(via ‪Jack Bernhardt‬ ‪@jackbern.bsky.social‬)

From: Jeffrey Epstein
To: Cain From The Bible
Date: March 7th, 3000BC
Subject: Re: Thinking of killing my brother? 👀👀

go for it it wouljld be extremlry sexy to invenf thr cornvept of murder snd yherefore curse mankind fur eternkity ;) ;)

“All observable behaviors of your system will be depended on by somebody.”

Extremely relevant XKCD.

An ancient 4chan demotivator summarized FFTA as “your life sucks shit and I’m dragging you back to it.” You’d think it was fundamentally impossible to have a good story where the message is, escapism is bad, mmkay? But it would be so easy to say Ivalice only exists as a shared hallucination, with the locals they’ve befriended gradually revealed as shallow imitations of people. Or: say it’s a real place which these kids can visit any time… y’know… like players do. Put some ludonarrative assonance on the idea there’s a crapsack reality you do need to take care of, to continue enjoying this fantasy.

On the other hand, as an actual game, Penny Arcade gave it the “Oh shit, is it 3AM?” award.

An isekai where the MC is Snuffkin.

Calling Farscape an isekai took me out.

And I mean… you’re not wrong.

“If it was easy, everyone would do it.”

Some guy in a 1995 Hilux feels it touch the asphalt like he’s a fucking Nazgul, and is pulling the metal out of it before you’ve shut your front door.

That filename, though.

Would the cyclops explain Laertes being played by an actor who is Maori?

This bigot is stupid because Africa is right fucking there. But audiences at large might ask ‘what the fuck?’ if anyone in ancient proto-Greece was plainly Native American. And that mass response almost cannot be wrong. Anything that takes everyone out of the story is a failure of storytelling. Working around that is not difficult: do it early. That’s how you make people go ‘holy shit, a cyclops!’ instead of ‘why the fuck does this movie have a cyclops?’

Suspension of disbelief is not something the audience owes. It’s a trust that the story will follow its own rules. Every story has rules, and the ones it does not provide are filled in with ones you already know. That includes rules from other stories: nobody in Harry Potter bothers explaining that brooms can fly. But that made-up element is not carte blanche for someone to wield a lightsaber. The rules you know for fantasy would excuse a surprise dragon, but not a surprise spaceship. Nor could an eleven-year-old boy from jolly old England whip out a handgun, without breaking immersion, even though handguns are real. A story where that kind of character can have that kind of object takes an entirely different shape.

It is important to avoid bad arguments even when dunking on the dumbest motherfuckers alive. We don’t need to undermine the concept of criticizing fiction, just to tell a crybully racist to fuck off.

Empty insults mean less than nothing.

Epic offering a game for free, only to be treated as advertisement for its sale on Steam, is the headline of this submission. What do you mean, what? Do you speak English?

I’ve demonstrated I keep notes on these arguments. Not that it seems to matter, when even the people who agree that Steam is a monopoly pile on, like I’m the asshole for pointing it out. I have asked you, specifically, what I should say differently, and your response was ‘well I dunno.’ Great! Thanks! How distinctly useful!

Troll.

If I have demonstrated anything in all my years online, it is that I am ready and willing to argue. But it’s not an argument if the other side is just saying words recreationally. That seems to be the case here, when no amount of pleading for specifics or alternatives results in anything besides ‘shut up.’

Meanwhile:

The actual topic remains that Valve is a monopoly. In what universe is that not relevant to this article about their largest competitor being so unimportant they can’t give things away? If everyone here takes that for granted, great… so why am I getting the same response as the many times people deny it? Even the meta discussion about phrasing is fraught and confrontational, regardless of what I’ve actually said. Have I offended you in some way?

If you want to warn, then warn directly

What would that look like, besides what I’ve done?

I don’t think any of you know what you want. You act like I’ve done something wrong, and when pressed on what exactly that is, you cannot provide a reason, but will not re-examine the assertion. Any amount of context is the wrong amount, any approach is the wrong approach, any tone is the wrong tone. The nature of bad faith is that there is no right answer.

And this is over agreement. I’m used to people getting weird when they insist Steam isn’t an obvious monopoly. The exact same weirdness becomes novel when it’s from people insisting it’s too obvious. I’m getting shit on both for explaining why being a monopoly is not intrinsically evil, and for explaining why we should be concerned about them anyway… and I’m getting shit on as though I did neither of those things… in the same comment. Baffling.

Further abuse.

They said, continuing to make this about me, instead of the actual topic.

Still offering a fat lot of nothing in terms of constructive criticism for this tone-policing.

People fall over themselves to demonstrate what I’m saying.

I mention that it’s a monopoly - ‘shut up, no it isn’t.’ I mention the people who say it isn’t - ‘shut up, of course it is.’ I start from scratch - ‘shut up, what are you talking about.’ I provide two years of context - ‘shut up, that’s not in this thread.’

What sequence of words would avoid this abuse? What possible sentence would address the actual issue, without people acting like I’ve insulted their mother’s cooking?

Then it’s not a me problem. And you shouldn’t act like it is.

Even when I ask what should I say instead?, people go ‘ooh, no, I wouldn’t say it like that’ instead of answering the fucking question.

I’ve had this argument in a wide variety of contexts and tones-of-voice. All of them get the same asinine responses. This goes beyond resting bitch font, where people interpret whatever I write in the shittiest way possible. I’m starting to think the topic is just cursed. Like it’s impossible to have a sensible conversation about Valve’s market share. All efforts descend into snipping about the commenter, or spiral out into nonsense and denial.

I beg of you, prove me wrong. What should I say instead?