Sidenote: In terms of characters and story Scarlet and Violet are so far ahead of other mainline Pokemon games, it really is not close. Team Star are a group of real characters with real, relatable motivations and goals, not a group of cartoonish goons who want to dry the oceans for some nauseating reason. Arven's story with his Mabosstiff is so grounded but so effective as well. The climax of the game is actually climactic and emotionally impactful, it's not just "the legendary pokemon from the cover appears". The Elite 4 are real characters who live in the region and interact with you and each other instead of just being overdesigned randos who you fight at the end and never think about again. The story twist with the professor is pretty much unprecedented in Pokemon games.

I don't wanna defend Nintendo's business practices because them rushing it out is the reason the game runs like ass, in terms of performance it's the worst one they ever made. But creatively, Scarlet and Violet are leagues above anything the main series has ever put out. No Pokemon game has ever changed up the formula to this extent and like I said, the story is better than all other games combined. That's why it kinda bothers me when people say they "aren't trying anymore" because the people actually making the game clearly were trying.

Penny in Pokemon Scarlet/Violet:

• Is a shy, introverted hacker girl with a big hoodie:

• Her ace Pokemon is a Sylveon, which has been adopted by the trans community as an icon because of its trans pride color palette

• When she terastallizes her Sylveon, she says "Shine bright like the starry sky and become who you really want to be!"

She is also the leader and "founder" of Team Star, a group of kids who got united after being bullied at school. Though this could also fit a non-conforming cis girl, it would fit a trans girl especially well.

I'm still not convinced on whether it's a crazy series of coincidences or not. If I had to guess, the developers knew exactly what they were doing and created a trans character that the intended audience would recognize as such, but bigots and Nintendo executives wouldn't. The line "become who you really want to be" is just too specific, no other character says anything like that when they terastallize their Pokemon.

Pokemon has never really had openly LGBT characters so I have to imagine that if it was intentional, it was snuck by executives. Penny does not meet the mainstream media's idea of a stereotypical trans woman, but she does meet a lot of stereotypes within the trans community itself that most cis people wouldn't be aware of. Like I said, I'm honestly still not 100% certain that it's not a coincidence, but I do think she's effectively a dogwhistle character. Also her theme goes way too hard.

What do you guys think?

I think it's interesting to analyze why certain things are popular to understand people in general

It was actually a Chinese internet joke to compare Xi to Winnie the Pooh. Supposedly people had social media accounts frozen for that and Western media outlets spun that into a story about Winnie the Pooh being censored/banned nationwide and if you posted a picture of Winnie the Pooh you would be thrown into the Uyghur death camps. Iirc there were also some Winnie the Pooh films that didn't get released in China?

Anyway, the ride at Disneyland Shanghai still exists so I suppose the evil CCP hasn't found it yet.

Fontana police did not return an email seeking comment. Three of the involved officers remain employed with the department. One other officer has retired.

This is why you can't make the "bad apples" argument. The fact that the department still tolerates them shows that they're all rotten.

Gamers: Everything is allowed in humor. Don't be so easily offended, it's just a joke, everybody is just looking for reasons to get offended.

Game: You seem to like men.

Gamers:

It's incredible just how fearful US cops are. The training must be pure psychological torture.

People on the bird site losing their mind because apparently Hezbollah fired missiles from civilian homes and all I can think is:

Hezbollah: hey man can we use your house to fire missiles at tel aviv

Me: ofc do you guys want tea or anything here's the wifi password i'll help you carry

I'll be honest, I don't think the international rules-based order actually rules nor is it very based.

As a German: Because we have a lot of Holocaust memorials and are taught a lot about it in school, we love jerking each other off about how much we've learned from our past as opposed to say, Japan, who deny the atrocities they've committed to this day.

But of course, all the changes and improvements are completely superficial and meaningless. We are a neoliberal hellhole and maybe the most pathetically loyal US client state in all of Europe, which is saying a lot. Our political parties will performatively decline engaging with the fascist AfD, but still implement all their same policies because we are a capitalist nation in decline.

Germans think because their newscasters speak in a monotonous, boring voice, that what they're being presented is completely unbiased and nothing but the truth. They really do believe themselves to be the adults in the room. Trump derangement syndrome is also huge in Germany, our equivalents of Bill Maher or whatever still make fun of him, the president of a foreign country who hasn't been in office for over 3 years, while self-fellating over how much better our democracy is because instead of 2 identical parties, we have 5.

Germans think they're the most reasonable, objective and intellectual people in the West while blindly following whatever the current US propaganda campaign says, so completely deluded, ignorant and pathetically loyal that we will happily shoot ourselves in the leg to serve American interests.

I fucking hate this country. I hate its self-aggrandizing, pseudo-repentant, pathetic ass-kissing of Israel. I hate how everyone in this country is a staunch defender of the status quo, how everyone loves to dunk on America with a less-than-surface level understanding of why America is the way it is and complete ignorance about how we're on the exact same track but maybe 3 years behind. Even our "left" loves Israel because there is not a single person in this country who understands literally anything, it's all fucking vibes. Israel could literally come out tomorrow like "We have decided to rebrand the war against Hamas as "Holocaust 2"" and we would lick their assholes for it.

Germans are probably the dumbest, most ignorant and at the same time most self-important people on this godforsaken planet. The dumbest American is 10x more curious about the world than the smartest German. If the US told us to, we would happily exterminate the Jews again, our news would tell us that the Jews started it and that would be enough for the average German to feel proud and righteous about it.

Their ideology literally can't comprehend anything more complex than "Team Blue" and "Team Red". If you hate Team Blue, you must be on Team Red even if you claim otherwise.

I think it is actually authoritarian that we're not allowed to hunt economists for sport