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comment by user-inactivated
user-inactivated  ·  2033 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Time to be controversial: What's that super popular pop-culture thing that you can't stand?

I feel you on Name of the Wind - I read it after hearing about all the hype. I mean, I like the way some of it is written; I do find the style to my liking. But the story itself annoyed the hell out of me. Kvothe was far too good at everything - so good that it felt like the few things he turned out to fail at, were mentioned purely so Rothfuss could say "see he has limits". Did you manage to stomach the second one? There's a solid unfortunate chunk in there that might have you lobbing the book across the room.

As to Dark Souls... were you playing the 2nd of the whole series, Dark Souls? Cause yeah that wouldn't have been fun. I found 3 far more interesting and engaging, and sort of lived up to the expectation that people had thrown at it. I like them because I don't see them as brutally unfair games, to me they're just uncaring - like I'll get better if I want to get better, it won't help me at all. In 3, I died like a million times to the tutorial boss then went merrily on way close to the end before dying another time - I just took my time and it paid off.

However, I don't like how some of the fanbase get shirty when people don't click with the series. I also didn't like having to pore through random items to learn a bit about the incredibly vague universe I'm in. Or the now popular idea that a video game needs to be punishingly hard to be any fun. Stardew Valley spits in the face of that thought.

Though I absolutely loved how unpredictable the enemies could be. I don't know if you've played or will ever play 3, but there are one or two boss fights that sit at the top of my gaming experience for how smooth, unpredictable and relentless they were.

Currently playing through Dead Cells and I'm getting a similar vibe of "Git gud" from it, like yeah it's tough but you learn and you do better. I haven't gotten past the High Peak place yet, that whole area just drills me each time.

As to your question - I can't stand Instagram. I'm sure it's not controversial here, but it is super popular. I had it for a while, but the feed was just people doing anything they could to get sponsored. "Had such a good day at the gym today, use my code ChunkyMunky123 for 0.25% off this off-brand protein power and laxative!". Getting rid of it started a great social media purge I feel better having done, Facebook is active but not on any of my devices (kept it for Messenger, still a slave in a way), instagram is gone, no twitter either. Seems like a much calmer place in my head now.





johnnyFive  ·  2032 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'm not sure I even finished the first one. My wife and I were listening to the audio book in the car on a trip, but I never made it past wherever the car trip ended. The last thing I remember is him being in a tavern or something, regailing people with how good he is at everything as soon as he picks it up. It's been years, though.

For Dark Souls, I was playing the remastered version of the first one. As I said elsewhere, there's a difference between difficult and unfair, and DS is firmly in the latter category. Dead Cells, meanwhile, is in the former: skill is a huge component of it, but it never feels arbitrary the way DS always did. I haven't seen anything to suggest there's anything there that's worth the frustration, so I'm done with it.

Social media generally was never super my thing. I blogged before it was cool (heh), using an off-brand site run by the same guy who hosted Pokey the Penguin. I started around 2000, and was really active in high school and college, then began falling out of habit sometime towards the end of law school, and it just kind of trickled out. I journal, but that's fully offline now since I couldn't find a platform or mobile app that was both good and sufficiently transparent about how they store what you write.

I started a Facebook account sometime around 2005 when my girlfriend at the time pushed me into it. I was active-ish for years, although never used Messenger (the degree to which it spies on you is ridiculous even by modern standards). But I'd already started to move away from it by the time of the most recent presidential election. But that time really cemented it, and I just stopped using it. After like a year I realized how much better I felt, so disabled my account entirely. I also used MySpace for about 6 months in 2005-2006, again due to social pressure (this time a roommate), but I don't recall ever actually posting anything after I set my account up.

That's the extent of social media for me: I started a LinkedIn account because I thought I had to (but I haven't updated it in 5+ years), but have never had instagram or anything else. It's all rubbish.

user-inactivated  ·  2032 days ago  ·  link  ·  

That small joy in Dead Cells when you get used to that first few levels and you're just rampaging through at high speed. If I start with a Balanced Blade and an Infantry Bow, I know I'll get a good run in.

What is sealing Facebook off for me is my group of friends, and family, are having kids now. My nephew's days are all documented on Facebook and it's just making me really uncomfortable - he's going to be a teenager eventually and he's likely not going to want those photos flying around. I love him to bits and I love my sister, she's a great single mum doing her best but everything being on Facebook just seems off. Once I can convince the people I want to stay in contact with to just text me I'll do away with it.

johnnyFive  ·  2032 days ago  ·  link  ·  

For you second point, this was actually part of the appeal. If someone wouldn't contact me but via Facebook (and vice versa), they're probably not a particularly important part of my life anyway. I'd rather spend the time on the people who are.