Now just one second. I have it on very good authority that God works in mysterious ways. Your outline above has a clear narrative, and is therefore invalid.
I think TotK put my jaw on the floor more times than BotW overall. And the mechanics are amazingly well thought out. But yeah, BotW has something TotK doesn't. And that's okay.
Breath of the Wild on Switch. It had been a long long time since a game felt that immersive. I'd start a session, say to myself, "I'm gonna head towards this objective," and four hours later I'd be in a completely different direction yet still entirely satisfied. Even the tutorial felt huge and weighty... at least until I was dumped into the wider world with only a suggestion and a general direction in which to go. I loved the hands-off approach. Everything felt organic. I remember being giddy playing Wind Waker at release, excited to get to explore the map once it opened... only to find that the first few far-off places I visited were locked behind items I didn't have yet. With BotW, it felt like that decades-old disappointment was finally righted.
All it takes is watching a few home improvement videos on YT to start the idiot ads rolling: bots reading screen text a la TikTok that boil down to "Doctors HATE this one trick!" nonsense. I'm never sure if the knowledge gained from the video is worth the brain cells lost to the ad.
strict control of access to bathrooms, and in general the prison-like obsession with routines and schedules
I'd argue that this is one of the only real life situations that school prepares people for: you're very likely to be stuck living on someone else's schedule for the vast majority of your life. Your employer decides what time you have to be there and what time you're allowed to leave; when you get a break; when you can use the bathroom; when you're allowed to take a vacation. Sick for more than a day or two? Better burn some cash and get a doctor's note. Need to go to a funeral? Immediate family only, company policy, sorry buddy.
I am in a solidly blue district. 4 out of the 7 school board candidates, ALL of the non-incumbents, were running on some sort of "family values" or "parents' rights" platform. A couple of them were within a few hundred votes of taking a seat last year. This year, their statements to media were highly scrubbed because they knew to tread carefully and avoid the dog whistles. And this week, one of them unseated an incumbent (and the only POC in the group). I'm glad the trend is going in the right direction nationally. But I wouldn't call for a victory lap just yet.
Most Americans have only heard the words used in the contexts that are being bitched about. And that's intentional on behalf of the ruling class. It's a framing of the conversation on a societal scale. More accurate information is out there, but to find it, one would need to either be intellectually curious (a dangerous trait to exhibit in the "wrong" setting) or stumble across it at random AND have the inclination to hear out something that goes against what they've been told their whole lives instead of rejecting it out of hand.
And now we are neck deep in yet another round of anti-intellectualism to further compound the issue. I'm not trying to make excuses, just provide context that tends to get lost amongst the "Americans are stupid" narrative.
the only thing we knew about them was that they were activated by cannabis.
I probably should be sleeping. I know this because as I was reading, my eyes lost focus a bit and I read that as "activated by cannibals." Cue the confusion.
...I have no idea if I'm looking at an actual show clip or a very well made fan thing. All I know is that I need to watch Lower Decks. But it's also something that my SO would appreciate, and it's hard enough to make time to get through TNG (her first Trek). Gah!
I'm with you. I don't like the default Lemmy UI at all, but it's the most feature-complete as far as I can tell. I was a longtime Apollo user, so while Voyager feels similar at first glance it's mostly skin-deep. Kbin really does a great job with the look and feel, but there are a lot of frustrating bugs. I believe the dev has Been Going Through Some Shit (per his posts in kbinMeta) and I do not begrudge him taking care of personal life before a side project that blew up over the summer. So the result is that I mostly browse with kbin and switch to Lemmy if I need to do more than a text reply.
But it's not perfect, so we can't possibly do that.
Signed, people scared of possible improvement threatening their position