A four panel comic: Panel 1: A wizard looking at a frog with a human hand in his back saying "We shall see what the anti-grafting peasants think of this!" Panel 2: The frog says "Aren't you the wizard that cooled his orb in a moonwell?" Panel 3: The wizard, rubbing his eyes in frustration, makes the frog vanish Panel 4: The wizard in a chair, poking an orb with the text "BARRICADED" over and over again.

Here's my original character Waffles the Wizard.

He was hired by the king to maintain the ley lines that used to work great.

A lot of people just think they can't be harmed. And that the market will absorb it. And that their investments will be fine as long as they wait for recovery because there's never been an eight-year period of loss since its origination.

And then there's the grifters who don't care about tomorrow

HR is usually the group who handle hiring/firing, and does so in such a way that they're not actually responsible for anything.

HR is "just following orders" in many companies.

My mom was lucky enough to run HR as one might expect, looking out for individual employees, getting them on public asst.

It's pretty rare for me. 'Mohawk and Headphone Jack' was probably the worst I've come across and triggered migraines, but most would admit that's a pretty extreme case.

But the couple seconds in the clip made my eyes hurt, so I wanted to check in on that before I gave it a whirl.

I hadn't checked it yet and assumed, and I'm happy to be wrong!

Kick ass, yo

The drastically shifting background bit is violent on my eyes; could there potentially be an accessibility option for that?

Everything else looks amazing, yo

The point of democracy is to prevent the consolidation of power. The power of the people, and thus of the government, is the power *over corporations, land lords, and anyone else*.

The US owns Amazon, and allows bezos to run it by grace.

People need to remember their power.

It's the massive fucking entitlement that is the throughline I've seen. And a hatred of community as a concept.

I think that's reductive, at best. I don't think this plays well in Texas because of how it's operating; I think it's showing his ass and looking hypocritical.

His energy policy is really weak...

But that's pulling a bit from the topic.

Sapping fuel taxes isn't going to help people.

He's endorsed by the DNC and running on the dem ticket. I expect better.

I've put better ideas to the DNC and his campaign.

But both of these are deflecting from the argument.

This policy doesn't achieve his stated goals and shows compromise on stated values.

Very, very bad look.

Price controls on fuel as part of subsidization could be a thing.

But: State production ag incentives, waste laws, public food allotment, universal SNAP (early UBI)/removal of means testing, expanded hardship benefits, expanded childcare support (re: "families" often euphamistically implying kids)

Wouldn't anyone on his team not want this, in the ideal? Not only is it a pittance, but pro-tax-cut doesn't win with Dems?

So then Republicans? I can't imagine many crossing the aisle over something this minor/pandering.

Indies/lowinfos? Don't think the impact or intent would reach...

I... Just don't get the goal here? Like, who is this meant to appeal to?

Like, there are much better actions to get at the goals he's wanting, is my point, not any specific proposition here. This is horrible optics on both ends, funding and benefit.

So... Why not make food cheaper? That could even be tax policy. Same level of legislative power.

Or push for more worker protections so fewer people have to drive? That's state level stuff.

You get that you're suggesting that he, in our government, doesn't value energy adaptation?

If they’re going to make Mako reactors then we have no choice but to form Avalanche

Always annoying that their sheer hubris gets them a massive paycheck, when I'm pretty sure a reasonable society would refuse to sell him food.

He's a piece of work and a massive moron. A notable example was bragging about smarts in cooling down his phone by throwing it in a pool, with the reasoning that that's what he does to cool down.

I really wish I was joking.

Right up there with the ex-CEO bragging about reading books non-linearly.

AI vibe-coder dev with thin skin after being thoroughly roasted for his AI-evangelism prior to a vibe-coding induced outage joined a particularly aggressive anti-AI blocklist, blocking a ton of active users.

Like, I'm reasonably sure that a decent dev could put period-style Batman in Assassin's Creed as a kind of timer/anti-assassin/etc., and it could *work*. Like, you'd laugh the first time you saw him, but then, you'd probably also laugh at Batman showing up in most places.

Also in-world justification for him being there (in both games, too! FFT's appearance is during Cloud's coma/lifestream visit), but I think that's a function of the sincerity and them being decent devs.

So sincerity yields effort, and ultimately good design vs. bad design doesn't care about origin

But I'd often wondered why Cloud worked in FFT and Balthier didn't™, until it came down to cynicism. Balthier is from the same series, and doesn't fit (ignoring he's OP), but Cloud was included because the design is cool and he's mechanically taking the piss out of FF7's super long animations.

Genre matters for a bunch of reasons, including story/mechanic mesh (which is why fighters/racers work so well? Also the relevant Musou titles)

Which makes me want more games that actually have decent crossovers that make sense. Like, I wish that Balthier, Cloud, and Luso (FFT) had more commentary.

For which I'm glad for your "cynicism" thing, because that's the whole of it. People who love these characters showing how they'd react in psychotic circumstances together? Wired. People throwing everyone in so they can wave at the camera? Tired.

I was thinking on exactly this regarding bad/huge crossovers that try to weave lots of things together. Like FFRK or Atelier Resleriana. Especially the latter as its own game. Just flat...

And comparing it to SSBB's SSE or Dissidia where it does something new and weirdly world-building with it.

Yeah, this is where my mind jumped.

SC2 Link is a whole new, properly integrated entity. I wouldn't have thought he would fit, but damned if I wasn't fucking wrong about it.

My brain immediately trying to figure out what height cap(s) would be the most interesting.

20' cap, with 5x4 (or 4x5) vs. 7x2+6? How much impact would fewer players make if you had a pure height advantage? Would every game just devolve to 3-on-3?

[his birthday|their anniversary], if ambiguous/more phrases.

Reading/speaking it would still be as you wrote it; his birthday stroke their anniversary.

🌀
👹(laudatory)

"Professionalism" and cynicism killed everything fun in the US; everyone's terrified of anyone else discovering you actually enjoy anything, or are in any way unique. Company no likey.

Everything in Japan has a mascot. Town mascots are amazing. Kawaii must be protected as a bastion of whimsy.