*Catholiban ;)

hic sunt dracones; here be dragons

leones means lions ;)

tankies are left in exactly the same way North Korea is democratic

it’s almost like we can’t program something we don’t understand in the first place or something…weird how that works! ;)

to save some folks a click:

the phenomenon is called the “halo effect”, and the opposite is also the case and called the “horns effect” (ugly people/things getting more negative judgement based on appearance).

there’s a LOT of research into these effects (for obvious reasons)…

i should have clarified that it’s a popular sentiment in the military of the central european powers, not necessarily in the voting population. at least it was 5-ish years back…can’t imagine it’s changed all that much.

from personal experience there seems to be a serious disconnect between the general consensus of the EU militaries and the population, largely driven by right-wing populist propaganda that usually tends towards nationalistic and isolationist messages.

when i was in service we regularly had joint exercises with pretty much all EU nations. it was entirely ordinary and generally just accepted as a matter of fact. a general sentiment of “We defend Europe together!” among the soldiers, which was excellent to experience first hand!

re: sceptisism; i think it’s mostly a sign of polarization in politics, and the sceptisism is being reported more than the corresponding rise in a shared european identity! both ends of the spectrum seem to be on the rise, thinning out the middle, as more and more people realize, that we live in a time where everyone really DOES have to pick a side.

or to sum the last part up: late stage capitalism is doing what late stage capitalism does! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

“fear” is too strong a word…“uneasiness”, maybe some “anxiety”, but definitely not “fear”.

there’s some uncertainty, but overall consensus seems to trend toward a joint European Army, which has been an ongoing discussion for a long time now.

recent events will likely accelerate this movement, but the momentum has been building since before the Ukraine war.

it just makes strategic sense to unify the armed forces of the EU/EWR/Schengen.

they’ve already been training together for decades, might as well formally unify!

i guess “asshole” fits

i know you probably weren’t looking for a swearword, but…well…if it fits ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

and let’s be real…the people you’re referring to tend to be ignorant by choice, offensive, and generally unpleasant…

not done yet with stormlight 5, but 4 was already…heavy…

the cosmere series as a whole (of which the mistborn saga is a part) reeeeaaaally straddles the line between sci-fi and fantasy;

it’s all a kind of “hard fantasy”, where all of the powers that people use are strictly limited by a certain energy source (don’t want to spoil anything here, even though it’s a kind of unimportant detail overall).

so, in the mistborn saga for example, people swallow certain metals and use those metals to power certain abilities, depending on the metal, which uses up said metal. if it runs out, there’s no way to power those abilities anymore. and it DOES run out, it’s very much finite.

so if you like sci-fi, especially more on the hard sci-fi side, and have been enjoying some fantasy lately, i think it might be right up your alley! ;)

the books are the mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson, and it’s second trilogy; wax and wayne.

the physics bit is central to both, but it’s a bigger focus in the second trilogy.

highly recommend all of them!

and for more wacky ideas…well, the entire rest of the cosmere series! especially tress of the emerald sea, which is largely standalone, but contains quite a bit of in-universe lore…

for its time? sure.

nowadays? not really…

the last major release was 11 years ago.

EA let the franchise rot for more than a decade, what does the release of the first have to do with anything??

yeah, i think it’s cracked the 1000$ mark for all content. barely any discounts, and lots of content that REALLY should be in the base game is gated behind dlc.

and i mean content that was available in previous games, that traditionally would have been in the new base game…

pirating is basically the only realistic way to play all of the content now.

and on top of that the game does have some pretty egregious performance and UX issues…

remind me: when was the last sims game released?

what “own actions” are they responsible for?

getting shot at???

the DLC are pricey, but they’re also proper, old school expansions adding lots of content that actually enhances the game.

it’s perfectly playable without the DLC, and there’s a LOT of DLC-sized mods on the workshop!

kind of a fundamental problem with modern DLC: they generally don’t get cheaper over time (remember when that was an actual thing? not just sales, but actually lower prices for older games?).

if you keep up with the releases it’s super okay at about 20/25€ once a year, maybe twice, bur if you’re late to the party it’s a whole lot of cash all at once!

exactly why paradox introduced a subscription for Stellaris’ DLCs at 10€/month… honestly kinda worth it, if you know you’re just gonna play for a while and then move on…still wish stuff would just get cheaper at some point again…