southsamurai

southsamurai , 11 hours ago

You know, I ain't mad at this.

Yeah, it's totally unnecessary. Yeah, it's kinda dumb.

But if it makes someone happy, it's all good. Nothing wrong with colorful food until the colorant changes taste. Even then, that's on the person making and eating it.

southsamurai , 1 day ago

Man, I've been disabled since 2005, so I feel the pain of having to find purpose and satisfaction without a job. I miss working, though I would have preferred to be able to work less and still make a living lol.

I find that diversifying my interests helps. I have a lot of down time where being productive isn't possible (you know, chores and such), so I've had to find multiple things to do while recovering from activity. But you can only play so many games, read so many books, do so many crosswords, etc.

Meditation is a big plus. Learning how to be in stillness is a powerful tool.

Picking up skills is a huge benefit. Doesn't have to be anything big. Just watching some videos and reading up on something like sketching can fill weeks of down time, and then you either learn a new skill that's useful, or improve an old skill (I used to be pretty decent, but years of working and not drawing had atrophied my sketch skill). Could be anything like that with a low investment in supplies.

If you are capable of it, pick up some coding. Doesn't have to be enough to do anything, but you'll have a better understanding of things.

Keep your brain active is what I'm getting at. There's zero pressure to be good at anything you try, it's all about the process, the exercise of your mind to keep the boredom and ennui at bay.

southsamurai , 1 day ago

Looks great, but how about some love for that corn over there looking all sexy and whispering sweet things until you eat it?

southsamurai , 2 days ago

Do you have access to any healthcare services?

A good CNA can help you figure out how to manage hygiene as long as you have some degree of upper body mobility. I mean, obviously, an occupational therapist or physical therapist is going to be better, and be able to offer a wider range of options, but without a way to pay for those, it can be out of reach for self pay. But an hour or two of CNA time is usually within budgetary reach. Other pros can help too, but again, they'd be more expensive.

You can sometimes find a local disability support group, and the difficulty with tasks like bathing, brushing teeth, etc is a pretty common topic. You don't automatically get trained advice, but you do get practical tips from people that may well be better.

southsamurai , 2 days ago

This is both creepy and profound.

southsamurai , 2 days ago

Funny, they don't look like New Yorkers

southsamurai , 1 day ago

Ah, there we go!

southsamurai , 2 days ago

Dude, never complain about votes.

I agree with you, at least in principle, but once you start making edits because of votes, you lose ground. Restate, explain, whatever, but just don't bring votes into it. All that does is create an adversarial situation that may well not happen otherwise.

You take the downs votes and the up votes as they come, and deal with them without referencing them. You'll have a much better experience if you stick to that, I promise.

southsamurai , 2 days ago (edited 2 days ago)

Heck yeah. Mind you, I respect other people's contact preferences and don't push a hug on anyone. Made that mistake some in my younger days, but realized it was shitty behavior eventually.

But I hug the hell out of anyone I care about enough to call friend or family. I'm a hugger, that's just how I am.

I got lucky tbh. My dad wasn't particularly huggy, but he always welcomed us kids when we hugged him. And I had one uncle that was never a hugger, and would avoid them when he could. But otherwise, the men in my life growing up were comfortable with demonstrative affection. Hugs, putting an arm around you, pats on the back, gentle pats on the head, just those little touches that say "I love you" in a way that doesn't need words because they're done without thinking, they just reach out and that connection happens.

Oh! And kisses on the top of the head. Big thing on my mom's side for the men to kiss kids on the top of the head.

My dad was more of the sort to put an arm around you when you sat beside him, but he knew the power of a hug when someone is upset and never hesitated to do so, despite not really liking hugs much. And he was definitely a patter lol. Pats on the head, on the back, just affection by touch.

So, by the time I was a teenager, I was without much of a barrier to hugs. Never got indoctrinated with the stiffness and emotional distance that comes with that barrier. My friend group in high school, we hugged every damn day, usually multiple times a day. We'd meet in the library of a morning and as each of us rolles in, a round of hugs would happen. We'd freely express love for each other verbally too. And not even in the forced jocular "love ya bro" way that started being more acceptable back then. But full on "I love you, I'll see you tomorrow" type goodbyes.

Shit, some of us would hug our teachers, when they'd let us. Obviously, most of them would not allow it, but there were a couple that didn't mind. Gods! The principal! Old guy, retired at the end of my senior year. Handing out diplomas at graduation, and shaking hands. Every one of our group just took the diploma and hugged the guy. He was shocked by it, but he knew how we were, and ended up just smiling for the rest of the ceremony. After the first few of us did it, other students not in our group did it too. He was a superb principal, and was sorely missed.

Imo, there is nothing that builds and maintains healthy relationships like regular hugging.

This is already long, but you mentioned other forms of contact. Snuggling depends on the person, but I gladly snuggle with friends if they're down for it. Can't play wrestle what with my age and bad back, but used to.

And I'm down with cheek kisses with friends too. Hell, I don't even object to non sexual lip kisses in theory, though it isn't a thing that happens very often. Only times it ever happened with male friends was in moments of distraction when saying goodbyes in a group that included spouses lol.

southsamurai , 2 days ago

There's a handful, yeah. Some folks are prolific posters. Others just have altered text I'm their name, which makes it stand out enough to recall easily.

But generally, it takes extended interactions to remember a user name for long.

southsamurai , 2 days ago

Shhh, I snuck out while anyone was high

southsamurai , 2 days ago

Thank you :)

southsamurai , 2 days ago

No kidding? That's kinda cool since I recognize your name too. Had a great conversation.

southsamurai , 1 day ago

Me too, tbh. Just remember it being interesting and friendly

southsamurai , 2 days ago

Well, they replace nicotine intake.

You get a measured, stable dose over time. In theory, once you get used to that, you step down the dosage until it's low enough that you can quit without the worst withdrawal experiences.

Now, you have to be ready to quit, you have to be willing to get past the habitual and psychological side of smoking, and you have to accept that there will be some withdrawal symptoms along the way. But they can and do work.

Me? When I quit with patches the first time I quit for an extended time, they worked fine. I was younger, hadn't been smoking super long, and had things to keep me busy in a way I didn't when I quit this most recent time. In between starting to smoke again and quitting this time, I tried patches multiple times without success because of the psychological, social, and habitual influences.

You get out of patches what you bring to the situation.

They can also be very useful for someone that is medically barred from smoking, but not from nicotine itself, or for short term use in most situations.

Side note: I still miss some parts of smoking. But I don't miss addiction, or the physical effects of smoking and the effects of nicotine.

If you aren't ready to quit smoking, patches are damn near as expensive, depending on where you live. Some places they're more expensive than cheap tobacco and rolling your own. So you're throwing money away for next to no real gain. You're better off setting the money aside for when you're ready to quit.

southsamurai , 2 days ago

My first threeway.

Holy shit, never, ever try and play with a bi/lesbian couple if you're a straight guy lol.

This was ages ago. Back in the eighties still, if only barely.

I met a girl. We became friends. She got flirty, and I returned it. Now, she was honest pretty early on, once we both realized there was some sexual energy there. She told me she was with someone, and that the someone was also a girl.

I figured that was it. End of story, right?

Nope, the girl is bi, though her partner wasn't exactly into non monogamy. But we were first, and was cool with it not going anywhere.

So, we hang out. Turns out her partner is pretty damn cool. Butch as hell, but not prone to the machismo you sometimes run into. Which, the partner ended up being trans, but back then that wasn't a thing in anyone's awareness. At the time, she was a butch lesbian.

Anyway, ignoring that, we all get along well, so I become their beard. When they needed a guy to "date" to keep their family off their backs, or whatever, I would step in. Went to prom with the partner even.

Turns out, we all got along well enough that the partner was willing to open things up and see if a guy in the bedroom could satisfy the bi girl, without bothering the partner. And, I was the one they both trusted. So, it happened.

I guess the easiest way to cover it is to say that there's only so many things you can do when one person out of the three simply can not handle contact with a penis, and is also not willing to have anyone go down on them. It meant there was always someone left out. I mean, we tried. But it amounted to taking turns, and the partner couldn't really handle watching.

We ended up trying what I've seen called a Roman chair, and that kinda worked okay, but it was so damn awkward with me and the partner kind of looking at each other as the bi girl was between us. Like, if we'd been able to touch each other, maybe the awkward would have been gone, but we tried kissing and it was a hard no for the partner, and not fun for me. Any kind of gentle shoulder touching was out too.

We could hug each other with clothes on, even give pecks on the cheek when we'd say goodbye after hanging out, but with the clothes off, neither of us was down for much in the way of contact. I would have been fine with casual touch, maybe some hugging, or even a high five lol. But I didn't want to grope him (fuck it, the dude transitioned, and trying to not call him him is annoying, even though this was ages ago), no matter how nice his tits and ass were. It just felt wrong to grope my buddy. And I had zero interest in his vag, which was still more interest than he had in it.

So me and him were just each in a hole (him via strap on) kind of wanting the whole thing to be over lol. The girl had some fun, but after I had to admit there was no way in hell I could come, she started feeling awkward too lol. Like, there I am in her ass, doing my best to stay hard so she can have this experience, and her partner is just going through the motions for the same reason, and once she realized that, she felt weird as hell.

Tbh, I've never liked threesomes. We tried a couple of other times, and it was better than that one, if only by virtue of knowing what was absolutely not worth trying. But even with other people over the years, they all end up disappointing unless it's two people taking care of one, without trying to mix things up.

But holy shit, that first one was just horrible lol. I've seen guys talk about the fantasy of being with that kind of couple, and I can't help but laugh. The chances of a lesbian being all chill with a guy in the situation are pretty damn low. And there's no such thing as good sex when one out of three people would rather it not be happening the way it is.

Which, gods damn, my buddy there tried so hard to do what he thought was right by his girlfriend. Later on, he tried to be open for some contact with me, even tried going down on me. Neither of us could handle that lol. I couldn't stay hard, and he couldn't do more than take in just the tip for a second. It was kinda hilarious after the fact. We still joke about it.

He couldn't handle either of us going down on him. We didn't have a word for it then, but the dysphoria was just too powerful. It wasn't about me being a guy, it was him being so out of connection with his genitals because they were the wrong genitals that any contact was just pure distress. Even hands were too much.

We only tried a few times as a threesome before calling it a failed experiment. Then a couple of times with just me and the girl, with him having done some preliminaries and then just watching. That was almost as awkward for me because it felt like him being left out was wrong, and it didn't work well for either of them.

But none of the other fails were as bad as the first lol. I'd call it a clusterfuck if any of the fucking had been worthy of the word.

southsamurai , 3 days ago

Never, ever fuck with Dolly. Doesn't matter why you go after her, there are millions of people that will instantly hate you. With that many people around the world, there's going th be some crazy ones that will ruin your life if they can.

southsamurai , 3 days ago

Nah, that's part of the point of granular control. Sometimes you want/need a decrease in a given band without an increase in the rest.

Perfect example is the Metallica album St Anger. If you fiddle with the eq in a good player that allows for per-album or per-sing settings, you can dial back the over mixed high hat and partially dampen the tin can snare. You end up with a better sound (particularly in headphones) that doesn't fatigue the ear as much.

If you took those attenuated bands and upped the others, you'd just have muddy mids and you'd lose the clarity of James' low end.

That album is so over drummed that it's hard to listen to without eq tweaks. With them, it's a much better experience.

southsamurai , 3 days ago

That would be an incredible piece of ink for real

southsamurai , 3 days ago

Consolidating communities defeats part of the purpose of federation and decentralization.

southsamurai , 3 days ago

Encourage cross posting. The function is viable, and when it's used, it not only improves each community individually, it keeps awareness of other options.

The only thing "killing activity" is people nodding being unaware of cross posting existing and/or using it.

southsamurai , 3 days ago

For easy grouping, until lemmy itself has a "multi" function, apps fill the gap okay. Not great, but it does work if one uses apps at all.

southsamurai , 3 days ago

Comments don't need aggregation.

Look, we obviously have a difference in philosophy of the fediverse here.

So, let me back up a second and explain that.

The fediverse should be about communities being disparate. No single instance, no single mod or admin owning an idea, or the consequent community that forms around an idea. Part of why reddit became so horrible was the inability to have a viable alternative community around a subject when one went off the rails because someone had total control over a word, like "parenting", or "knives" or "gaming".

The more you consolidate communities, the more you give fewer entities control of a idea/concept/subject.

Comment aggregation is nice, if all you want is a single feed to scroll through, but the price of it is too high.

southsamurai , 3 days ago

Ummmm, welllll, I don't actually post much to any other metal communities because they tend to have different rules for posting, and different people. This is one of those things where I'm a bad example of the "advice" I'm giving. I'm not a big poster anywhere. Wasn't on reddit either tbh. I genuinely wish I could find the same "vibe" as the .world metal C/ that was also friendly to direct YouTube links. There's a couple of good metal communities on lemmy, but they tend to dislike the YouTube links, or you catch hell for it from other users lol. It's one of those where I'm not following my own beliefs because it screws up other people's flow.

I get where you're coming from about needing minimum activity to make a subject matter to build a true community. I even agree, it's consolidating the smaller ones into a central one and hoping it can split up later rather than just disintegrating after some schism in the user base that I object to on a meta level.

I just think that spreading awareness of the various communities and encouraging crosstalk is a better long term goal.

Also, I hope that my word choices and phrasing don't come off aggro or with ill intent. I've been reminded that tone isn't conveyed well via text today with an unrelated chat away from lemmy. Since there's been a few points where I might have taken my own words wrong, just want to clarify that if this was in person, my tone would be friendly and you'd see me smiling at someone that's wanting to build good community.

southsamurai , 3 days ago

Jesus, really?

Fuck, I am old.

southsamurai , 5 days ago

Which will work until they roll it out fully and someone counters it with some new ad blocking. Might be more complicated than current options, but it'll be there.

southsamurai , 5 days ago

You know, I'd almost rather they just cgi the hell out of the original.

There's no way they'll do the same script, and that's the part that worked. The cast carried the right tone, and no amount of remaking is going to top that part. So just update any flawed effects and release it as a special event.

southsamurai , 6 days ago

Just wait until it's a chicken. And not just water. It will sample all the things, starting with whatever is in your hand, or mouth.

southsamurai , 8 days ago

I can neither confirm nor deny that she is in my rectum.

southsamurai , 9 days ago

Chocolate.

southsamurai , 9 days ago

It's a shame the r/sharpening community moved to discord for the most part.

That being said, the average person, with the average knife, only needs one stone in the 1k range. Anything else is personal preference, or window dressing.

The general consensus is to use what's called a "splash and go" stone. Shapton, particularly their "glass" stones, is one of the more popular brands. Water stones, as opposed to oil stones, tend to be a fairly gentle learning curve. You do eventually have to flatten them, which isn't difficult, but by the time that happens, you'll likely have picked up enough skill to have a better idea of what you'll want, so don't jump into that yet. No need to buy up all kinds of stuff to get started. Hell, it's better to only get one stone and nothing else to get started.

But avoid the double sided, at least for now. They can be a pain in the ass over time. Just get one good stone and practice as you use your knives.

Now, if the chipping is bad, you might need to find someone local that does hand sharpening to grind those out, but minor chips and dings come out fine over time. But never, ever machine grind a good knife, and definitely never trust anyone that claims you should let them do so unless you know for a fact they use a water cooled device. Seriously, just don't.

Grinding out heavy chips is a bit more difficult, so it takes more experience to do right on a good knife. You don't want that to be your first project. A cheap knife, that's fine, nobody really cares if they screw a cheap knife up while learning. But minor chips, say something under an 1/8 inch at the biggest, you just sharpen and let the chip get eaten away as you go. You waste more metal than necessary otherwise.

The exception to that is something that you'll be using for professional cooking. And it would need to be pretty fancy restaurant cooking at that, where perfect presentation is mandatory. Little chips won't show up in the results for a home cook. Being real, even fancy chefs usually can't see the difference, but they'll freak out despite that. Only time I've ever had a chip that small be a problem was doing food carving. And you ain't doing that with a bigger knife, it's kinda specialized.

One stone. Practice developing a burr on the blade, and removing that burr via the stone itself. That's it, that's the recipe to a very sharp knife. You don't need high grits, you don't need some kind of magic guide or whatever. Just your hands, one stone, and a knife.

southsamurai , 9 days ago

I mean, okay, fine, if they can get the original cast on board, and not try and turn it into a fucking franchise. A single sequel with the family having aged, ideally with a totally unrelated plot involving the next generation with the previous cast taking a back seat? Fine, whatever. I won't be hyped because that movie didn't need sequel at all. It was a great movie (though not high art, it's a really enjoyable little romp), with a great ending. End of story.

Next thing you know, they'll be trying to fucking reboot witches of eastwick

southsamurai , 9 days ago

I mean, yah. If you're going to be baking enough to merit 10kg of multiple flours, you absolutely want them in separate containers. Even if you only have the AP, bread, and cake flour trio that covers most baking needs, you'll want them stored in airtight containers.

It ain't even that hard or slow; my crippled ass with arthritis can do it fine. Well, it hurts, but I don't lose enough flour to matter.

southsamurai , 9 days ago

Baking pro tip for shopping: buy some buckets. 3 gallon is plenty big enough for a grocery store sized bag.

Get the cart to your car, put the buckets (one for each bag of flour) in the buggy and transfer the bag/s into them.

Then move the buckets into your car. They'll be less messy, protect the paper bags better, and make carrying it in easier via the handles.

If you're a high volume home baker, it's still easier than dealing with ordering in bulk.

southsamurai , 9 days ago

Like brianorca said, baskets don't contain the flour that comes out, or whatever is on the surface of the bag. Plus some baskets have enough in the way of hard edges to damage flour bags, I've had it happen in the store while carrying stuff to checkout before. Only three times ever, but still

Kinda depends on what the basket is made of and the design, I guess. Like, an old school woven basket could work fine as long as it's well woven, but the typical shopping basket in stores is going to suck.

southsamurai , 10 days ago

Eh, I've tried all of them at least once.

For my money, shredded memory foam is the best. It isn't perfect, but I've had the best balance between comfort, durability, ease of cleaning, and cost.

Buckwheat was good at support, and stayed fairly cool, but the breakdown and difficulty of cleaning made it a problem. It just doesn't last as well. Only thing that was worse in that regard was feathers. Feathers get ruined faster than anything else I tried.

Pillow cases, I'm a cotton fan. High thread count cotton has the right balance of softness vs smoothness. Too soft, and you end up with bunching and wrinkles as you move. Too smooth, and you end up with your head moving too easy but your hair not moving well.

Polyfill sucks for everything except ease of cleaning.

Cotton batting is about the same as polyfill, but not as easy to clean.

Solid foam is just begging to sweat heavy, and damn near impossible to clean well. Plus the durability is iffy.

Pillow cases, actual linen isn't bad, but tends not to be as comfy as cotton. Silk is way too smooth. Satin is just uncomfortable. Synthetics tend to run hot, even though they feel nice. Knit cotton feels the best, but damn does it fall into poor condition fast.

southsamurai , 10 days ago

Depends on what you mean by last.

I still have one feather pillow from about ten years ago. It's still a pillow, but it's gotten lumpy, less full, and it's really only still around because of a strange nostalgia. It got to the point where it slept poorly at about a year. To be fair, it wasn't the "best" possible.

Buckwheat, I got a little longer before it lost enough filling to break down that it wasn't viable, about two years before I was just done with it being progressively flatter.

southsamurai , 10 days ago

That's true, but I found that just adding wasn't great. You still have the smaller particles in there, which changes both comfort levels (not by much tbh) and what you might call aroma. It gets a kind of musty smell as it deteriorates, which doesn't totally go away if you filter out the smaller stuff

southsamurai , 12 days ago

Most of the time, lemmy.

Obviously, the difficulty with very niche communities not being useful here can be annoying.

And, being real, the lack of robust moderation tools makes moderating a pain in the ass.

But, overall, I find the people on lemmy less prone to bad behavior, and the discussions more rewarding. That makes up for the underlying missing functional things worth it.

Reddit, even before they went full asshole as a company, had the major problem of being big. Humans are assholes for the most part. The more people you have, and the lower the bar for entry, the more of those assholes are going to be a problem.

Lemmy has assholes too. The usual knee jerk reactionaries, trolls, and that sort of thing. But the very minor extra effort of having to pick an instance reduces how many of the brain dead assholes will put in the effort. The assholes are a better quality of asshole lol.

But damn, there were some long established communities on reddit that simply can't be reproduced here because you can't make old communities. There are a ton of subs that had been around since subs came around. You can't duplicate that kind of organic growth. There's very few C/s on lemmy that have a real sense of community yet. I think it'll happen, but it hasn't had time for a lot of real cultures to spring up the way reddit had.

I miss the hell out of those long established neighborhoods.

southsamurai , 12 days ago

Well, I didn't

southsamurai , 12 days ago

I mean, everybody?

I was a nurse's assistant as my real job. So, whether it was in a facility, or doing home care, all my patients were patients. Short term or long term, me being present meant they were in the right place.

Now, there were a few patients in home care that I was their first caregiver, and holy shit did they need a ton of work. Part of the job is maintaining a healthy and safe environment, within reasonable bounds. We aren't housekeepers, but there's a certain amount of housekeeping that we do because it's necessary. And, very often, you'll find NAs doing more housekeeping than they have to do because it otherwise doesn't get done.

But when you're the first on the case, it isn't unusual to find a home that's fallen apart. Even with younger patients that have family, the way illness can disrupt life doesn't always leave time for the little things. So there were times I'd walk in the door and find chaos, even to the point of it being dangerous (mold, infestations, etc).

And yeah, the thought would cross my mind that I wish someone else had gotten to open that door, but the patient was sure as hell in the right place in terms of having help finally. So it was more that I was glad they got me to come there, but the spirit is similar.

Now, my not-a-real-job jobs were not at all something where people came for help, so nothing related there. But I worked as a bouncer for a while, did some personal security work, did some custom fiction writing, had a little knife sharpening service, and other minor stuff over the years. But they weren't real jobs in that I didn't give a fuck about them beyond the paycheck, at least for the most part. I always did my best, but I wouldn't put up with any bullshit because I could walk away and not have any regret about doing so

Only place I would have regretted quitting before I wanted to was the drag club. A lot of good folks on staff, and good customers that I would have hated to walk away from without a solid goodbye.

southsamurai , 12 days ago

It's a tie tbh.

Between "the bells" for sheer joyous onomatopoeia, and "oh captain, my captain" because of the flow of it.

Both of them are poems I read out loud to myself, and there's not many of those. They both resonate inside me in different ways, and both are associated with my initial exploration of poetry.

I've never been able to pick one over the other.

And yeah, they're pretty basic poems rather than some more deeply personal things. It isn't an emotional connection to them, it's more of a sensory thing, if that makes sense (pun intended).

But, they both represent the way words can affect us, move our minds. They're an experience when you hear them. They're immersive and fulfilling, though in different ways.

southsamurai , 13 days ago

For me, it was an inability to only finger strings properly, even after about six months of practice. My hands, even back in my teens, were huge. That includes big fingers (size 14 ring at the time)

Since I didn't have the freedom to try other instruments in a useful way, I just decided I had better things to do with my time than fuck around making dissonant sounds on a guitar.

But, before you give up entirely, maybe try learning a simple song all the way. That was what actually made my decision. I knew what it was supposed to sound like, knew where my fingers were vs how the strings were supposed to be used, and knew I'd never make the music that drove me to want to try in the first place.

If you can manage to learn one song and play it to the point you can tell what you're playing, I say keep going. From that point, it's a matter of practice and figuring out what lessons work for you.

But it is a learning curve that kills a lot of potential players of any instruments. I hang with an old high school friend that fronts a band. I've had this conversation with him (and he reached the same conclusion I did after teaching me a little on both tenor and bass guitar, that I might so something, but it wouldn't be what I wanted) about getting past that wall.

He said that in person lessons are the best way to get past the initial "what the fuck is going on" stage where nothing seems to work. A lot of people pick up a book, or watch videos and try to get going. But those methods don't work for everyone. So you kinda need someone that can give active feedback on all the little things that go into learning your first song.

And that's what he says the goal should be; you pick a simple song, learn it, and then improve on it. Takes a few weeks for a lot of people to get something like amazing grace or Mary had a little lamb down to the point that it sounds right. But you have to start simple because you've got to get your hands used to the job. It can take a thousand plus repetitions of a given action to commit it to memory in a way it becomes fluid and natural (which is a thing in martial arts, btw, you have drill the hell out of a technique before you can spar with it).

But it's also okay to give up. It's your time, your energy. If you've discovered that the return on that isn't fast enough to give you what you want/need, why waste part of your life banging against the wall? Sometimes a learning curve isn't worth climbing.

southsamurai , 13 days ago

Nothing wrong with that :)

southsamurai , 13 days ago

Jesus fucking Christ.

southsamurai , 13 days ago

I gotta be honest, the fact that the whole krakoa thing was this short lived makes me not interested in the x titles.

southsamurai , 12 days ago

Yeah. That's really not that long in comic terms. For something as huge and redefining as that idea, five years isn't even enough to let it ripple out into the rest of the universe. And that's when there's parity between the time passage in the books vs the real world. A month between issues may only be days or a week in-universe. I've never kept track of how long things were in continuity though, so it may have parity, I'm not saying one way or the other, just pointing it out as a factor.

From what little I've seen of the newer stuff, it's basically an excuse to wipe out what happened and go back to regular comic stuff. Which is pretty disappointing. The idea of it was brilliant, and in universe, nothing would ever be the same again. Trying to do away with it without a total reboot is a bad joke on anyone that partook of the stories involved. And a reboot is just a trope at this point.

They could have just set it up as a "what if?" only long term. That would at least make it less of a waste. It would still exist as a separate continuity and make sense.

southsamurai , 13 days ago

I don't have access to traffic data to make a good argument on this specific post. Without the ability to compare total interactions vs votes, as well as the ratio of up vs down, it's a matter of general principle in my opinion.

It is also my opinion, having moderated off and on since the nineties on various types of forums that pretty much any post is ignored by a majority of users that come across it. Voting really only shows which people are willing to use the effort to hit a button. If a majority of users don't engage, I think that it is indeed a direct representation of how many people care. Again, I can't see those numbers, so it's kind of a moot point to make at all, but I suspect this post is like most posts anywhere.

But I still maintain that votes are meaningless across the board because they're a horrible metric for anything at all, especially when they're the only metric available.

Edit: again, fwiw, in the time it took me to type that up, the number of positive votes went down by 3. And, iirc, at the point where this tangent about the value of votes started, or was over 400, which is still meaningless, but taken in isolation would point to a general trend where there's significant disagreement with whatever it is about the post drawing votes.