isyasad

Yeah but it depends.
An elementary school near me recently replaced their chest-height chain-link fence with a 10ft steel bar fence with spikes on top. There's some benefits to a fence, but the spikes just make it seem menacing. And I guess more abstractly, it communicates that school is a dangerous place that's walled-off from the rest of the world rather than a place that's just like any other part of society. This is in the USA, I should mention, so maybe the cynical message is more accurate.

Blade Runner.

Maybe it was more impressive when it came out, but I watched it for the first time a few months ago and it was shockingly below my expectations for the reputation it has. Confusing plot, forgettable characters, a (very cool! yet) shallow, uninteresting setting.
I had heard that famous "tears in the rain" monologue some time before watching the movie and thought "wow, that was awesome. I can't imagine how much better it is with all the depth and context that the movie will add." Nah, it's from a character who we know basically nothing about and comes out of nowhere with no connection to any part of the story-- if anything, the context of the movie detracts from the cool monologue by turning it into a "what is this guy even talking about" moment.
Thematically it had potential with questioning the line between the humans and human-like robots, but they don't go anywhere interesting with it. When it's a theme that's been explored by everything from Ghost in the Shell to Fallout 4 to Asimov, I'm gonna need at least a molecule of interesting development to happen before my jaw drops.
2/10, not recommended.

I think it's interesting that 4chan has invented "anon" as, functionally, a naturally occurring genderless neopronoun. I would argue even more genderless than xe/xim because while xe/xim was created in relation to gender, anon was created with no connection to gender at all. Xe/xim is "not he or she" whereas anon is he, she, they, xe, or anything else.
There's other words as well (homie, oomfie, bestie) that are functionally genderless neopronouns although these (and anon) are commonly used alongside gendered pronouns eg: anon posted his greentext on 4chan, I visited bestie and her dog.
Now I'm not recommending that anybody starts using anon/bestie pronouns or anything, cause if bestie wants to do that then bestie will have to deal with how awkward it sounds. But, I'm generally more partial towards these absolutely genderless naturally-occurring neopronouns over the relatively genderless constructed xe/xim. And I'm curious if anybody else has thoughts about these.

edit: mods what did you do to my parents 😭

The orca from this story is from one of the same pods that was part of that trend, although she's too young (1998) to have been part of the original trend. But perhaps her mother once wore a salmon hat

Orcas are very intelligent, emotional, and social, arguably moreso than any other non-human animal. For this orca individual, the reality was doubtlessly just as much of a dramatic and emotional journey as it appears in the headline.

All my games with over 100 hours playtime. Outside of those, probably Minecraft which must be over 2000 and some console games, maybe a couple Zelda games and Persona 3 FES at 100-200

edit: if you're looking for recommendations, I definitely say Spelunky 2. Try to go for all the achievements and it's a super difficult grind. Probably the hardest game I've played but very rewarding

I played RoR1 first, years before 2 was even announced. I still like RoR2. It's been better and worse with different updates, it's definitely a lot worse with the DLC and much better with certain mods. Both games are kinda broken and unpolished under the surface, they're really not so different

Are they called shelled peanuts because they have their shells? or are they called shelled peanuts because they've been shelled, unshelling them? It's literally ironic...

Yeah I don't expect so many people to have the same opinion but for me I didn't really like anything in 2023. My personal "golden age" is 2006-2011 and I can pull up any year at random (say, 2010) and find a bunch of personal favorites (second season of K-On!, best season of Hidamari Sketch, The Tatami Galaxy, my beloved B-Gata H-Kei) and other stuff I think I might enjoy (Katanagatari, PSG, Kuragehime, etc.)
Whereas the only things I liked in 2023 were the Hibike! Euphonium movie and (to a much milder degree) Frieren.

Probably not a widespread belief, but yeah 2023 is the worst year for anime imo

I think of 2023 as the worst year for anime. Not a single good show out of what I watched and the ones that I heard were good I'm just not interested in (Jujutsu Kaisen, Zom 100, Bleach, etc).
Compare 2023 to any single season from 2006-2011. So many classics compared to... Frieren? and that's about it.

Not that I'm upset about it, there's enough gems anywhere from late 70s though ~2017 to keep me occupied indefinitely

No loot, just 3 exp

Dark Souls and Return of the Obra Dinn have already been mentioned, but I'll also recommend Universal Paperclips. These also happen to be my favorite 3 games.