So you get home from work late, feeling more than a little fried, and you know that the only thing that will cheer you up is some imaginary gladiator managing. So you get ready to fire up Domina, your favorite gladiator management simulation. But first you take a look at the patch notes for the beta version’s most recent update.
“Huh,” you say to yourself, “they finally fixed that thing where the charioteer stopped whipping his horse in the second race. And they’ve optimized the dust rendering! But wait, what’s this strange anti-mask rant right here in the middle of the patch notes?”
TAKE OFF THE FCKN MASKS – Next time you’re at the grocery store, try showing a woman your face. Be confident, unafraid of the LIES — you might get a girlfriend. Women like confidence. Women don’t like dudes who cover their faces in fear. What are you afraid of? Getting laid? Grow up.
Thankfully, the developer did not continue on to offer his favorite grocery store pickup lines. (After all, nothing will ever beat the classic “excuse me, how can I tell if these melons are fresh?”)
But the mask thing isn’t just strange but it’s also a teensy bit ironic, given that GLADIATORS MORE MASKS. Not all of them, but a lot of them. Theirs were made of metal, not cloth, and designed to keep opponents from stabbing them in the face instead of keeping out the spittle of strangers, but they were still masks.
It turns out that this isn’t the first time this dude decided to treat game players to a rant in the patch notes. In an update from last year (which someone on the internet dug up after people started talking about the latest rant) the distinctly Red Pilled dev railed against “weak men.”
there’s no accounting for weak men. weak men lack character. strong moral fibre is hard to come by. it’s earned through hard work and sacrifice and it cannot be had via onlyfans or pornhub. no, those fuckin’ things are demonic posessions waiting to show you a succubus tiddy in the hopes you’ll waste a load on her instead of spending that energy studying how to weld or grow a potato or learning a new language or how to program a computer.
I’ve got to give him a point for the succubus reference; maybe he’s been reading old Mammoth posts.
listen, kids … get off them porntubes and do something with your life becuase no one is gonna give you a goddamned thing and this whole mess we call civilization is only getting harder. we need solutions and we need smart men who can work hard and implement those solutions. masturbating to egirls isn’t gonna solve the energy crisis is it? get to work.
Then he relented a little.
.. or play video games and have a relax and then get to work, fresh, tomorrow. i can’t possibly know whats best for you in your individual situation.
really… don’t let strangers on the internet tell you how to live your life. if you want to be told how to live your life, read the new testament. the internet will only give you lies.)
These rants were so unexpected and off-putting that an angry internet mob rose up as one to cry foul — mostly by giving the game more than a thousand bad reviews on Steam. (Right wingers don’t really have any grounds to complain about this, though, as it is what they themselves do every time a game or a movie they think is too “woke” comes out.)
If you were hoping that the developer would come forward with an apology, nope! Instead he took to Twitter to continue his little culture war.
I thought the right wing #GamerGate types wanted to keep politics out of games — that’s what they kept telling us, anyway. Could it be that they were lying?
Anyway, here are some more gladiators with masks, just because
Ok, that last one was an American Gladiator. And that’s not really a full mask. But you get the idea.
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@Alan
I’m pretty sure you have to be baptized Catholic to be the Pope. You may also have to be a member of the clergy, but attorneys are historically considered at least clergy-adjacent, so you might be in there.
@ dali
Got that box ticked! (Thank you Irish family.)
Thats it though. The only requirements are “baptised male”.
Leo X didn’t become a priest until after he was elected Pope.
He was the last non priest though. And one can’t help but think having your dad as head of the Medici banking clan might have been a factor.
http://www.gcatholic.org/hierarchy/pope/L10.htm
@Cyborgette
Preach. There’s so much real work to be done fixing the pron industry, but these concerns seem drowned out by ideological crusaders like Professional Liar Gail Dines and her fellow SWERFs and TERFs.*
* I say SWERFs AND TERFs, let’s face it, the Venn diagram of the two is largely a single overlapping circle).
You also have to love the assumption behind these patch notes, that all gamers are men. Not just men, but men who are socially awkward, sexually frustrated, and unhappy with their lives. Customers just LOVE being excluded, lectured to, and given bad advice!
@Nequam and Moon Custafer:
Also (unlike these guys) the soap is useful in myriad ways: shaving, mouthwash, window cleaner, aphid control.
@Buttercup Q. Skullpants
That’s it! That’s the one. From now on the logical fallacy that having sex means your are correct is “Chad hominem”
re: porn … that’s why I’m all about the text. Archiveofourown is amazing, and since the performers are imaginary, that’s pretty darn consensual.
I too would support Pope Alan George-Ringo. If he decides to become the leader of another sect or religion, I can advise as I also got an A in World Religions.
If your manliness is lessened by wearing some cloth (or melt-blown artificial fibers) over your face when you’re indoors with other people, you’re not very manly at all. You seem more like what they used to call “girly-men”. Except little girls and old women (of which I have been both) are able to wear them without trouble, so you’re not girly either.
AFAIK, only very young children, people with dementia (or similar), people with extremely low IQ, some physical conditions, and a few other categories are unable to wear masks for long enough to run through the grocery store. So are you a baby, or someone with a diagnosed mental difference?
(Make up your own snark about that last question.)
I am keeping my ass inside, and also wearing my KN95 everywhere I have to go. The Mr. and I both have pre-existing conditions. I got a breakthrough omicron case about 6 weeks after my booster, and it hit me bad enough that I now have an asthma inhaler for a couple months (probably less — it’s getting better!). The Mr. didn’t get it, thankfully.
If people like this jerk had just worn masks and gotten their shots, we’d be done with this by now, or at least much, much safer. And health care personnel wouldn’t be burned out, and millions of people wouldn’t be dead. It seems to be cutting a swath through the SWM “Christian” righties more than it used to.
@Buttercup: Plus Dr. Bronner’s smells nice, and (make up your own joke here too)
I agree that “Chad hominem” (™B.Q.S.) is what we should call it from now on.
AND he should go weld a potato (™QotH)
We Grew the Potato
If anyone really wants to be the pope there is an easier path: https://principiadiscordia.com/book/43.php
Are we talking about Dr. Bronner’s fine soaps? And his rants?
I’ve been familiar with Dr. Bronner’s products for years. For a long time, I was completely put off by his rants because my father ranted. Sometimes he would commit a line or two of his rants to paper. But then I reconsidered Dr. Bronner’s rants: Unlike my father’s rants, Dr. Bronner’s rants came from a completely positive place. I changed my mind about him and his products.
And then I met my boyfriend, who showers with the soap daily. The smell is really wonderful. When the company switched to organic essential oils, the scent became stronger and more pervasive — in a good way.
@Alan
Hah.
@Buttercup
brb, dying
@kWhazit
Hit the nail right on the head. You win the new member* post of the day!
(*Sorry if you’ve been here before, named looked unfamiliar.)
@Cyborgette
That’s pretty good, but might I also suggest some Irukandji?
I agree. I don’t have an exact idea of what’s wrong with me (doctors are expensive when you have no insurance) but I feel like my immune system is a lot weaker these days. I catch every damn cold and take ages to recover. Plus my usual health problems.
Well… for me, it actually is, that’s why I stay inside most of the time. But on the rare occasions when I venture out, I do wear them, and if I can put up with it, anyone who doesn’t have a more severe medical issue should be able to.
Not directing all this at you either, just saying in general.
@Old School
I actually really like text stuff too… but only the kind written between my open-minded friends and myself. That way it’s custom made to all our likings and we can give feedback/request changes. I never could read a smutty romance novel, and (fan)fiction written by others is usually dubious at best, or makes me want to weep for the English language as well as humanity itself.
@Othello
Yes! Or “welded”.
Right now I’m in the middle of dealing with my father’s estate since he passed less than a month ago. And while his health was declining already, he caught covid despite being vaccinated, and that probably cut months if not years off his life. So these fucking disease worshipping assclowns can fucking go to hell.
Full Metal Ox: I’d forgotten that episode was Sue Montgomery!
It’s sad that she ended up presiding over a toxic workplace, so that’s what I remember her for instead.
re online fanfic, you all probably know this already but the AO3 tagging, tag-wrangling and filtering systems are irl the prize-winning envy of the archiving world. Seriously mind-blowing levels of making HUGE volumes of material readily searchable in customisable user-friendly ways, and all done by volunteers. Tagging etc. doesn’t even have to use the latin alphabet, since other writing systems are supported.
@opposeablethumbs:
You can even read smut (or romance, or gen) *about* video-game characters! Much of it suggesting the existence of gamers who aren’t straight men.
I’m lucky enough to live just up US hwy 15 from the Dr. Bronner’s manufacturing facility.
All One or All None!
Schnookums Von Fancypants – My sincere condolences on the loss of your dad (and dealing with the estate). I lost my dad six years ago and still miss him every day.
@Queen of the Harpies
So much sympathy. And I understand re masks – my apologies, I wasn’t talking about you either! Respiratory, trauma, etc. reasons to avoid masking are absolutely legit. OTOH, the abled folks who keep forgetting that people like us exist…
And FWIW yeah, I realize I’ve been lucky with my own asthma – it’s pretty disabling, but doesn’t care much about masks.
(Speaking of which, did y’all know there’s more than one mechanism behind asthma? Eosinophilic asthma, the kind my docs think I might have, is a completely different thing from allergic asthma. Until earlier this month, the only “other asthma” I’d ever heard of was cardiac asthma.)
@Schnookums: My condolences and sympathy to you as well.
@Cyborgette: Fascinating! I never had asthma before, until I got breakthrough omicron, and now I’m sucking on a prescription inhaler 4 times a day, and I still get winded just walking around. Which makes the mask wearing extra fun. I’m hermiting even further till after I can get another booster.
I’d get a booster once a month if they let me.
> Schnookums Von Fancypants, Naughty Basic Horse
Condolences. Hope you can sort the succession with minimum pain and grieve.
> Cyborgette
Ooh, did not know that. I have only the standard allergic form (and only to a minor degree, got a treatement for about 3 years which makes it not quicking if not heavy pollen wave outside).
Hope they can find a treatement for you too !
@Cyborgette
Am ded, thx. Awaiting respawn…
@opposablethumbs
No, I did not. Hmmm… Maybe if I get bored enough one day…
Are they good at preventing tag abuse and actually keeping out the stuff you don’t want to see?
@Cyborgette
Hadn’t really thought about it, but I might’ve guessed. A friend has had asthma since childhood, but I haven’t seen her use her inhaler in ages. Not sure what kind she’s got.
@GSS
Hope you recover soon. Did the booster make you sick at all? A lot of this seems to be luck of the draw. I probably won’t be able to get mine until summer, but I’m hoping I don’t have any side effects. Got lucky with the first two, just tired for a day and then sore.
@Schnookums
I’m so sorry. Internet hugs, if you’re cool with that.
This is why I’m going to be cautious around people even when I do get boosted. We still don’t know all the side effects or long term effects of this damn virus and all its variants. Even for those who survive, it could greatly affect their health years down the road, which is why I’m so angry at my family members who have caught it (some vax’d, some not) who just shrug it off because they were lucky and only had mild cases. (Especially mad at those who let their very young children catch it.) I’m avoiding this thing like my life depends on it, because it very well could.
@Snookums
My condolences.
@GSS ex-noob
You’re not the first person I’ve encountered who developed new and severe asthma after what looked like a “mild” COVID infection. Or the first I’ve heard of who got a chronic illness from a breakthrough infection when fully vaccinated. This virus is terrible stuff, and even the people least at risk aren’t taking it seriously enough.
Also, that thing where chronic health risks are still being ignored by the media and govt? I’m sure it has something to do with those risks being far, far higher for women and AFAB people. Just as with women being at a higher risk of exposure because more of us are in service jobs, the Powers That Be don’t care.
@occasional reader
Thanks, though it’s not clear yet that I do have eosinophilic asthma vs. just a weird presentation of the normal kind.
(CN: health/medical/disability stuff)
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If it is eosinophilic, right now the main treatment option for that is biologics. But I’m already on a biologic for the rheumatoid arthritis, so my RA meds would have to be shuffled a bit. And I also might have a previously undiagnosed heart problem – not clear yet, all we know is that my current doc noticed a murmur that nobody else had, which combined with the fainting spells has her worried. IDK how that might play with both issues.
Have to say, I heard “everything is downhill after 30” a lot growing up, but I don’t think any of the people who said it meant this. I just turned 33 this winter, and only came out as a woman ~5 years ago. It’s hard not to be bitter.
And yeah, this? This is part of why I’m so paranoid about COVID, and so exhausted by abled cisgender friends acting once again like the pandemic is over. Right now my prognosis might still be “hella disabled but she could make it to 70”, but even with three full doses of Moderna, a COVID infection could so easily turn that into “good luck reaching 40”. Especially having seen one of my close friends almost die of COVID, and then almost die again from chronic illness caused by COVID… No, I’m not chancing jack and shit with this virus. Disabled life sucks enough already.
@QotH, yes I think so – you can search by medium (e.g. literature, theatre, films, TV shows, several other media – see list below ), by fandom, by rating, by author, plus a bunch of other things, and you can also filter to either include or to exclude a selection of categories, ‘warnings’, characters etc. as well as approximately eleventy billion other tags.
I’m not quite sure if I know what you mean about deliberate mis-use of tags because I haven’t encountered it, but I don’t think it’s an issue (I guess I should say I don’t know; I can’t really say anything more than that I’ve never come across it myself).
NB, AO3 do NOT exclude anything from the site as a whole; it’s 100% up to the reader to actively curate what they see e.g. by using the exclude options, so it is well worth having a look at those.
Here’s the top-level list of media, just to give an idea (the site’s so big I’ve never even looked at most of these categories!):
All Fandoms
Anime & Manga
Books & Literature
Cartoons & Comics & Graphic Novels
Celebrities & Real People
Movies
Music & Bands
Other Media
Theater
TV Shows
Video Games
Uncategorized Fandoms
@Schnookums
Dealing with the estate atop of grief is rough, I hope you have help, you do have my sympathy and condolencees.
@ Cyborgette
You have my sympathy too, getting the right medication for a new condition that will work with ones existing medications is a right pain in the arse.
I’ve had 3 doses of Pfizer, and my reaction was much less each time. First time I went to bed for about a day and a half, last time I only had a sore arm for that long. Trying to decide if I should go with Moderna next time, even if it hits me harder.
@Cyborgette: with your autoimmune issues, you obviously were a woman all along. Yay?
I’m seeing my doctor tomorrow IRL (ugh, people have germs there!!! but you have to wear a mask and they take your temp still). Chest X ray was clear, so at least I don’t have permanently dead crispy bits in there.
This is at least my second go-round of something long-lasting after a virus, so I know the drill. It still sucks.
I heard some romping and gamboling coming from next door. The neighbors had some family members over, with little kids. All the adults were wearing masks, even outside.
Time to hit the inhaler again. Those do not taste good.
@GSS ex-noob
LOL, thanks I guess? Not gonna lie, I’ve had that thought myself, but it feels a bit insulting to all the trans men who have autoimmune illnesses. (No offense though, I know you meant well.)
IME autoimmune disease is very common in basically all trans people. Part of that might be spending large amounts of time estrogen-dominant, but I think more of it is just the level of stress and trauma almost all of us carry. Autoimmune anything is heavily connected to stress.
Anyway best of luck with the doctor! And yeah, viruses are like that. I’ve managed to avoid COVID, but I’ve had two cases already of getting chronic stuff after really bad colds (and both of those when I was younger and in better shape). And I once knew a woman who lost her sense of smell for months, if not permanently, after getting the flu. Even really common viruses are so much nastier than people give them credit for.