I know someone who moved to the USA recently and learned English as a second language as an air and I had to explain this to them when they started playing Baldur’s Gate 3.

Western Fantasy is nearly entirely based on Dark Age and Medieval Europe, and for English speakers (in particular English speaking Americans) that usually means it’s based on England/UK in particular because it’s the country that speaks English.

So, a huge majority of fantasy characters have an English accent because it’s the accent associated with the only place in the world that spoke English during the vague target time fantasy is set in or based on.

Of course English sounded very different at that time in England, but the tie between them is so strong and has continued for so long it’s now the tradition/expectation.

Like, as an exercise, consider if you were to watch a classical Western-fantasy-type show like Game of Thrones or a Lord of the Rings series. If everyone had modern American accents (general, Southern, etc) wouldn’t you immediately notice and find it odd and out of place?

PS: the person in question was really quite great at English but had to install a mod to add subtitles in their native language because they struggled greatly with non-American accents.

I’ve often that about that if I could design a house, I’d have a room just like this. Like there would be a section of the house that was tower like and the only way to get to the room at the top would be to take an exterior balcony-like-staircase from the second floor to the room in question - the sole room on the “third floor”.

There’s just something about a room like that that makes it fell so isolated, peaceful and serene. And the exterior access makes it feel like a little adventure getting there. Like if the weather were bad you might opt not to go there because it would mean gearing up to make the trip.

Phonograph commits the same sin as every other player in that swipe changes tabs and is therefore a total waste of a premium gesture.

I went into the offline mobile music player rabbit hole recently too. I tried like a dozen and personally I think none of them are sufficient, including Symphony.

The most important functionality for me is queuing e.g. how it works and how easy it is to use and it’s just a horrible experience for virtually every player. So disappointing 😣

“Might be cool”

Neuters negative campaigning, increases political competition, no more lesser of two evils I.e. third parties can win, reduced disenfranchisement reducing influence of extremist and fascist organizations, the list goes on. People actually being able to express their will through the government is the solution to every problem.

And I hate to say it but your support for PSL means nothing, literally zero without something like RCV. So again, if you care about your party, you have to work for RCV or some other improved voting system, or you’ll smugly do nothing for the rest of your political career. It sucks, but it’s reality until we change it.

You’re way better of spending your time and effort getting ranked choice voting implemented. Then this candidate you support would actually have a chance of getting elected. And with the increased power over our government, stopping the next genocide in it’s tracks would be trivial.

It’s a million times more effective to protest by getting ranked choice voting as our voting system so we can end the duopoly and actually have control over our government when we really need it, like to stop genocides.

Which why we need a voting system that can end the duopoly without enormous sacrifice. Ranked Choice Voting can do that. If really hate the duopoly, you have no excuse not to join us and get RCV implemented everywhere. Check out FairVote for more info and to locate movements near you.

Join the movement for ranked choice voting so we can end the duopoly!

Missourians who see this, vote NO on 7 to stop the ban!

P(repubscent) Didd(ler)

doesn’t treat its viewer as an idiot

A lot of what you said is reasonable but this is absolutely laughable. As someone entering their thirties, this is the single most annoying aspect of anime and it’s especially blatant in works aimed at teenagers. And trust me, I’m not here to hate - this stuff isn’t aimed at me and that’s okay, but claiming most anime doesn’t do this or that not virtually 100% of shonen does this is absurd.

The problem is that there simply can’t be a third party. In our current system a third party is mathematically impossible. I would love for a majority of citizens to suddenly throw caution to the wind magically surge a third party into power. But it’s just not realistic. Again, the most a third party can do is cause a scare, but it’ll never come into power.

Also for what it’s worth there is an RCV bill for federal congressional elections in the House, which I think has a much better chance of passing than a similar bill in a deeply rural state like Missouri. Once established at a federal level I think it would simply be a matter of time until it made it’s way to even resistant states.

You’re right. In another reply I said that voting third party might move the needle for RCV, but it’s iffy.

It does, but it’s just a big gamble. You’re attempting to scare one of the establishment parties into changing by causing them to lose an election heavily. So, if it works, you’ve necessarily made a material sacrifice in giving control of an office to the opposing party, allowing them to cause whatever real world damage they are capable of causing in that position. Then you have to hope that the message is received and that the party you spoiled actually changes in the way you want, and doesn’t just ignore you. And you also have to hope that they recognize and change quickly or else the damage compounds as more elections pass.

On top of that, this only works “once”. If the party starts ignoring you again you have to make these real consequential sacrifices again.

In conclusion, with voting third party the sacrifice is guaranteed, the reward is not.

I will admit it’s possible that spoiling/scaring is the only way to get RCV (or better) in the first place since the only group it’s not good for is sitting politicians, but I’m not convinced yet.

But I’m entirely convinced that without an improved voting system we don’t actually have a democracy.

And for anyone who’s reading this, if you’re a Missourian vote NO on Amendment 7!

Finally, yes! Anyone who wants to vote for a third party should instead spend their time and effort fighting for a different voting system (ranked choice, star, etc) that could mathematically allow a third party to actually succeed.

Can someone explain this to me? Is it just a very very simple sex joke or…?

More details on this?

Picture source?

Takuya and Rika

Like… Like from… Digimon: Tamers?

Fucking boooooo. I’m right outside the room and now I’ll never get the chance to fight him at his strongest. If they were going to do this there should be a way to change it back. :(