On the one hand, I got Helldivers 2 at launch and I've enjoyed every second of it. On the other, there's only really three difficulties to play on. Trivial is for farming medals solo, Easy is for farming Daily Orders solo, and Suicide Mission is for actually collecting samples and making progress in the galactic war with a team.

Anything below Challenging is useless for Samples after you get to Challenging, because passively collecting low-grades while also bringing in mid-grades is so much faster than going into Trivial and running around looking in every nook and cranny. But, if you don't have a group to play with consistently, then doing anything from Easy to Suicide mission with PUGs is like pulling teeth with a pair of chopsticks because its full of either dipshits doing dumb shit for a gaff or weirdly intense assholes that'll spend 25 of a 35 minute mission looking for every little cache or doing all the side-missions that don't matter as much once you're at the stage where the only thing that matters is samples, because you're at cap for Req Slips. And then anything above Suicide Mission is filled with sweats, takes forever, and is just generally too much of a commitment for me (personally) given I work 12-hour shifts.

Besides that, though, after a certain point on the galactic map, caches above a certain difficulty - Medium, I think - stop being as present in favor of ones that looked bombed out and have mid-grades in them. So doing solo Trivial missions just makes sense because it nets you a bunch of extra resources like Super Credits or Medals until the system seemingly realizes what you're doing and changes them all to Req Slips...

My favorite pastime is finding low-level drama about people I genuinely can't give less of a fuck about and following the trail like a sharkafter blood.

No-name VTubers are easy, because there's always someone harassing or bullying someone, or trying to fuck over an artist. But you'll sometimes come across something like the Watcher situation, or the thing with commander holly and pro-jared.

That shit's like coke to me. Just... watching someone bury themselves under 6 feet of receipts.

Finally playing Atomic Heart...

Why is it that all the robots seem to have better dialogue and VA-work than the humans?

Also, I get it. They want to be true to it being set in the USSR, but... can we just pronounce shit in a manner reasonable for English while doing so? Combined with the aforementioned shit VA work, it makes it sound even more stunted than if they just pronounced comrāde as comrade...

Man, this fucking guided tour is taking forever...

Adding onto this...

I've just learned that you have to upgrade to a premium account in order for your likes to be private?

Like, I can't go back through my likes, and I can't hide my likes... So, what's the fucking point?

Homeboy bought the fucking brand, changed the brand, and has since done as much as possible to get rid of every aspect of utility associated with it...

I'm on twitter - mainly to like porn and/or cute pictures - and I occasionally stumble across features that Muskrat's had added since buying it...

Why is his naming sense so shit? Like, legit, I checked to see if my app needed updating cause I stumbled on Grok and thought it was an April Fools feature that hadn't been removed.

Why have you decided that you AI search feature should be introduced to a new user of it with the phrase "grok something"? Fuck you? No?

I'll grok all over your face, Muskrat.

I'm not saying I want there to exist some sort of monumental tragedy with thousands or tens of thousands dead, I'm just saying I want to scuba dive in sunken ruins that are more modern. Like... Highrise buildings and shit.

Think: the opening scene of Evangelion, where you get to see schools of fish living it up in a sunken urban landscape.

Thinking about the poor son-of-a-bitch that wound up replacing our computer lab teacher in middle school.

He was the son of a really popular teacher from when we'd been in primary school, and he was pretty new to teaching. Not a bad-looking guy by any stretch of the imagination (kind of plain, but, like, not ugly or anythign). Pretty funny to boot.

But, most importantly... young. Young for a teacher in an area where the average teacher is like... 60s. The next youngest teachers in the area were in their 40s with children our age (and a couple to boot!).

And... homeboy drew the short straw of dealing with a bunch of horny 10-to-14-year-old girls. Like, I'm pretty sure he was a lot of people's sexual awakening. And... say what you will about teenage boys, but these girls were talking about the poor man like he was some... tumblr sexyman they were writing a smutty reader-insert rpf about.

Like, for real, I think I'd vomit if I heard one of my nieces talking about someone the way they were talking about this guy. I'm pretty sure I'd get put on a new watchlist if I described some of the shit they were talking about doing with this guy... And, like, they'd talk about it feet from him, and he'd always look really uncomfortable around any of the girls.

Especially since this one was pretty well-developed, and legit thought she had a chance with this guy. Like, I'm talking straight up button-downs and no bra, leaning over to talk with a lollypop. Fucking gross, let me tell you. Especially since we were, I think, 12 at the time, so she wasn't even really that well-developed, I was just a fucking 12-year-old and half the other girls were still in training bras and shit.

Just... ugh. Makes me feel all grody just thinking about being in the position.

I wonder how much of my anxiety comes from - as a kid - being told that the world was going to end every few months, listening to my grandmother tell us how we'd go to hell when that happened because *checks notes* my sister would bitch about not getting money when asking but my brother could agree for frankly ridiculous pay for chores he wouldn't do after being paid for them, and then dealing with my sister having panic attacks over hoong to hell for stupid shit like that?

I just gotta say how much i love revolver rifles and pistols turned into adhoc carbines.

Like, I'm not big on guns as a whole, but I'd absolutely love my first gun to be something like either of the above. Just... something to go to the range and shoot for hours.

I've always had a thing for ghost girls, but Calvin's From the Fog series has convinced me that, while the Sadako pattern is Nice, a red-head like minecraft's Alex would be peak. Especially if she's got echoing giggles and shit.

I'm on twitter - mainly to like porn and/or cute pictures - and I occasionally stumble across features that Muskrat's had added since buying it...

Why is his naming sense so shit? Like, legit, I checked to see if my app needed updating cause I stumbled on Grok and thought it was an April Fools feature that hadn't been removed.

Why have you decided that you AI search feature should be introduced to a new user of it with the phrase "grok something"? Fuck you? No?

I'll grok all over your face, Muskrat.

Ever think about the sheer number of fetishes that Chicken Little (2005) probably ignited in the general population of today?

Like, you've got furries, abduction, hypnosis, and bimbofication.

This, of course, is brought to you by the steam sale that happened a month ago that let me buy copies of all the old film games for shit like chicken little, treasure planet, and alice in wonderland.

So, Fractured But Whole was on sale recently. And, well, I'm a sucker for a sale. So, I played through Stick of Truth my first day off (I'd bought it years ago but never got around to play it), and dug Princess Kenny's whole shtick, and how everyone was just... cool with it.

Now, I'm right before you go raid Tolkein's place to arrest his dad (completed as much side content as I can, for the moment).

I made Buttlord a cis chick when given the opportunity. Wanted to see if they added any dialogue for it (they did). It's overall interesting how they decided to handle the whole "we completely forgot that a huge portion of our fanbase is female-presenting and didn't give you the option to make Douchebag a girl". Then I made her a lesbian, because I thought it hilarious that the day after you raid a strip club, you decide your character's sexuality.

I like to think she learned some things that day...

I gotta say, I'm really digging my Buttlord so far?

She's a very South Park character. Like, one of the ones that becomes a sleeper hit.

Spends the entire special she's introduced in being a little badass and mistaken for a guy. Has the power of ass blasting and social media... develops an interest in other girls after going to a strip club during a game of superheroes. Craig's been in her party the entire time he's been available, so I like to imagine they're best friends, and she's been helping with the whole... Tweek situation.

I hope I keep liking this game to its conclusion. It's been fun so far.

Blondie over there be like:

The worst shit about being open-minded when it comes to fandom is that my friend has legit got me interested in MLP Gen 4. And all he had to do was show me the sheer amount of SI fanfiction (and AiE) because he knows how much of a sucker I am for SI fanfic.

Like, I'm an out and proud furry. I know what it's like to have people be weirdly hostile to you just because they've been poisoned against the group you're a part of. Particularly when they're your friend and find out about your interest and start making "jokes" about degeneracy or whatever.

And now I've got a pony OC and shit that I like to think about having a day job with friends and office-style antics and shit. Life's rough, friends...

Everyone shut-up! I've been struck by the nostalgia so strong I'm nauseous! Time to post about nothing but early-2000s cartoons for weeks.