A lot of games wear “lovecraftian horror” on their sleeve - they borrow some squid monsters and a wobbly screen effect for a sanity meter and call it a day.

Darkest dungeon does not do this - it’s mechanics are all geared towards creating tense moments of player fear; the slowly unwinding story played blind gives a feeling of genuine cosmic unease. It embodies Lovecraftian horror in a videogame - not the cheap jumpscare, but that ever lingering unease at a universe that cares not (the rng in this game specifically hates you, but will rarely surprise you with a genuine miracle).

This is a game heavily refined over years with outstanding visuals and audio - the storytelling has a genuinely organic feel. It even runs on a potato; there is only one bit of bad news really…

Ruin has come to our family.

“Pay or Ok”

The latest scummy tactic of news sites; this started shortly after the ruling that reposting their content was grounds for a DMCA strike.

https://www.climbinggoat.co.uk/

Never heard of them before, but now my wallet is quietly sobbing in the corner.

Your stitch looks amazing ^_^

And now “Epstein Island” just became “Pedobear Paradise” in my brain. Thanks for that.

As in vulture capitalism, or something else.

No judgement on your kinks here.

Whatever gets you off mate.

Foreshadowing: they have not.

Sounds to me you’re now a better person than you were; be proud of that ^_^

Ooh, do tell - what’s happening over here that I’ve missed?

Mostly, we all see the world in unique ways - picture a building of possessed dwarves and you have the average mathematics department.

Oh no…

I just want to add, this is coming from someone who has completed a mathematics PhD, and so has a very very high bar for psychosis (seriously, math departments are fun, but also FUN).

I just did that earlier today - 100% works.

“Amazon grade” made me laugh - though the reality is a bit closer to “Alibaba Roulette”.

When someone tries the sealioning trick, the correct response is always - “I think this would be more productive if you elucidate on why you feel this point needs further exploration.”

We had an academic who spent a lot of time sealioning in our department; this is how we dealt with him.

I think the stigma still holds, mostly because a lot of Chinese goods exported to the west have planned obsolescence baked in.

This is largely because this is the manufacturing trend worldwide, not because Chinese fabrication is inherently bad. In effect, the world got enshittified while China was holding the “make all the things” card, so any improvements in their manufacturing are likely overlooked.

Now, as to who is at fault for the enshittification; this remains an open question to explore case by case. In some cases, it’s just capitalism at pay (lowest bidder giving lowest quality), in others it’s a slightly more sinister bid for future business by ensuring repeat customers down the line, in others (rarer by far) the hands that rule dictate.

A dungeon crawl mmo (top down), optimised to an obscene level so that the server costs are negligible and the only “premium” feature is a star next to usernames costing £5.

Theme the dungeons after the Etrian Odyssey series, go for a chill soundtrack, and create a wholesome social experience the world can enjoy.

I remember one role where they listed a maths degree as essential; turns out their idea of “degree level mathematics” was calculating standard deviation and variance.

Generally, even if a job suggests it’s in your field, you’re not going to spread your wings much. I do think this is part of why people hate their jobs so much - they trained hard, learned so many things, and then got dumped into microsoft office and “doing things as they’ve always been done” because some arse in HR was unicorn hunting.

Our head of school was brought in from the outside to “help navigate the new challenges in academia” (I.e. to make cuts). They hold the title “professor” (which outranks doctor by quite a bit).

During one of those awkward “get to know you” talks I just asked what her research speciality was (common icebreaker among academics); turns out she wasn’t a researcher, had never done a PhD, and had gotten the job on managerial experience.

In cases like this, the joke is that “oh, so the chair is the professor” (it’s common to become a professor when head of school, you lose the title when your rotation is over); in cases like the OP it should transfer to “oh, so your wallet is the doctor”.

Baldur’s Gate 3…

Yeah, I’d take that bet.