i will never beat a dark souls game. i could, but it would be (and has been so far) a joyless slog of grinding for resources so that i can make any new weapons or armor i find actually worth using. getting new items isn't fun, it only means awkwardly travelling to whatever region has enemies that drop the most titanite shards and spending hours battling enemies in a region you finished hours ago just so that the new item does more than a pittance of damage. plus i really really expected elden ring to have any kind of climbing, even a simple ledge-clamber, after sekiro's ninja-parkour, and instead all we got was a useless crouch button and a less flavorful jumping mechanic. they've essentially been re-releasing the same game with a different map since demon's souls. overrated trash series, from software should have stuck to armored core games imo and i'm only partially saying that because i am obsessed with mechs. i would rather play EVE online and i hate spreadsheets.

idk about you but i would actually find it horrific if they kept tissue from a human arm alive (say, a bicep) and made it do stuff with electrical signals (say, lift something) for 'research purposes', that's actual Strogg behavior, we are approaching the Quake 4 future the fascists dream of

lmfao 'it was already cured just in a way where they couldn't eat normal food still' like what the actual fuck am i reading how is this man a doctor

'your broken leg fully healthy, you just can't ever walk on it again'

i also hate the 'chosen one' stuff, especially if its related to aristocracy or feudalism. its possible to do it well, if characters are aware that the 'choosing' is more or less arbitrary. i thought Dune handled this well by making the destiny/fate a mere generational feudal conspiracy

Dune spoilers that will hopefully be covered in the next movie

the results of which so horrify the protagonist at the time, Paul Atreides, that he burns out his own eyes and wanders the desert as a mad prophet rather than become emperor of the galaxy

also:

-i don't like when gods or deities exist in a literal physical sense, like as a Strong Person with Powerful Body. imo anything like a god should be inhuman and impersonal, normally discorporate unless 'presenting' to humans, difficult to fully comprehend, and more or less uninterested in individual mortal affairs and concerns except in aggregate. Obad-Hai shouldn't just be an old man wandering the woods who can cast powerful spells, the woods ARE obad-hai, the trees and earth are his literal instantiated presence. Fharlanghn isn't just some human wizard walking around on roads doing tricks, the roads ARE fharlanghn, the street lights are his eyes, the pavement his body and prison and definition of form, the movement and flow of traffic his consciousness and thoughts.

-i don't like when magic in fantasy requires overly specific material components, like DnD's insect legs and feathers etc. this kind of thing almost works for slower paced rituals or magical crafting, but a mage during combat whipping out a spider leg to break while they chant and dance just to summon a fireball seems all around less convenient and efficient than making a primitive grenade/petard or rifle/cannon. magic in fantasy or sci fi should upend one's understanding of reality, it shouldn't just be a cheat code activated by arranging garbage and trinkets. a wizard casting a fireball is old hat, passe, boring, a true master of metaphysical arts should make the need to cast fireball irrelevant, locking the enemy in warped spacetime architecture or turning them inside out with a glance and a gesture or instantly transmuting their brain into gold. i want less of the simplistic 'its a weapon attack that uses unique ammo' style of magic attack and more 'my sword has become an incomprehensible fractal of steel and folded spacetime as i try to stab the wizard' or 'the master of secret arts has plucked a beam of sunlight from the sky to use as a blade'. I hate the videogamey trope of 'elemental damage types' and mages-as-bombardiers. the wizard should consider using a sword or bow if they want to just kill people, it doesn't seem worth the violation of causality to do a mere 1d6 damage with a fireball at a mere 50 meters one time when you can likely throw a powder charge farther and for more damage and without manipulating the fabric of reality. instead the wizard should like, teleport in the midst of the opposing army and kill their general with a knife, or less overpoweredly might set his sword to fight on its own accord as if it were held by an invisible man, or illuminate hidden enemies for his allies, or manipulate weather to his advantage. A wizard should be a force-multiplier more than just a better-version-of-a-guy-that-kills-things, a horde of angry drunks clad in steel should always be the best option for 'just killing a bunch of people', a wizard should be doing things that can't be done efficiently with mundane physical means.

-i hate spaceships that have artificial gravity, especially in settings where this technology is mostly unused for any other application (dead space at least gives you a 'stasis module' and 'telekinesis module' that work similarly, whereas Halo simply never explains ship gravity and the humans still use wheels on their vehicles and 5.56 bullets in their guns despite seeming to have better tech available) additionally, i hate spaceships that are overly spacious on the interior, they should be cramped like submarines and it should be impossible to be far enough away from a wall to be stuck free-floating in zero G. The command bridge should never have people standing in it like at a podium like in mass effect, the crew must be strapped into their stations in zero G or maneuvering with safety handles and harness to prevent flying away.

-hover tanks should have to land temporarily to fire accurately, even more stable modern tracked tanks cannot accurately shoot on the move. hovercraft should have helicopter-style landing skids or something similar.

-the taller a mecha is, the longer it's range of combat should be. Mobile Suits should not be sword fighting except when the tactical situation has gone very awry, they have the height to act as a watch-tower and the weaponry size to engage at extreme range, large mecha should basically be using the horizon as cover and making extreme range artillery strike attacks during terrestrial combat. It's ridiculous in the mechwarrior videogames for example to be piloting a 50 or so foot high robot whose gigantic weaponry have less range than a modern infantry assault rifle. the 'long range missiles', the longest range weapon except maybe an ER PPC or ER L Laser, max out at like 900 meters in MW5, while many current day infantry assault rifles have effective ranges of 1500 or more meters. This is a general gripe with all fictitious combat, real warfare in the modern age often means you literally never get a good look at the enemy, mostly shooting at distant silhouettes and movement, whereas in fiction, whether movies or games, the scene must be easily 'readable' and all characters must have an explicit up close presence for the audience.

-additionally mecha should NEVER have their entrance/exit hatch on the front of the torso. In an emergency this will open directly into enemy fire, or worst case you fall on your mech's belly and are stuck. putting the hatch on the top, side, or even the back is a better call, ideally with at least one backup exit.

-most sci fi vehicles should have more than a single crew member. I realize that technology improves over time, but even modern jets often have a separate crewman just for operating the radar equipment while the other flies and controls weapons. for example something the size and resource cost of the Gundam should absolutely never be put in the hands of a single person, AT LEAST put another guy in there as a spotter/support systems operator. it should probably have a direct line to an off-site support staff consisting of military and legal advisors as well.

-Laser weapons should have difficulty with penetration of armor or cover, they heat and explode/melt the surface instead of immediately piercing through. even foliage and leaves should offer temporary cover to lasers until they can burn through.

-i hate when sci-fi appears to grapple with big philosophical topics without really engaging with any specific issues. for example, in the movie The Creator, the message is that the robots are analogous to oppressed people, minorities, and victims of imperialism, but doesn't really engage with any of the actual debates about artificial intelligence. They show robots performing religion as if to say that this makes them more genuinely human, when to me it just says that they accurately mimic our behavior. they could have easily established some kind of specific sci-fi technology to justify this attitude (like Isaac Asimov's positronic brian) but instead they simply do not engage with the ideas at issue in any way and focus on the immediate story and characters with their presuppositions of robot-personhood in mind.

and we definitely don't have enough tanks for all of our tankies to crew...

to be fair death stranding eventually replaced the monster energy cans with the in-universe 'Bridges Energy'

coincidentally i stopped drinking monster right around then lol, norman reedus got me hooked

their faith kind of is psychic mumbo jumbo, they can turn into saints (basically 'greater demons' of The Emperor) and have all kinds of specifically psychic/magical weaponry like a tank that has a pipe organ that kills demons instead of a turret. they also have cyborgs, cowardly sisters who flee in battle get strapped into a killing robo-suit and sent to the frontlines until they die, if they are lucky they leave the pilot unarmored, otherwise they put them into an iron maiden-style pod on the mech. also i think they still have Arco-Flagellants, prisoners who have their limbs replaced with electro-whips and have their forebrains replaced with combat drug dispensers and control mechanisms.

also afaik they do have power armor by default, its not as good as a space marine since the sisters lack the implants that allow space marines to directly control the armor with nerve impulses like their own body, but its about as good as you get as a 'normal person' without being an Inquisitor

the OG space marines are all men not because of in universe sexism but because they are intended by the Emperor to be ultimately disposeable biological war machines, with tightly controlled 'production' dependent on 'baseline humanity'. even the potential to reproduce, or edit themselves to be able to reproduce, would be contrary to this plan. only the Primarchs are meant to lead humanity in any capacity, and even they are meant to fade into obscurity and be disposed of once humanity is in a good position and doesn't need genetically engineered killing machines to protect them from aliens and living emotion monsters.

that being said, after pulling the primaris space marines out of a hat (secret bunker on mars) they could just be like 'wow this machine cult protagonist guy figured out how to make female space marines and due to the recent big warp storm the government can't be bothered to care'

custodes are a different thing however, they are meant to be the emperor's personal companions and unlike the space marines are not meant to be killing machines (even though they are far more formidable in combat than a space marine), they are meant to be intellectuals and philosophers also. they have a lore counterpart in the Sisters of Silence, who are all women but cannot speak due to their anti-psychic abilities being so powerful that their voice would shatter a mortal person's mind (kinda misogynist to make them all silent but they are at least the intellectual equals of custodes and can write/read afaik) but since the custodes and sisters are such personal projects of the emperor (who had a woman scientist help him with all this genetic engineering afaik) they could easily contain among them unique and exceptional individuals.

in conclusion basically the entire point of the 40k setting is that it is so implicitly huge and diverse and detailed that you can plausibly fit a lot of headcanon or new lore into it, there's no real diegetic reason for GW not to introduce female or gender nonconforming space marines or custodes. the emperor is basically dead so he can't stop them, Guilliman is back and allowed Cawl to make the new primaris space marines (such heresy!), and the galaxy and therefore the Imperium is split down the middle by a huge chaos storm with each half led by different guys. Its like the perfect time to introduce non-male space marines and custodes, in fact it would be nice to have non-male models for other factions like the imperial guard, who canonically recruit men and women and even mutants, even the relatively good-guy coded Tau only have the single woman character (Shadowsun) as an actual model you can get.

Sisters of Battle do already exist but they literally have spiky boob-shaped breastplates so idk if i can give them any feminist credit for that.

though given all the crotch-mounted skills and breast spikes in the setting i can only assume that the Imperium isn't as much misogynist as it is entirely sex-negative (it can summon demons due to chaos if you feel too many emotions too strongly)

i wish more games let you mess with the systems and create levels and stuff, i've always wanted to play as the magitek armor in ff15. in fact, in most final fantasy games, i love every aspect of visual design, with the major exception of any and all named/protagonist characters. what can i say, i'm just not into excess zippers/buckles or huge shoes or skimpy dresses, but those goons in sci fi armor in ff13 on are dope as hell

the red jacket guys with funny hats are there to protect against metaphysical threats, the anglo history of imperialism, ethnic cleansing, and death come with the consequence of a lot of very angry dead people. the outlandish hat and jacket serve to ward off and confuse rightfully vengeful spirits, who think they must be in another country with all these tall people with colorful clothes about (British people are short from malnutrition, and would never wear a color without ulterior motives), and the mounted bayonet on the rifle is actually the primary spiritual weapon (guns cannot be used in astral combat, you must use a weapon that physically connects you and your target); the rifle is only there to present an air of modernity and mundanity to the civilians and tourists. they maintain a constant ritual/magic circle around the palace with their rigid robotic routines - routines they cannot, ever, disregard without consequences, even should an innocent child be in the way.

the normal cops are just cops

i'm white as fuck and even i only wear socks inside

i really wish i had a job i could handle, ive had a mental health/autistic/OCD/PTSD breakdown at every job i've had. at one food delivery driver job i had to actively concentrate on not driving into oncoming traffic to end it all, it was exhausting mentally and physically and emotionally. no one at any of the jobs i've had would even talk to me or try to be friends, they were already friends with everyone else there (all highschoolers, younger enough than me that we had nothing in common - which is true for all other age groups as well since i'm an unlikeable weirdo) and ignored me, i just stood silently in the corner when no one needed me to do something in particular. i'm not good enough at math (number dyslexia maybe? i cannot even keep numbers straight during simple addition or subtraction, i need a calculator to do any kind of multiplication or division) to 'lrn2code', i have involuntary psycho-physical responses to social situations (my face and hands get tingly and numb), i'm too ugly to be a youtuber or streamer (i have had bad acne that doesn't go away even though i wash all the time and have tried several treatments, for my entire life, even now into my 30s), and i've just given up on ever making any money with art since i can't force myself to bother creating anything even though i have more free time than anyone could possibly ever need - it's just a draining psychodrama of self-worth and failure. I am already exhausted, i am at my absolute wit's end just trying to 'tread water' in my failperson life arc, it's already nearly impossible for me to pretend like i'm not constantly thinking about suicide so that those around me aren't disturbed or upset. and then my dad uses every chance he gets to shoehorn 'get a job' into conversations and its like 'i am fully aware of how fucked i am and am doing my best to not panic as i ride the conveyor belt to poverty and shortly thereafter death, the amount of times i have been lectured is not the primary obstacle to me finding stable employment' and i'm still better off than like 90% of people because i have a less-toxic-than-average family that doesn't charge me rent (yet) so i feel like a douchebag for even bothering to process my experiences while people out there get genocided and forced into agricultural slave labor and mining at gunpoint. don't even get me started on how impossible it is to even consider any kind of relationship or romance in this context, even if there were people interested in me (which there will never be as i am apparently the Least Relatable Person Ever), i would have no 'space' for them, i would only be a mental and emotional drain on others.

i had to lie down from the thought alone. i tend to pass out when i bleed or have blood work done, i wish i didn't have this hangup because i could really use the money. also they probably don't want blood with THC in it.

cruelty squad NPCs possessed by an evil god

"Yes I will happily reduce understanding art to an engineering problem"

STEMcels tend to find living humans with consciousness to be inconvenient for their mechanistic worldview and seek to design them out of existence

if thinking Nazis are Bad makes you a Tankie then fire up the diesel engine and spin up the drive sprockets because i'm ready to shit in a plastic box in a confined space with 2 to 4 other sweaty men while delivering Uncle Moustache's Red Justice to any bigot death cultist stupid enough to commit to the ideology of throwing infants onto bayonets 'to fight communism' and mass gassing people for having the wrong ethnicity or sexuality or ideas about workplace democracy

i may or may not have had dark thoughts like 'i could exploit all of the racist genocide-supporters in my area for profit and they would love me for it' due to recent unplanned emergency expenses, but i'm probably better off materially and spiritually just being broke for a while and leaving any stocks i may or may not have alone since theres no way i will survive old age otherwise as a chronically unemployed failgremlin

dumb finance question: why do people even become landlords, or invest in real estate at all? everything i read about it says that the stock market always outperforms the housing market

yea i've had people be like 'we can hit them with nukes from anywhere why does ukraine matter' but like having 20 or 30 minutes to detect an incoming ICBM from the ocean (to maybe shoot it down/knock it off course or get everyone into bunkers to launch your own counterattack) is a much better situation in terms of deterrence than having 5 minutes to maybe detect a launch from concealed/rough terrain and have just enough time to let everyone in the nuclear command center/capital city know they are going to die (missile nerds correct me if i'm oversimplifying, ICBMs at long range need to reach near-orbit heights in their flights whereas closer range missiles can be launched to fly somewhat closer to the ground in ways harder to detect with radar or intercept with missiles of your own)

Trains are simply an example of Mustelization, a similar phenomena to Carcinization where life-forms convergently evolve weasel-like traits, instead of evolving crab-like traits.

the long, flexible 'body' and short 'legs' are peak Weasel, way more than Crab. Perhaps trains are a combination of the best features of both, the spinal flexibility and body length from Weasels and multi-legged stability and armored exoskeleton from Crabs.