This post is a skill check for how terminally online you are.

And I passed. Fuck.

OP linked the Politico article (it should be under the title/image on most clients) but having read it, this is one of those rare headlines that’s actually worse in context. As OP mentioned it’s about a recent controversy that was stirred up when Canada’s parliament honored Yaroslav Hunka for fighting against Russia in Ukraine, despite his history as a volunteer for the Waffen-SS (an armed paramilitary group that played a major role in the Nazis seizing power and combat throughout WWII).

The article defends Hunka with the absurd claim that joining the muscle of the Nazi party doesn’t make you a Nazi, maybe you just really didn’t like the USSR! Even if you buy that excuse, the article provides no evidence whatsoever that it actually applies to Hunka, they don’t even attempt to make that case. It then tries to draw an incredibly bad-faith equivalency between the USSR and Nazi Germany (and while I’m not going to say that Stalin was anything resembling a platonic ideal of leadership, there’s a pretty big gulf between the USSR and Nazi fucking Germany). After that we get some nitpicking of the claims against Hunka (bringing up the fact that his unit was never convicted of war crimes, which completely glosses over the fact that his unit was, again, part of the Nazi’s armed paramilitary). It then dismisses any criticism of Hunka or the Canadian Parliament’s ovation for him as people being fooled by Russian propaganda through a series of absurd logical leaps. I think things are best summed up by this little nugget towards the end of the article:

However, any further discussion of the error has to be carefully phrased, as any suggestion that Canada is showing contrition for “honoring a Nazi” would acquiesce to the rewriting of history by Russia and its backers, and concede to allegations of Hunka’s guilt that have no basis in evidence.

Again, they are talking about a volunteer for the Waffen-fucking-SS. The muscle for the Nazi party.

It’s the broad brush that gets me. Going dark has to be a principled choice. DS9 nailed it with the “it’s easy to be a saint in paradise” mentality. The hope in most Trek writing comes from a worldview that most people are inherently good unless their environment forces them to act otherwise (which I would very much say is how the world actually works). When shows go dark using something closer to a “people are inherently evil unless they really fight back against their nature” mentality, it feels bad and rings hollow.

If I had to guess, I’d say it’s because he was drawn by Pen Kenders

The tipoff for me was that no actual graffiti artist is going to write “LOL❗”. That’s out of touch marketer terminology.

“Staring Jeffrey Combs as Brunt”: HELL YEAH!

“Staring Jeffrey Combs as Weyun”: HELL YEAH!

“Staring Jeffrey Combs as Brunt and Weyun”: LET’S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOO!

He (somehow after drawing that comic) works for Sega and has done a couple things, including helping with the redesign of Sonic for the movie, the intro animation for Sonic Mania, and Sonic Mania Adventures.

Full disclaimer: I fell off Overwatch years ago, so this is just stuff I’ve picked up reading general game news, so I’m sure others will be more in-tune with what’s up but here’s an overview, at least:

So first off OW2 as a thing was always kind of bizarre. When it was a battle(dot)net exclusive, it was free if you owned 1, and straight-up automatically replaced OW1 in your library. It behaved like an update would for any other game, and that’s because it kinda just was a big update to the game. Naturally there’s some back and forth about if the gameplay changes are good or not, but the big issue is monetization.

So, when OW1 came out, they explicitly said that all content updates (basically things other than skins) would be free, including new characters, maps, etc. However, since OW2 was a “new” game, there was no risk of legal issues around false advertising if they were to start charging for new characters, which is exactly what they did. New characters now had to be unlocked via the battle pass (or purchased individually, I assume) in order to be playable, which obviously rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. (I vaguely remember this maybe being walked back to some degree after backlash, but I’m not sure one way or the other).

And all of this comes as Activision/Blizzard is going through a genuinely horrific series of scandals around workplace conditions. Like, there’s genuinely too much to list here but famously, one of the OW characters was renamed since he was originally named after an employee who turned out to be a huge sexual abuser. There’s report after report coming out on an almost daily basis, and it’s abundantly clear that management (including infamous shitbag CEO Bobby Kotik) are intentionally trying to cover things up. Genuinely mind-boggling. At this point, it also becomes abundantly clear that ActiBlizz management is using OW as a distraction from the negative press they’re getting, regularly announcing new updates or “progressive” (big air quotes due to the extreme cynical corporate nature) character details within hours of major scandals breaking.

So you’ve got all that on top of the usual toxicity that tends to form around competitive games if left unchecked. It’s kind of a mess.

They’re still pigs. Guinea pigs, but still.

Yeah, the “Fulu” bit was a little on the nose but it was surprisingly good overall. I’m still worried about the rest of the season given the names of the episodes, but hopefully they’re good.

Ginsburg when asked why her interpretation of the constitution included fucking over native Americans.

Man, that first season of Jessica Jones was great. Uncomfortable as hell but great.

Bad metaphor. Unlike corporations, trans people are valid.

Bow kid from A Hat in Time (excellent game, highly recommend if you like platformers).

Yup, this is extremely real. I’ve literally seen conservative carpenters do a political 180 when they saw a bunch of socialists (including a lot of LGBTQ+ folks) be the ones to show up and fight alongside them when they went on strike. Best way to get people to stop blaming the scapegoat of the week is to point to what the actual problem is.

Bnuy

I’m not the first to say it, but “Reddit and removing a feature without a replacement for it, name a more classic combination.”

But yeah it’s probably tied in to this “compensation for karma/engagement” scheme they’ve been talking about, which I almost guarantee is going to be some NFT/crypto scam.

Yep, they’re nonbinary. And also they’re really fucking good at fighting games.

Gavlan’s the wheel deal.

Honestly not my experience in the real world. Most people very much want more control over their workplaces and lives in general. And a lot of conservatives do have accurate critiques of neoliberal parties like the Dems. It’s just a matter of giving them a real option to improve things so they don’t get misled into blaming the scapegoat of the week.

Obviously the internet is a different story, but “terminally online people love to argue forever” isn’t unique to political leanings.