Inui

Yeah, there's a lot of important issues being talked about and I really like how every season focuses on a different part of the city and how things are changing for different groups of people. I think I worded the other post too harshly because it's a good show and not everything needs a quirked up white boy to provide comedic relief. But it definitely fits into the "no good protagonist" slot. The first few episodes of Season 1 are just a bunch of cops beating up black people and I was like "these are supposed to be the protagonists?" I was carried through by the few sympathetic characters and alternating viewpoints. Even in Season 2, there's people (the Sobotka relatives) who I think are supposed to be sympathetic but who I don't really care about.

I'm feeling this with The Wire right now partway through Season 3. I watched and loved a lot of prestige shows like Breaking Bad and The Sopranos. The former you see Walt's true personality come unleashed and can at least see the progression of how he became an asshole, and the latter almost everyone is horrible but they're interesting and funny caricatures.

In The Wire, pretty much everyone is a piece of shit, but they aren't goofy Paulie Walnuts type characters either. The cops abuse everyone, the politicians are corrupt, and most of Stringer Bell's crew are just exploiting people younger than them in their drug empire to enrich themselves without doing anything to alleviate their poverty.

The only sympathetic characters so far have died relatively quickly. Which I guess if you look at it as more a reflection of reality, it all makes sense, but there's nobody to root for and very little humor in any of it. I don't hate it, but there's a pretty big contrast in presentation.

Edit: I caught some episodes of Entourage and that one is pretty bad too. Everyone in that show sucks.

After both being vegan for 5 years, my partner has gone back to calling themselves vegetarian and consuming dairy. Everything we eat shared is vegan, but too many inconsistencies piled up elsewhere and they never really adopted a fully animal-centric view. They buy leather, wool, etc but only second hand unless its a gift for someone else. In their mind the other person isn't vegan, so theres a distinction if its not for their personal consumption. They're against mammal breeding, but have a leopard gecko bought from a breeder, when the rest of our animal companions are rescues because they study reptiles and amphibians academically and breeders are some of the only reliable places to get them from. Stuff like that.

I'm not posting to trash on them, they're still my partner and have been for almost 20 years. But its personally disappointing as I've felt more and more disconnected from everyone in my life due to ethical and ideogical reasons.

I think I have a harder time dealing with it because I'm nuerodiverse and my condition commonly correlates with "a strong sense of justice" or in other words an unwavering conviction once I've decided something is 'right' (which can become perverted justice just as easily). I'm glad we dont plan to have children, because like others in this thread mentioned, it'd be much more difficult to navigate. But I'm definitely interested in hearing how others deal with this disconnect while not just sabotaging all their relationships.

As for the weekly question, I 'feel better'. Not physically, but emotionally and mentally, at least in regards to my personal actions. Spiritually as well, as I am a Buddhist and non-harm to other beings, but even specifically animals, is held as a moral ideal. I feel I am following in the footsteps of previous exemplary teachers from hundreds of years in the past, who advocated for veganism in even less practical circumstances than I am in.

I feel I can look at and interact with animals with a clean conscience and that my actions do have an effect on other, even if its not as strong as I'd like. One friend became vegan just by my jokingly suggesting a vegan pact for a weeklong trip we had after having discussions about moral ethics. Positive actions lead to positive self-perception that leads to more general happiness and fulfillment. On the flipside, more despair at not being able to stop animals from being killed and realizing how little other people care every time we talk.

BlueSky got like 100K new signups in a day when Twitter announced it would let all posts be used to train the Grok AI. Artists are starting to migrate specifically, but even a lot of my friends finally shut down their Twitter accounts. There's extensions that help you find your Followed people on Twitter under their BlueSky handles. It sucks because it's still a big corporate platform, but it's at the very least better than Twitter.

I never played the Pathfinder games but a ton of CRPGs don't let you do that still. I don't even like D&D, I think the rules system sucks because it encourages specialization/roleplaying at the expense of fun.

A little tangential to your point because it doesn't justify Israel's actions or anything, but there's a really good book I just wanted to share called Eternal Treblinka that explores the views of holocaust survivors in relation to animals, among other things. I imagine the person you talked with read this, but had some twisted takeaways.

“In relation to them, all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka.”

I think he was napping at the time, but she was a longtime smoker who insisted on Asmongold getting her cigarettes, even though she was on oxygen. That combination led to an accident that sent her to the hospital and she died later. I don't like the guy at all, but I feel bad for him in that specific circumstance, because you're stuck either being an enabler or exerting your will over someone you're supposed to be supporting who is otherwise still capable of independent decisions.

Yea, I queued up one of the Xinjiang episodes the other day too. Pretty much any of them are good though and makes me really want to travel there again.

I haven't really thought about it since I made my account, but I use different pronouns irl that fit my assigned gender. I set my pronouns, name, and other information differently all over the internet to try and mix things up for privacy reasons and wanted to stay ambiguous. I try not to participate in the trans mega or threads where I think I'd be perceived as faking an identity that isn't mine though. So if folks think [any] or [none] makes more sense in the context of this site, I'd change to that instead.

What about the "celery tastes like (bad) sour water" gene? I always thought they were closely related.

Roleplaying a hyper religious zealot makes a little more sense at least in universes where gods frequently interact with mortals and grant them magic powers. Maybe you can get your powers from the God of Socialism. If you stray from the path, you get the Revisionist trait and your God calls you a until you finish your redemption quest in front of the rest of your order.

Or something. I'm just shitposting. Paladins are fun to play cuz they're like less boring fighters that also cast spells.

I thought most people were reasonable about their concerns and didn't seem to blame the people moving in as much. It is a little weird to be wealthy (as opposed to seeking asylum) and move somewhere and not even speak a little of the language like that one family. The guy at the end was saying that it's not the fault of the people moving in, but the local government colluding with the property owners to extract as much money as possible without doing anything to address the problems it was creating for locals.