TommySalami

Beast Wars is my GOAT Transformer series. I figured it was nostalgia, but I rewatched during the pandemic and it honestly held up better than I remember. Even the weird early digital animation is impressive in context. So many interesting characters and motivations, too. And the sweetest extra on top is Megatron’s dialogue. Yeeeeess!

I prefer 2 to 1, primarily because the choices are not as blatantly good/evil and it feels like they have more impact. I also think the character creation and items are more fleshed out. Just a shame it didn’t get the polish it deserved at launch. 1 definitely feels more “Star Wars”-y, though.

Sweetened, doesn’t particularly matter with what. Though I think my favorite has been a honey/citron/ginger tea from Costco. No caffeine, but the flavor was immaculate.

That’s a wild question, cause for me and most of the people I know, a fantasy version of myself with double my income would mean not worrying about groceries, maybe a short trip out of the country once a year, being able to pay off debts, and affording some medical procedures that we’ve been putting off. Maybe saving some money so my kid isn’t homeless in a few decades. Not some life of leisure.

To answer your question, though, it would be categorically worse.

Friendly reminder that you don’t need to buy WotC/Hasbro products to play 5e. The 5e publishing ecosystem is pretty strong and there are lots of options so that you don’t have to get rid of your old books. Level Up Advanced 5e has free PDFs online of their whole books, but the books are fantastic quality. Tales of the Valiant is coming soon, and there is a huge catalog of Kobold Press content before that. And then there are hundreds of smaller presses that also support the ruleset. I haven’t gotten any WotC products in years even before the OGL, mainly because quality seemed to be taking a turn, but there is still great content out there.

From what I’ve read, biological parentage can get preference even if the child had been living in another household. You’d think what you said would be the case, but state legal opinions are not a thing I would be super trusting of if I were in that position given how our rights are in a precarious position, to say the least. IANAL, but everyone should write a will. That’s better than letting lawyers and judges guess at what you want.

Not an expert, but there is a lot less ground to legally challenge the partnership if a couple is married. If a couple isn’t married and one of them suddenly dies without a will or some sort of similar situation, the deceased’s family can fight for everything from how their funeral is executed, custody of children, or even control of finances. Obviously it would involve some sort of legal intervention, but marriage would supercede any familial relationships in most cases. I’m not sure how common it is, but I’ve definitely heard stories about this in gay relationships where estranged family ends up getting legal guardianship of children because the parents weren’t officially married and one died.

I’m married and, though I don’t think I can numerate all the ways, we are definitely more financially stable than we were when we were just dating. Even just the convenience of being able to do certain legal and medical stuff on my partner’s behalf makes a big difference. And that’s isn’t to say it’s for everyone, but it is worth investigating if you have specific concerns.

Safety Dance by Men Without Hats feels a bit like low-hanging fruit, but I think it fits quite well. Whether it is dancing or really any sort of expression, you ought to do it if you desire to regardless of how others may feel. And if your friends constantly constrain themselves based on the judgements (or fear of judgement) of others, that isn’t going make them new friends either. I wish I danced more when I was a kid. But I dance now.

Rock/Ground/Steel gym leader. There are a lot of chonky lizard bois and I am going to love them all, even as a 12 yr old destroys my shit with a monotype starter.

This, the OGL, the Pinkerton incident, the continued decline in quality products. Talk about squandering the opportunity of a lifetime with the renaissance of D&D.

The feeling that things might get better.

On a whim, I decided to start a Total War Empire campaign as Poland-Lithuania. I saw a meme about playing games in your Steam library instead of buying something on sale, and I felt justifiably attacked.

It is a fair criticism. There is a limited number of historical conflicts/periods with multiple factions, large troop structures, etc. Do they continue to refine past entries or explore more into fiction and mythology? Personally, I’d love to see a more finely polished Medieval, but I think it is more likely that they will follow the Warhammer model and do more licensed products.

I mostly vape now, since I have a kid and my partner is also sensitive to smells. However, my favorite is a stone bowl/wood stem pipe she bought me for father’s day two years ago. It gives big wizard vibes and makes me slow down to enjoy the ritual of smoking.

You are absolutely correct. My partner and I got Pixel 6s on a huge discount from Best Buy when it was time to upgrade.

If you haven’t played the Robocop: Rogue City demo yet, you have 10 seconds to comply. Your move, creep.

My first was a Rattata from bootleg pack since Grandma didn’t know better. Favorite was a foil Kabutops in Japanese.

[7] Eh, it’s not inactive. Not as active as reddit, sure. Just kind of a different pace.

A damn shame. KOTOR 1 & 2 are still, IMHO, one of the greatest Star Wars stories/experiences. I’d really love for something to revisit the time period.

Lots of good recommendations already, but my personal favorite is PhilosophyTube, both on YouTube and Nebula. The terribly depressing reality of many topics is couched by elaborate theatrical sets and costumes. At this point, there is a huge back catalog of topics that cover everything from traditional Socratic thought to modern social issues and everything in between.