The end of the beginning of the beginning of the end of history.

I can’t sit my pets down and explain to them what chemo is or that they’re going to have an invasive surgery and may get better afterwards. All they know is that they love me, but they’re in pain. You may question it for a long time afterwards, but if they’re miserable and don’t understand why then keeping them around is more for your benefit than theirs.

I’ve spent way too much money getting care for a sick, young cat because I knew the pain would be temporary and they could get back to their bonded half and recover quickly and I’ve had to put down a dog that could have lived a few more years because their dementia had become so bad they were confused and lost constantly, even when in the same room as I was.

Compassion and love are always important, but you can’t explain to them why they’re in pain, only save them from needless suffering.

You lazy commie millennials wouldn’t understand the work ethic of a hot, red-blooded boomer trying to avoid spending any time with his abused and emotionally destroyed Karen of a wife whose only joy is now tormenting minimum wage workers and his kids who don’t talk to him anymore because he’s a brave patriot who speaks his mind and doesn’t give into the woke left.

I’m sure the DPRK knew. At the end of the article they present the fact that the talks between the DPRK and USA less than a month later fell apart quickly and the DPRK quickly resumed missile testing as some tangentially related fact. I’m sure they had a strong suspicion that it was the US and Trump probably said some dumb shit that confirmed it during the talks they had scheduled so the DPRK dropped it all.

Besides who else but the roided up drug crazed US special forces would shoot civilians then stab them repeatedly to “let the air out of their lungs so they’d sink”?

Industrial quantities of amphetamines.

The aborted SEAL mission prompted a series of military reviews during Mr. Trump’s first term. They found that the killing of civilians was justified under the rules of engagement, and that the mission was undone by a collision of unfortunate occurrences that could not have been foreseen or avoided. The findings were classified.

Fucking ghouls.

The Expanse is a wonderful show. It’s a slow burn with how they rearranged some things, but seasons 3 & 5 in particular are some of the best stuff I’ve ever seen. They take the great premise but questionable execution of the books and turn it into something truly amazing. It also has a hard sci-fi foundation that is quite rare and follows it pretty faithfully.

Battlestar Galactica is another I'll always recommend. It has plenty of issues, but despite those flaws it manages to achieve incredible heights. You can still see its influence on sci-fi today. People love or hate the ending and last season and what they did with some characters and blah, blah, blah. There is a reason people still argue about this show nearly 20 years later. It’s worth arguing about.

Event Horizon. The trailers made it seem like just another 90s sci-fi horror flick trying to ride the Alien high, but it ended up being such a good movie with a tight script, beautiful set design, actually smart characters, and great acting.

They doing beanie babies yet? I have a vintage Beanis the Hog that I’m hoping will pay off the mortgage on my retirement cardboard box.

I kinda like it. Stalin looks kinda sad and disappointed, as if he’s looking into post-war Europe and seeing that all hope of revolution is being extinguished.

It’s probably the exact face he would make if he got to listen in on the French Communist Party meetings at the time.

There have been some newer CRPGs that do this. Pillars of Eternity 1 & 2 and Torment: Tides of Numenera were part of a revival of the genre that used pre-rendered backgrounds to great effect. There is also a mod for Pillars of Eternity 1 that enhances the pre-rendered backgrounds too as the originals are starting to show their age a bit because of the compression they used.

Disco Elysium also takes a lot of inspiration from the genre, including the gorgeous pre-rendered backgrounds.

I can’t recommend all 4 games highly enough. Disco Elysium may be the clear winner, but Pillars of Eternity 1 & 2 and Torment: Tides of Numenera are very good games too. Pillars in particular has some very wonderful characters in both games that have since gone on to live rent free in my head alongside greats like Garrus and Kreia. Which if you’re familiar with Obsidian and Chris Avellone’s work he wrote two characters in Pillars 1 specifically, Durance and Grieving Mother that are absolutely amazing and deeply compelling characters.

Bit of a rant, but I love these games and would highly recommend them to anyone who likes narrative heavy RPGs. Although Pillars 1 & 2 have some really crunchy combat they also have story modes that make it easy if you’re more into the narrative than combat.

Just pump out children and send them into the fields. You can send them to school if they manage to survive past 16!