I mean, movies have existed without sound at all, so yes, I’d classify music as typically not essential, unless the movie is ~about music~. Same with the movies you listed, they’re about the character growth and development, not a bigger plotline (I assume,I actually haven’t seen them).

In order to tell an effective narrative, certain pieces MUST be there. These are the story. Anything else is fluff, filler, not essential. You can play around with all of that, get something that looks and feels different, but is the same basic story. Remakes and AU style things do that all the time.

As far as the blond, blue eyed thing - I didn’t say it was describing the default human. It’s describing the default within American pop culture. The default movie hero is, and I’m spitballing here, a 30s-40s straight white dude. And, like or not, American pop culture is world pop culture. America largely defines the trends in pop culture worldwide. I don’t think this is a good thing, for the record, but it’s also not a crazy statement.

Eh, I think we just have different perspectives on things being short horned. In my view, anything that isn’t critical information to the story, it’s shoehorned in. If you tell me the main characters favorite food is pasta, and then don’t do anything with it, it’s shoe horned in. If you tell me a character is gay, and then don’t do anything they couldn’t have done the same with a straight character, changing a couple of pronouns, it’s shoehorned in.

To be clear though, I don’t think this is a bad thing. A story with only critical information will… Well, it’ll work, but it’ll be bland. Same if you make all of your characters blond, blue eyed, straight white men. Adding these details tends to be what makes us remember and identify with a character. That doesn’t make it any more strictly relevant to the story. Most characters people would view as “diverse” - even the ones people like - fall into this category, i think.

I think a better argument is, if these traits ARE shoehorned in, their alternative “normal” traits would be as well. If you go out of your way to state a character is straight, it’s just as shoehorned if everything else is equivalent. Do THOSE characters inspire the same ire? If not, we should examine the why of that specifically.

It’s kinda weird to try to include representation without it feeling shoe horned. The world of TES (of any fictional world) is entirely hand-created. There are no accidents, all of it is intentional.

This means that, no matter how it’s done, any character deviating from the “norm” was consciously chosen to be so. These things that need representation (disabilities, gender identity, sexuality, race, etc) are all things people don’t get to choose, so there’s an inherent disconnect between the hand crafted world choosing to include diversity, and the real world necessarily having diversity because of chaos.

Following this thread, there’s never been a case of inclusivity, or exclusivity, that isn’t shoehorned in. It’s always been entirely the will of the author to include or exclude these representations. With that in mind, I think it’s only a good thing to see more diverse authors bringing more diverse worlds and characters into existence.

Issue being, people are always going to drive the speed they feel safe at. A sign, a rule, a law will do nothing to change that, unless you have a pig on every corner enforcing them perfectly. The way you change that is to ~not make the roads feel safe at faster speeds~. Fewer, narrower lanes and traffic calming features will do more for the issues than any speed limit signs will.

At the end of the day, a straight, flat, multi-laned road gives the feeling of safety at high speeds. I won’t say this is THE intent, but at very least is a side effect of the multiple lanes in each direction. Lower that to a travel lane in each direction and a turning lane. Add some medians. Add a chicane or two. Suddenly people drive slower because that’s what the road actually supports.

Simple answer is an increase in the number of cars and the number of pedestrians. If cars are 10x safer for pedestrians now, but there are 1000x more interactions…

Speed limits are arbitrary factors set in place that don’t make sense for the roads they’re on. They do nothing for safety, and often become a speed _target. If you want to reduce speed of cars (which I agree is a good thing) the best way to do so is to make traveling above a certain speed feel dangerous to the driver. Chicanes, medians, and narrow lanes encourage that. Speed limits do not.

Speed limits are bs.

You lost it at the second line.

“You never have permission to speak freely. You will speak only when spoken to, and only about the direct conversation at hand. Always and forever. Never ask me this again.” Is the proper response.

Scruffy knows, scruffy just don’t care. Only thing it does for me is get me to turn off all notifications for that app, if I need the app, or uninstall it if I don’t. But I’m spiteful.

Cuffed would be more like detained. Not free to leave, because they’re actively investigating, but no charges are being presented. Literally just placed in cuffs while the police do their snooping.

I have no opinion on eating the tail of the shrimp with the rest of it. The concept of ordering or cooking shrimp, eating the flesh, and then giving someone else the tail is absolutely INSANE to me. It sounds like a bit from a sitcom.

Sounds delicious to me. A spicy sweet sauce, perfect on top of a burger.

Edit: or Chicken sandwich

WeLl YoU cAnT dO bEtTeR

Never said I could. Apparently, neither can they.

Ahh, relative privation. We’re not allowed to work on anything until we all collectively agree what the worst thing is, and then we’re only allowed to work on that thing. As it should be.

Aww chitch 😭

Witcher 3 and cp2077 definitely had what i’d consider full sex scenes. Like, you don’t have full on piv, but it’s about as close as, say, TV typically gets.

I think the assholery entirely derives from where in the lot they are. First half of rows? Fuckin asshole. Ass end of the lot? You’re fine. I’m not gonna assume this person doesn’t have a reason for owning a larger vehicle, that’d be unreasonable. I’ll judge based on the actual information present, and it seems like they’re at least TRYING.

You found the point. It’s not about having it scale to the level the official servers are at. It’s about preserving it in some fashion, so that the dedicated few can still experience it. We don’t need thousands, we need a few dozen. And, if developers develop with this design philosophy - that eventually the game servers will be shut down and we have to release a hostable version at end of life, then the games can be written from the ground up with that implementation in mind.

I think it has real staying power, if they can make the rest of the game as content rich as the first dozen or so hours. It’s only a flash in the pan because there’s not more fuel. As is the case for a lot of early access.

I’m sure that’s a big part of it. Simple supply and demand also is probably part of it. It’s a big situation, lots of influences.

My gut tells me they’re expensive because they offer a set of benefits that otherwise similar units don’t. Until they become more the norm than a stand out, they’ll probably be more expensive. I’ve 0 data, again just what my gut says.