Oh yeah, that’s way worse! But it doesn’t make me very optimistic about Germany’s future either, even without the Trump tragedy.

Our current government literally just collapsed today so… yeah.

Also social media sequestering people in cozy filter bubbles that distort reality.

Social media, or more precisely, algorithms designed to create ever growing engagement by feeding into confirmation bias and only showing you stuff you like, have destroyed the ability of critical thinking in a majority of people.

This doesn’t only apply to the right spectrum either, as evidenced by all the “hopium” articles here and on r/politics that were trying to construct a blue win or even a blue wave when all polls pointed to a Trump advantage. I had fallen into that trap myself. And everybody was also smugly making fun of the articles in r/conservative predicting the same thing for Trump. Well, turns out they were right.

I agree that he probably won’t last the four years but even if he does he is already too senile to set any policy. He was also already more than happy for others to do the actual work of creating policy because he’s incredibly lazy last time.

So I think Vance (and Musk) will be the real rulers behind King Trump. I don’t think either is really that much interested in religion and racism but both are incredibly sexist and/or transphobic. So sadly a lot of horror and pain will be delivered to women and transgender people. (Which doesn’t mean immigrants are safe.)

Musk will also push for deregulation/privatization of technology so that he can become even richer. This will lead to more monopolization/enshittification and stifle innovation for years, maybe decades. Vance will go along with it due to the Thiel-connection.

Additionally, Putin has made sure that Musk will also champion his interests even if Trump is unable to due to senility. The US will become a de facto ally of Russia and a geopolitical enemy of Europe in a similar vein as China (meaning not openly).

The military-industrial complex will quickly warm to the new reality of an autocracy and the US will start a new war somewhere. Probably in the Middle East. Maybe not within the first four years though. It will be used to distract from a crashing economy and the very real climate catastrophe (mirroring Ruzzia).

I wish all of this were ideas for an alt-history book and not a possible scenario for our future.

As a German aware of my country’s history I can only shake my head in sad recognition and try not to feel utterly hopeless not only about the future of a once-great country but the entire world.

We’re in the endgame now.

I just upgraded Alan Wake 2 to play the expansions, which are AWEsome. I played all expansions for Alan Wake and Control as well and enjoyed them a lot. Remedy is one of the few developers that I would play a game from on day one or even preorder. Bethesda, not so much. I can still remember being unable to play Skyrim for months on PS3.

For what it’s worth, even the bad reviews agree that it’s bug-free and feature-complete at launch. It also seems to be at least competent as an action RPG, although not doing anything new with the genre. Where opinions wildly diverge is whether it’s a good Bioware and more specifically Dragon Age game.

Doom in the comics is more like movie Thanos than comic Thanos. Comic Thanos is legitimately mad and killed half the universe just to impress Mistress Death (she was not impressed).

He’s basically Stark, Strange and Black Panther rolled into one, with the arrogance of Strange and Stark dialed to eleven.

He’s completely capable of doing very evil shit to reach his goals but also has moral principles. He has tried to kill the Fantastic Four countless times and is still the godfather of the daughter of Reed and Sue. Her first word was “Doom”.

Well, he never says he’s evil but is certainly seen as a villian: Dr. Victor van Doom. He’s actually glimpsed all possible timelines of humanity and only the one where he reigns is not ending in destruction. https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-4d9668819558c73a8fda43cd4bc0ef0a-lq He is also loved by the people of the country he does rule. And when he had indeed managed to rule the world, it was a time of peace. I mean, mind control peace (he amplified the power of Kilgrave the Purple Man) but still.

If you’re asking yourself why Kilgrave didn’t simply control him, Doom is one of the few people with so much natural willpower that Kilgrave’s powers don’t work on him: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d5/e8/c8/d5e8c8ee71120993b8616128b08a6a22.jpg

I would say do every actual sidequest but don’t bother clearing the map of all question marks. Hunting for Witcher school gear is also just mostly cosmetic and optional, but they’re the coolest armors and swords.

Also, if you’re not playing on the lowest difficulty, read the infos in your journal regarding the creatures and prepare accordingly.

I don’t doubt that it looks amazing on a good PC, but it’s also one of the best looking games on the PS5 and runs very well.

Yep, they also made me want to rewatch X-Files and Twin Peaks, two obvious inspirations (plus Stephen King particularly The Dark Tower, another kind of house that is the linchpin of universes).

I can also recommend The Lost Room mystery series from 2006. It’s use of magical, but mundane objects and a timeless hotel room also seems to have been a direct inspiration.

I never played Alan Wake through to the end until recently when I got the second one.

Then I played through the first one, followed by Control including the DLCs and then Alan Wake 2. I can’t recommend this enough, it’s an incredible ride.

Sounds like more “toxic positivity”.

Gotta get all that Concord money back somehow!

It’s relentlessly bleak and cruel but fun and entertaining at the same time (at least the first one).

It’s also really not all that hard once you figure out what’s most important to grow the city.

CITIZEN! DO NOT BE ALARMED! YOU WILL FEEL A SMALL TICKLING SENSATION AND THEN DEATH!

From three day special operation to forever war, from world power to laughing stock.

Yeah, Avatar was the same to me. Probably one of the most beautiful environments in an open world game, but every character was a walking cliché and the dialogue cringy and boring. Which is at least on brand for Avatar I guess.

Also, he blatantly corrupt. If you pay him enough money, you can be sure that he will rubberstamp anything you want. He’s probably even relatively cheap if you stroke his ego enough.

I know what you mean, but it’s not an allergy but the lack of a gene to metabolize alcohol properly. So it’s more comparable to lactose intolerance (which over 70 percent of Asians also have).