate metal music videos and I haven't enjoyed true/trad/power metal since some older Blind Guardian, but that vid is certainly among the best directed I've seen.
The most interesting thing about the Christmas truce for me besides the comradery (which Sabaton captures well), is how terrified it made the ruling powers. All state powers involved wanted to make sure that such a show of cross-faction sympathy could never occur again and implemented harsher punishments for resisting command. I'm sure such sentiment later influenced Stalin's Order 227, under which the Christmas trucers would have likely been shot as 'cowards'. Essentially our greater enemy always resides above, rather than beside (although ofc there's only so far you can push this; fuck all antifa goons for example).
Definitely doesnt seem like the kind of band that would have that sort of problem. And while its not my style, that is good to hear.
The Absu case is one of the things that finally convinced me there was no escaping this shit. No matter what crack you crawl into, no matter how obscure and hermetic your interests, even if you're innocently enthusiastic about some niche Texan black-thrash band who larp as resurrected Celts - the globohomo gon' gitchu.
With Absu, it was a guitarist they added 10 years ago, just prior to their last album. In metal, a slow album cycle is not unusual as you know; they know the fans are always going to be there, rain, shine or apocalypse, so the bands compose accordingly. Still, this person's contribution amounts to 1 out of 5 total albums for the band. The guitarist in question was no tranny at the time, and actually contributed to a pretty damn solid album, also did well in the live setting, especially considering they trimmed down their live setup from 2 guitarists to 1, the yet-to-be-tranny. Then 2016 hits, guitarist develops TDS over several years, finally outs self as tranny, quits band. Makes blog posts, leaks 'transphobic' messages from the drummer/vocalist/composer who basically owns the band, yet they're extremely innocuous. But among the tranny's rants are implied legal threats about not using his guitar lines or ideas in the upcoming release (which might have been fully recorded by then, it's unclear). It delays the much-anticipated album by years.
Meanwhile I, who deliberately put myself on the fringe of society, am sat there thinking: Can't. Fucking. Escape. This. Shit.
Anyway they finally put out an album employing a guitarist from Possessed and it's some of the most incredible shit I've ever heard. I've been listening to extreme metal for 23 years and I don't say that lightly. It's an enormous relief, for whatever it's worth. Even if they stole some of the tranny's guitar lines (which I doubt), that's funny enough to be satisfying.
I think your outlook is slightly too Americentric, and derives too many of its losses and wins from what happens there. The fact that there's a great mass of unspoken mistrust of MSM narratives and progressive idols was evident in Brexit, Trump's election, Corbyn's historic arsefucking, and various other outcomes around the world. The fact that most people have no time or sympathy for any of this is well known to the informational warfare agitators, who absolutely do not relent. And that's the point, they don't relent, but the normies do eventually.
I'd consider myself on the left, perhaps the Old Left(tm), under the definition that I believe in accountable (heavily underlined) government intercession in society to preserve fair outcomes for those with low resources. If society can't promise that, I don't know if there's much value in the concept of a 'society' in the first place, since it doesn't appear able to offer much to anyone. From this perspective, I've taken delight in every loss that the modern 'left' has taken in recent years. Every victory for anti-authoritarians - claimed as victories for the 'right', though I have no problem who claims the win as long as it happens - has kept extremely worrying global trends at bay.
But to the extent that anti-authoritarians are winning at all any more, it's only by fine margins, in irrelevant situations. Trump SHOULD have had the presidency if not for fraud. Rittenhouse SHOULDN'T have ever gone to trial. America managing to damage limit or claw these things back to a baseline is just flailing to recover sanity after the fact, and even then you end up dependent on eg. 12 people and a judge staying sane. This significant win for your country was a win on the defensive and a loss could have had repercussions for your entire culture. Constant legal tests of your rights will not produce the same sane, baseline outcomes forever.
Meanwhile, globally, the vaccine lies are utterly dominant. Governments are successfully pushing through unprecedented powers using laughable propaganda, economic blackmail and raw force. I am extremely blackpilled. I look at the average human being in the street these days and I don't see the same kind of creature I used to see. The extent to which they've sold out their pride and power of reason in exchange for a future promise of comfort, from the powers who are denying them the comfort in the first place... I've never seen anything like it. We're talking short time frames, so I hope all this doesn't last, but that's starting to seem like a pathetic hope. Due to technology, there's never been an age quite like this.
In Ireland, a few years ago, there were vigorous protests and opposition to the idea of new water tax rates. Now in 2021, a senator can propose no food purchases to the unvaccinated and there's not a peep. I think like you Americans, we'll all have to start taking our wins very small now, or else otherwise really crank the knobs to 11 and see where that goes. I wish I could say I'm ready and prepared for the latter, but I'm willing^2.
I'm open to whitepills, and speaking of small wins I'm currently preserving my sanity with an album release from a veteran band who kicked out a histrionic tranny and managed to put out some kind of masterwork in the messy aftermath.
You're just as much a simp at fault for kicking girl A. Should have told them both to shut the fuck up and behave themselves, then kick them both if they didn't.
Not worth martyring yourself for a harmless hindu festival. More worth it if they wish you a happy ramadan or eid.
All the testimony so far has been from prosecution witnesses and it's been nothing but beneficial for Rittenhouse. They've given him good reason for being there, good accounts of his behaviour, credible proof of threats that would have motivated him, evidence of police accepting his presence and role there among dozens of others doing the same thing as him, and that's on top of all the well known footage which clearly shows him defending himself (again - introduced by the prosecution)... The one thing the prosecution supposedly has is evidence of Rittenhouse chasing Rosenbaum, from a tape that shows nothing of the sort, from an FBI guy in closed testimony who supposedly deleted some other critical evidence.
I'm not even sure what the defence is supposed to be arguing against, since there's been basically no case presented. It's like the US election in how flagrant it is. Are they even trying to conceal the gaslighting? It's barely even gaslighting, it's more like 'you know you have to find this kid guilty; why else would we all be doing this?'
This is all new to me myself but from what I've been able to glean, myocarditis can vary in its severity to quite some degree. If it is mild, you might have good prospects of complete recovery. But if it's occurring to the extent that you need to be hospitalised, that's where you're dealing with a likelihood of heart scarring and permanent damage, and you have to entertain the possibility some of the grimmer prognoses like heart surgery or severely shortened life expectancy.
As Ryan Long of The Boyscast noted in their last podcast, and as I figured out from Chappelle's last batch of specials a year or so back, Chappelle doesn't actually have much of a problem with identity politics. He just has a huge bugbear about trannies usurping what he sees as the rightful place of blacks within that hierarchy.
Still a funny guy, and anyone who's brave enough to speak out is useful, but he's not much more of an ally in this wider fight than JK Rowling, as someone else here also posted.
"Madam, I can assure you I'm no rape apologist. I've never apologised for a single rape."
Not really bad news IMO. We all know what Steam's like with this kind of game so maybe the fewer of these companies relying on Steam, the better. VNs with sexual content often have to make a raft of compromises to even get on Steam and there's no guarantee that devs will always go to the effort of offering a restore patch for them. Fuck letting so-called 'soft' censorship become the standard.
As it stands you can get Muramasa in its intended form on the JAST store, or else censored on GOG with an official uncensor patch if you really must go with a better known site. Excellent, philosophy-heavy story that's definitely not run of the mill (although I haven't finished it yet - was struggling through the original for most of 2021 as a language project, balls deep in true route atm). What little I've seen of the translation is pretty damn solid.