!builtfor BAC

!Meowr !r-slurs !neurodivergents !autism

Unrelated, here's the author:

I recently polled my people and this is what they wanted me to write about. Fortunately I can use declassified CIA documents for most of my research.

There were multiple huge crises in the Middle East in 1958 that seemed like they were going to lead the world into war. There was even a major deployment of US troops there. But you never hear about them. Why? Because there wasn't a war. I'm going to tell you some stories about what scared the heck out of everyone in the USA and the Middle East but they managed to get it under control. Think of it as the anti-Chernobyl.

Buddy Holly - Peggy Sue. Yeah, those were the days.

Syria

The first big crisis of the year, the one that got everything rolling, was Syria's admission to the United Arab Republic. Or to say it another way, Syria being annexed by Egypt. Every state in the region and the superpowers had been expecting something like this to happen eventually since World War II. Now it seemed that the balance of power had been overturned and all of the pent-up conflicts in the Middle East were about to blow up.

I'm guessing it wasn't really a 99.99% vote in favor of it because Nasser had grave misgivings about this and could barely be persuaded to.

Syria was the most failed "failed state" that you could imagine. It owes its existence to the French demand at the end of World War I that after all their sacrifices they deserved their own chunk of the Ottoman Empire. In 1946 it gained its independence but it didn't have much of a national identity other than being the land that France used to own. It was widely expected that it would soon be absorbed into a larger Arab state with Iraq and Jordan. But for extremely complicated reasons this didn't happen and little Syria survived.

Notice how everything he mentions being in "Syria" is in what we call "Lebanon" now.

Soon it wished it hadn't survived. After independence Syria had about one successful coup every two years and countless failed ones. By 1958 most of the factions had been purged from political life and it was Ba'athists who held a tenuous grip on power. They couldn't even trust their fellow Ba'athists, and worse, the Communists were becoming dangerously powerful. And nobody likes a commie. In order to make sure they didn't seize control, in January 1958 Syria's leaders came up with a creative strategy: Become part of Egypt.

One of the main factions that briefly held power there in the early 1950s was the batshit crazy SSNP. I heard the British were supporting them back then.

Egypt

This was pretty crazy but not as crazy as it sounds. There was a strong desire across the region to unite into one Arab nation. What is the heart of the Arab nation? Egypt. And its leader Nasser was the only one who could do this. Two years earlier in the Suez Crisis, Eisenhower ordered Britain and France back into their cucksheds and forbid them to invade other countries anymore. But Arabs saw this as a great victory where Nasser stood up to the colonial powers and defeated them, which at least had a kernel of truth to it. Many people across all the Arab world considered him to be their leader and were annoyed that their country hadn't joined him yet.

Some of the most extreme cope I've ever seen. British troops withdrawing in humiliation from Egypt under American orders, never to return.

The only problem is, how do you get Nasser onboard? He wants to to unify the Arabs, but he doesn't want to start out by being responsible for this basket case country that doesn't have its shit together. Eventually he agrees on a few conditions: The Syrian people have to vote for him. All political parties will be dissolved. The army will get out of politics.

The conservative monarchies are not about to take this lying down. The Saudis try to arrange a coup before unification can happen, but it is terribly inept. The King of Iraq, who kinda hoped he was gonna be the one to annex Syria and lead the Arab world, proposes merging with Jordan. It's another pro-British monarchy ruled by his brother so it makes sense in these dangerous times. The problem is, the Saudis are afraid of Nasser but they're also afraid of Iraq and Jordan getting too powerful, so they have trouble coordinating a response.

This is what the government of Iraq was like in the 1950s. I wonder what will happen to them...

The UAR

On February 22 Egypt and Syria join together as the United Arab Republic.

• The kings of Iraq and Jordan are worried that this will lead the many Nasserists among their own people to overthrow them.

• King of Saudi Arabia is too busy dealing with getting overthrown by his brother to do much.

• President Chamoun of Lebanon is extremely alarmed. The domestic situation is already really screwed up and the last thing he needs is Nasserists on 80% of the country's border.

• Israel doesn't really care since both Egypt and Syria are already hostile to them. Their only problem is if Iraq and Jordan merge because Iraq would be the senior partner and they are not fans of the whole Zionism thing.

• The British are desperate to keep alive the Arab monarchies they set up after WWI. Their whole imperial plan was to build these up and now they only have Iraq and Jordan left.

• The USA is ambivalent. Nasser is hard to deal with, but at least he kept the commies out of the region.

• The Soviets are probably as mad as Boris Badenov when one of his plots fails.

Epilogue

Nasser soon sends Egyptians to take over key government positions away from Syria. The Ba'athists are understandably butthurt as they're the ones who invited the Egyptians to come and now they're getting pushed out of power and having their newspapers shut down. The Egyptians probably figure that if these people are so incapable of running their own lives that they ask us to take over their country, they can't be trusted in leadership roles. There's also less obvious divisions, like business people being butthurt about how the Egyptians don't understand that their economy is different. These tensions were already obviously before the year was out. In 1961, a coup topples the Egyptians. Like so many others who tried to control Syria in this era, they lasted about two years.

Damascus, 1950s. According to some redditor.

Holy shit it is bleak. There are three Harry Potter books in there and two Hunger Games books in there in the top 10 best books.

Then you compare it to the best books of the 20th century ( still one harry potter book in there in top 10 but they are still doing way better than the 21st century.

How did the quality of the "greatest" works fall down so quickly. It is like humanity has forgotten how to write anything with any depth anymore and it is all at the level of quality of teenage story writing.

Is it simply over for the writing genre as a whole or is it that the best quality writing is actually no longer being recognized as the best because it didn't sell enough copies nor got enough appreciation from writing critics, or is it that there is a complete disconnect between what the average person considers enjoyable writing and what is considered actually good high brow writing?

I think it is a shift in medium where all the people looking for depth and high quality in their literary works moved on to movies and video games instead and all who are still hanging around the writing genre are those who will pick a random niche and the general books based on lowest common denominator which is teenage angst or teenage wonderment slop.

What this means is that the writing genre is going to keep going further down in quality over time and we need to look at the possible extinction of reading one day if everything turns out to be possible to be done by video because people are clearly getting worse at appreciating literature while getting a whole lot better at their expectations and appreciation of better video entertainment content.

Conclusion:

In terms of ease of entry into the writing department this is the easiest time period. In terms of making money from it, likely one of the harder time periods. We can expect the quality of writing meant for general audiences to have reached the lowest floor and never rise above it again this generation. The Zoom zooms are too r-slurred when it comes to quality writing in just a book.

Also if you still read Harry Potter books, READ ANOTHER BOOK!

BREAKING: Democrats just elected David Hogg to be the Vice Chair of the DNC.

Hogg is touted as their face of masculinity to help them regain the young male voters they lost in the 2024 election.

I HONESTLY CAN'T BELIEVE IT! pic.twitter.com/MS4bV0fv79

— George (@BehizyTweets) February 2, 2025

DOWNMARSEY THIS POST

Florence Spurling is a moderately popular knitwear designer who made her Scout Shawl pattern in 2021. It uses different color work designs "patchworked" together to form a shawl.

Earlier this month a smaller designer named Susan Chin released her Quilt Star Scarf pattern. It has a similar shape and patchwork construction to Spurling's design.

This has lead people to accuse Chin of plagiarism, which Spurling addressed in an instagram post see above and below

(I can't link to the post because Spurling later deleted it)

The scarves obviously have some similarities, but they also have some differences. Here's a list of what's the same and what's different that someone else wrote, speaking of plagiarism :

Both objects use Intarsia and Fair Isle/Stranded colorwork.

Both patterns have multiple blocks in different motifs, joined together as the finished object is worked.

Both patterns have colorwork charts. (Scout > Shawl is in full color; Quilt Star is in greyscale)

The border is not indicated on either pattern's chart.

Suggested Gauge for the two patterns; Scout Shawl suggests 28sts x 30rows for 10cm, using 3.5mm needles. Quilt Star suggests 28sts x 27 rows for 10cm using 2.5mm or 3mm needles.

Finished size for Scout Shawl is 181cm, 37cm deep

Finished size for Quilt Star is 150cm, 35cm deep

Scout Shawl relies on 5 colors and makes suggestions as to the color contrast if you don't use the same palette as the pattern. Color 1 is the garter stitch border.

Quilt Star relies on 8 colors. No contrast is suggested, only the colors recommended in the original pattern. Color 8 is the 1x1 rib border.

At least one motif in Scout uses 3 colors.

Each motif in Quilt uses no more than 2 colors.

Cast on is 8 stitches for Scout.

Cast on is 4 stitches for Quilt.

All sections on Scout meet at 90 degree angles.

Some sections on Quilt meet at diagonals, at ~45deg ish.

Scout has 10 distinct blocks and patterns.

Quilt has 7 (?) distinct patterns. There seems to be an error in the charts. I'm not sure my count is correct based on the charts alone. But it is certainly fewer.

Increases on Scout are M1L, Decreases are k2tog

Increases on Quilt are kfb, decreases are k2tog.

Scout's finishing has no special bind off for the remaining 8 stitches.

Quilt uses a seamed bind off for the 6 remaining stitches.

Motifs for Scout appear to be floral.

Motifs for Quilt appear to be star-them

Source

VERDICT: they're different patterns.

This didn't stop people from stirring shit, because obviously you need to have an MFA to be inspired by patchwork, and only one person is allowed to be inspired by a thing.

People (Spurling suck ups) went on social media to b-word, including leaving comments on the Ravelry page for Chin's scarf. (Ravelry is like letterboxd for knitting and crochet, and also a platform that many designers use to sell their patterns)

Source, but you need a Ravelry account to view

This lead to Chin taking the pattern down for sale. Satisfied with the results, Spurling deleted her post . And so ends another chapter in the ongoing saga of insecure designers accusing others of plagiarism.

A few I remember from the last year:

A designer put out merch with "Knit Club" on a baseball caps. Well some other pattern designer has a community by that unique name and also has baseball caps merch (but none that actually say "Knit Club"

Source

"Only I'm allowed to be copy 1950s dresses!"

Source

"omg why are you so obsessed with me, stop copying me" macrame. Except her product looks like something posted earlier by someone else on TikTok. (If they look similar it's because there's only so much shit you can make with macrame and there's probably patterns for something like this in a book from the 70s)

Source

One French company accused another French company of copying their, um… tailor clappers, test squares and pointer cowtools (these are pretty common cowtools that have existed for a long time, this like Milwaukee accusing Makita of stealing their idea of the hammer)

Source

I forgot to add that while I agree with most of the commenters on the craft snark thread, look at this b-word trying to turn it into a race thing

source

its over

!animalposters

https://www.yahoo.com/news/ny-judge-resigns-claiming-defendants-010731112.html

In stunning leaked pictures from Fauci's home lab we can see he has implanted assess in to a monkey to breed Coronaaids.

In another leaked photo he implanted a babies head on to a Beaver and then made it watch CNN so it turned in to a demon.

So my wife (29f) and i (28m) have been together with the exception of a long break when we were 18 and 19 for 10 years. (She left me for another guy) and every year or two since we've been back together i keep finding things on her phone. The first was a fetlife account where she was chatting with multiple men. The second was a coworker she was speaking explicitly with. Third she asked a random neighbor out for coffee in our apartment complex in a flirting manner. And finally this. I found nudes of her that I'd never seen before, and looked in the deleted pictures on her phone and found pictures of another man's nudes.

We've had some rough patched with my finances and depression as well as hers. I must admit I was feeling sexually frustrated last year and went to a "massage parlor" but didn't go through with the end part. And she found out. She's insists that nothing has become physical any of these times and would leave if she were going to go through with it, because she did when thats what she wanted.

Our relationship is great except for this horrible bi annual ritual of her seeking attention. She makes the money In the relationship and I'm very limited in my capacity to support myself for any sort of trial separation. I don't want to leave. I love her. But I feel I need to advocate for myself despite my own wrongdoings. I feel so trapped and hopeless.

Came across this amazing post. But what's even funnier is if you visit his profile and see the only other post he's made:

This might be the dumbest man on Earth.

Oh, he's from Portland? She's not cheating on him; he's just unknowingly in a poly relationship.

Intro

Meet WᴏbblierTube733, Transformers enjoyer, Bastille superfan (The shitty Coldplaycore band, not the prison), and possible TIM

How it's going:

r/SubredditDrama: I believe that a popular subreddit for my local community has been secretly infiltrated by neo-Nazis.

Right off the bat, I'm going to say that I am a queer punk socialist who has a personal stake in preventing Nazism from ever returning, so please understand that you do not have to agree with my political views and I don't expect you to (except fuck Nazis).

Solid opener! Let's see how this goes

My favorite type of drama is when someone posts something that absolutely doesn't fit in this sub and then spends an hour arguing with everyone and suggesting they're Nazi sympathizers.

… Username checks out? Like why are you setting me up to dunk on you if you're not a sympathizer?

This thread goes on and on and on, it's worth a read

Cut the histrionics and stop looking for nazi conspiracies behind ever mod decision you disagree with. Frankly, spend less time on the internet picking fights over things that probably didn't happen and I suspect you'll be a lot happier.

[Deleted]

Boo!

okay, we're at 100 reports for this, sorry

A low IQ zoomer spergout doesn't warrant an effortpost on its own, but where there is ruin there is hope for a treasure

How it Started

What's up with the Nazi themed restaurant 'Bier Stube' in Frankfort?

tl;dr: Chicagoland German restaurant displays some of the wrong type of German ephemera. The whole thread is pretty good, lots of and over toy trains with the mark of the beast

This was a pretty good drama eruption that we missed because the Chicago chapter of rdrama is slacking and nobody posts drama here anymore anyway, but I digress.

One day later, a hapless normie posts a sensible take (never do this) and kicks the hornets' nest in the process.

‌

As an aside, there are some open reportmaxxing opportunities in this thread if you're unbelievably boring into that type of thing

‌

I believe the post about Bier Stube has misrepresented the restaurant

This post gets dogpiled by nazi hunters and shitty german pub enjoyers alike, and OP is quickly buckbroken into submission.

I found the drama in this post more tedious than the previous one, but your mileage may vary. My main takeaway is that we need to kill all the zoomers and start over.

Most notably, this is where the hero of this story makes his first appearance.

I've never heard of this business before your post yesterday; but as somebody who has worked in the restaurant industry in Chicago, I'm actually 100% certain that if the owners are visibly displaying Nazi memorabilia then this place is absolutely a pro-Nazi establishment and they deserve to be publicly shamed. Stay safe.

There are also some reportmaxxing opportunities in this thread

‌

SRDine gaywads also got in on this action with their own post about it

I Did Nazi this Coming

The r/chicagosuburbs janitards sticky a sneedpost about the recent spat of sneedposts, warning users not to brigade or threaten violence, etc etc

This is normal jannie stuff, but it was extremely dramatic. There are two separate themes to focus on:

1. Wailing and gnashing of teeth from deranged redditors personally affected by the apparent invasion of suburban Illinois from agents of the third reich. It's the same shit you see in any local sub so I'm not going to waste time on it.

2. The OP of the second bierstube post defending their honor. This also bleeds into the SRD thread I linked in the last section and leads to some very entertaining threads between a self-described maniaposter and legions of God's stupidest soldiers.

The post also seems to have struck a chord with our hero, who makes an impassioned plea to stamp out the nazi.

I was born in Chicago. I've lived my whole life growing up around here. There are a couple of issues being conflated here IMO.

There are a lotta fucking Nazis living in this place, and they need to be called out. There is no reason to associate your business or your person with the swastika, or "WWII-era German history". Posts calling them out are okay within reason (see examples 2 & 3).

Example 1 is a nazi troll. I'm not sure if they're some kid from the north shore looking for attention, or a Russian bot, or just one of the owners trying to astroturf, but that post was rightfully locked down.

Example 4 is a news story. I'm personally (probably) safe, but the a story about rich kid sociopaths from NT or GBN going out and committing hate-crimes is alarming, and should not be dismissed. Hopefully discussions about those stories can be productive and lead to positive changes for everyone involved.

I think that we should not be advocating for violence against anyone, nor do I even particularly advocate in favor of bullying. But if you're "just asking questions" over and over about "how much hitler is too much hitler" because you "wanna start a discourse," you deserve to be ridiculed and mocked on the internet.

But also ban these Nazis every time they show up, please. I can't fucking stand them.

The jannies ignore him, but that's okay. /u/WobblierTube733 is a fucking loser living in Chicago in the winter, so he has plenty of time on his greasy impoverished hands to start hunting these dastardly nazis he just found.

(Also, because there's no point in being detail oriented if you don't draw attention to it in a self-congratulatory way, please note that this is the only place where I use his full username with regular characters so that he'll immediately see the meanest thing I say about him in this post if he follows the crosstalk link and Ctrl+Fs it.)

We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, yada yada

Wᴏbbly sets out to destroy nazis where they live: in the subreddits for second-rate public universities.

/r/wsu: Why is this subreddit moderated by a Nazi apologist?

I just went through that user's history. Other than your little subreddit drama, they haven't talked about Nazis, racism, or white supremacy at all. They have only talked about it in the context of some restaurant that hardly anyone knows or cares about. So no, their post history isn't full of gems like this.

You're not a WSU alum and you have no vested interest in the perception of our school other than your sad little axe to grind with a mod that's 8th on the list. I don't care whether they come or go but you can GTFO.

I do have a problem with alumni from your school spreading Nazi apologism on the internet. It's weird telling that you would feel more passionately about telling me to GTFO then you do about a Nazi moderating your subreddit and being affiliated with your school.

Ahhh, the ole "anyone who doesn't agree with me is a Nazi!"

How do you expect people to engage with this argument? You sound like a Nazi who feels called out.

E: lol

I have no idea what the intended gotcha is in this image, but whatever

Hi as a WSU student I want to apologize for how these other commenters treated you. I also want us both to remember that this subreddit is only the WSU students who use reddit regularly, not the majority of the university.

WSU is in a small town in a conservative area with a majority of white students and faculty. There are racists, xenophobes, and homophobes here. They are not the majority of students by any means. But because of the majority-ness of the whiteness, straightness, and cisness here, they are allowed to get away with a lot more than would be allowed at a different university in a different area. I love this school and have found a wonderful and large community of other students and faculty that have my back and that are anti-racist/anti_phobic, so I haven't experienced many issues here. But ignoring the problems of a PWI and brushing them off is also stupid.

OP replies to this one and the thread is funny, but it's all the way down so I'm omitting it for the sake of brevity.

Spurned by the retarded WSU alums (tautology), he tries taking the fight back to the mean streets of Shitcago suburbs with a series of posts calling out the something that everyone who actually cares already knew about.

/r/wilmette: Wilmette is planning to spend almost $50,000,000 on building a new police station.

/r/chicagosuburbs: Wilmette is planning to spend almost $50,000,000 on building a new police station.

This one got removed. There's not much that's interesting in these besides more hysterical from OP. He gets progressively more upset as commenters pooh pooh him and it's pretty funny.

One highlight:

You must be fun at parties.

t. Someone who doesn't get invited to parties

‌

Okay fine, one more highlight:

I'm a queer punk socialist. You're a neoliberal HOA member. What exactly do you mean by "our side"?

‌

The battle is lost when OP gets banned for surplus autism , but the war isn't over

/r/ChicagoMinusNazis

Why Did I make this Sub?

I got banned from ChicagoSuburbs for arguing with neo-Nazis, so I made this sub instead. I don't know or care how to moderate a subreddit, but I fucking hate Nazis and I'll be damned if I let them ruin my city/country/world. Abide by normal Reddit rules, and report neo-Nazis so that together, we can keep this community welcome and exciting for everyone.

Mission: To foster a more perfect and inclusive environment for everyone who lives in Chicago and the surrounding areas. To be a beacon for freedom, unity and goodwill amongst all.

Rules:

NO NAZIS. NO FASCISTS. If you read those four words and feel like those are draconian statements, this is not the subreddit for you.

[Insert all of Reddiquette here] You know what the rest of the rules are. If you have any concerns, or wish to flesh out a specific, please feel free to comment here, or post, or DM me. I do not care if this subreddit dies with no members, or if it flourishes into an expansive community. But if you are interested, join me, and we can build it together. :)

>0 Comments

>3 Subscribers

Finale: Full Circle

This goofball raged so hard that he ascended

r/conspiracy: I believe that a popular subreddit for my local community has been secretly infiltrated by neo-Nazis.

>0 Comments

>[Removed]

‌

Q: Where do you go when the conspiratards ignore you?

A: Back to the beginning

ITT hysteria over food shortages, mocking Americans wanting good wages and wanting the brown wage slaves back in the fields

Theres more in the thread

I'm not used to liberal spaces anymore its weird to see them all mocking Americans for wanting money, advocating for CA separating and valuing illegal immigrants so much.

Personally I only think there will be prices increases on specific crops for now, and if Trump doesn't pull back farmers will just purchase automated picking machines they only didn't before because mexicans were that cheap

Darklands Series

1 - Darklands LP Part I

2 - Darklands LP Part II: Charles Bronson Edition

3 - Darklands LP III: Nuns and Coins

4 - Darklands LP Ep IV: Introduction to Equipment & Combat

5 - Darklands LP Part V: We finally briefly go out into the dark lands

6 - Darklands LP VI: We actually start a quest!

7 - Darklands LP VII: We reach our destination

8 - Darklands LP VIII: Raubritter confrontation & learning how combat works

9 - Darklands LP IX: I'm not giving you my goddarn alchemical materials

10 - Darklands LP X: We actually do some alchemy!

11 - Darklands LP XI: The Main Plot

12 - Darklands LP XII: Halloween Edition

13 - Darklands LP XIII: Detour

Episode XIV

We're headed toward Denmark to attack the Fortress Monastery, but we're going to run into a few things along the way.

The Castle

I stop by a castle. Let's see what's going on here. (I love the artwork in this game so much it's unreal.)

Well I can't let this continue. I ain't Scheherazade but let's see if I can convince this wicked lord to change his evil ways.

These peepeeheads won't even let me in to confront him!

I guess we're gonna have to do this the hard way.

Note that there are other saints who can get you up there in different ways. Like levitation.

The castle guards like using their bows. Fine. I'll just shoot back. My guys need some practice.

Since we're in a fairly large castle, we go into non-combat mode until the next time one of them sees us. Time to search the place. These fights get kind of annoying because only one person can go through a doorway at a time. So you have to wait your first guy to get through before you send your second. But this will be of tactical importance in certain situations, like in the Fortress Monastery.

This is the main gate. If we had blasted our way through with a potion we would had have started out here. We could also retreat through it if we wanted to, but we're doing fine.

Frick this. I've searched almost every room and I can't find the castle lord. I'm getting bored. (This virtually never happens btw, this is just incredibly bad luck.) I'm out of here.

Back on the road. I run into another one of those corrupt Dominican friars peddling indulgences. Remember how last time I had St. Dominic himself set him straight? This time I'll use another saint, one who is against church corruption in general.

It's incredible how much content there is in this game. I'm still finding new stuff that I've never seen before.

A Mid-game Quest

Uh oh. WTF is going on here? Suddenly the normal travel music is replaced by something really ominous.

It's probably some MMO tard who likes flying around on dragons in Guild Wars 2 or whatever.

Goddammit this is gonna cost me so much.

old hags cackle as they stuff carrion into a filthy leather sack

That's just an ordinary thing you see every day in Portland.

Pagans. I hate these guys... er... girls.

Dammit! I'll definitely need to go replace my equipment after this.

This is what happens when you piss off /r/witches_vs_patriarchy.

Notice how many choices this game gives you when you run into a problem.

Finally we found him. I think we've got him now.

I try to reason with the dragon. I doubt this will work as dragons are satanic beings. But who knows? Maybe they just got a bad rap?

I knew it. Okay, we're dealing with a dragon here so when combat starts it's time for everyone to take a Flamewall potion for protection. Also Hardarmor and Strongedge to improve the weapons of Sasha and Nathan. (Since Yuna and I use impact weapons we would need Greatpower instead and somehow I neglected to make any of those.)

Just to make sure we're protected from flames I also implore St. Polycarp for some help. (He was burned at the stake for refusing to burn incense for the Roman Emperor.)

Or as we call him in Marseyese:

I have everyone take a missile shot and then just charge this bastard.

Redactor is getting the heck beaten out of him. Better take an Essence o' Grace potion just to be sure he isn't killed. And a New Wind to restore some endurance since he was about to fall. That 19 point hit must be Nathan using his alchemically enhanced halberd. Normally it's not great at penetration, but with Strongedge it is and it inflicts massive damage.

We cut through him pretty fast. I dunno if that's a bug or we're really that good. I guess I did do everything possible to prepare for fighting a dragon. St. Polycarp especially gives you a huge advantage. Just pretend that was a really epic fight.

Fame 216: Good reputation!

We're gonna have to stop singing this song now:

And we've got 100 florins now if we need to buy anything.

Meta

Next time I really will go to the Fortress Monastery. I just wanted you to see one of the more complex mid-game quests, but it was a bit disappointing. There's a lot more dragon-related encounters you can have while searching for it. We just happened to run into him early.

I had to go all the way from Bohemia to the outskirts of Koln to bring this quest to you. The things I do for you people.

@kaamrev

The embargo for reviews of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 has lifted. We don't have a review on the site here at Polygon. This is not an editorial decision; we had hoped to review the game. On Jan. 2, Polygon requested a code for Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 from Warhorse Studios, the studio behind the game, and received no response. On Jan. 7, we reached out to the PR firm working with Warhorse, who told us they were "not able to provide access. We'll let you know if this changes." We reached out to parent company Plaion on Jan. 9 as well — no response. On Jan. 10, we saw our peers publishing early previews for the game. We re-upped our request and were again told we would not be given access.

This was very unusual. But this was the situation that transpired with Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. It can be difficult to tell when a studio's decision to withhold a code from a publication is intentional and personal. That's due in part to the fact that the process for getting advance review codes is about as rote and administrative as it gets. Sometimes, PR firms working for studios send us codes unsolicited in hopes we'll cover the game in question. Other times, we request codes from the game's representatives ourselves, several weeks ahead of the release date, and we get those codes when and if they are available.

As part of our final request for code on Jan. 10, Polygon's editor-in-chief Chris Plante contacted Plaion and Warhorse's PR firm to get a comment as to why we were denied advance access to the game. He stressed in his message that our hope is that this decision wasn't due to any personal bias against Polygon, nor motivated by any of our previous coverage of games made by Warhorse or any other. In short, we wanted to know: Was Polygon being blacklisted?

On Jan. 10, we did receive a response to this request stating that we could get one code for the game on launch day, Feb. 4. We did not receive any clarification as to how this decision was made. Nor did we receive the requested clarification on why the developers of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 declined to provide Polygon access to the game.

Because we will not receive access to this game until its public release, our review is nonetheless forthcoming but will not be published in time for its release date. We look forward to telling you more about this game in the weeks to come.

KIA Gloats

And now, for the why. From Charlie Hall's review (12 February 2018)

https://archive.is/WqcZl

"The game is also not without its controversies. Warhorse is a team of more than 150 people, but the game's creative director has gone out of his way to rationalize his support of G*merGate, a loosely knit hate group that has devoted time to harassing women, people of color and journ*lists in the past. So outspoken is the studio's leadership on cultural issues that they have found it necessary to work with a German outlet to publish anti-fascist, anti-sexist and anti-racist statements prior to their game's launch."

Thank you for that completely unnecessary bank-shot that turned a poor review into a politically motivated hit piece. And you wonder why they weren't lining up for more of that?

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/1igwh0w/polygon_whines_about_not_getting_prerelease_code/

!g*mers !chuds @kaamrev its G*MER GATE REVENGE TIME!

Lex Fridman: ''I gave Zelensky every single chance to say a kind word about Putin''

Who the fuck do you think you are dude https://t.co/N6bgSF2ea4

— Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 (@DrewPavlou) January 19, 2025

https://old.reddit.com/r/JoeRogan/comments/1hueys4/lex_fridmans_3_hour_interview_with_zelenskyy_just/

Redditors wrote how the interview was based how cool it was for Zelenskyy to swear and telling he hates every Russian (to an Russian) and Russian language

Kellogg has cancelled his visit to Ukraine after this genius interview since Zelenskyy obviously did this interview not for burger not for Russian and not for most Ukrainian but for specific far right Ukrainians that are 30% of the population. Zelenskyy is betting on them. Huge chunk including Zelenskyy and his team are Russian speaking, lex even mentioned that before the interview Zelenskyy was speaking Russian.

This how Redditors were criticising lex

Please. Lex's conversation with Zelenskyy was such a bait. Zelenskyy would touch on so many interesting topics and lex would just ignore what he says and go back to peace and love, Trump loves his country, why do you admire Elon? Weak butt questions. You have a world leader in front of you who is at war, a very rare position, and the best question you can muster is love and peace?

He should had asked where are the f16, 500+ billions ? Why Ukraine launching stupid butt operation ? Why Ukraine didn't managed to liberate a single town since November 2022, despite getting absolutely everything they asked in 2022 ? Why in 2023 September he was saying Ukraine will liberate 2 cities by end of the year ?

@duck you see when I am saying something I can always back it up.

Why it took over a year to fire Reznikov when in 2022 burgers were saying he is corrupt please fire him.

Why he fired Zaluzhnyy by saying Zaluzhnyy wants lower the mobilisation age and Ukraine doesn't need it to after firing Zaluzhnyy he lowers the mobilisation age ?

There is like shit tons of questions that could be asked to Zelensky but I bet Redditors wouldn't like those questions.

Lex is a conservative, a Russian Jew.

I happen to believe in God, for which I have substantial personal evidence to support my belief, but it still requires faith. So I am a human, on earth and I get to do amazing things, all because of God, the creator of the universe and everything in it.

His quote.

What is important ti conservatives? Love for good and people then selfs are stupid and without God or other kind of authority guidance humans would just be animals so they have concept of moral.

Libs believe in freedom, individualism, rights, tolerance and rationalism. So if you give people freedom they then self will do good without need of God.

So you see, God is important to this guy and love your neighbor is very important concept in abramic religion.

So it wasn't smart for Zelenskyy to say frick the neighbor to such guy.

In regards to the "conservative podcasts" thing, though (firstly lol to identifying Lex's show as conservative), I think Lex is the goldmine in terms of being both passive and uninformed. The ideal conservative interlocutor for Zelensky should be someone exactly like that, and I think he could improve his rhetoric by making use of that weakness through pausing to let the other person answer his questions. I noticed multiple instances in the podcast where it would've benefitted Zelensky more to let Lex respond to something he asked, because the narrow scope of a question forces an uninformed opponent to expose their ideological weakness. When you do a broad ramble covering an array of topics it may be a strength if your goal is to obfuscate, but it's a weakness if it's your opponent's goal to obfuscate. Lex's bias in that conversation was clear but so was his inability to defend any points, so I almost wish Zelensky had shifted his expectations of Lex downwards so his questions, rather than being rhetorical with the implicit understanding that he and his audience are smart enough to agree with the answer, were real questions Lex had to vocally grapple with. In that sense I hope that if Zelensky does more combative media appearances, regardless of how far-right the interviewer is, they have a similar level of temperament to Lex Fridman. Thus ends my analysis.

Redditors legit thought it was good interview

https://old.reddit.com/r/Destiny/comments/1hvsfnr/destiny_shot_his_shot_at_a_chance_of_interviewing/

I would much rather have Zelensky on Rogan than Destiny tbh. People need to remember conservatives only care about what Trump thinks on an issue, but getting the psuedo-intellectual tech centrist audiences that people like Rogan,Williamson, Bilyeu and even Piers has would be way more impactful.

Rogan rejected it because it's now worth it could lead to some unnecessary drama. He did suggested he could talk to Putin because in such case they will spend most time talking about mma without random swearing and emotional pitches.

Like can you name another leader in las 30 years that was swearing in interviews ?

Syrian new leader is more professional than Zelenskyy for frick sake.

This idiot justifies Putin!!! on video Zaporizhzhia city Ukraine in 2025 pic.twitter.com/6edUlFcsLd

— Andrew (@kyivukraine2024) January 20, 2025

jfl imagine showing an industrial area getting hit

He sat there for the first 20 minutes telling Zelensky to speak Russian...the language of the country that is killing his people....Pretty clear Lex is a Russian asset

— Jenny 🇨🇦 (@shindig101) January 20, 2025

Somehow absolutely vast majority of local Ukrainian refugees speaking Russian

Elon prob encouraged him to push this narrative in an attempt to "character assinate" Zelensky in the public eye — after what was a successful interview for Zelensky. This method of personal attack is a classic Elon tactic.

— Michael Hickin (@hickinmichael) January 20, 2025

So Elon set a trap to Zelenskyy and Zelenskyy wildly opened his bussy for it ?

If someone killed someone close to Lex Fridman, I'm curious how Fridman would use his chances?

— Igor Skalik (@igor_skalik) January 20, 2025

Literally nobody got killed in Ukrainian elite circle

Klitchko sons that are 25+ are chilling in Germany getting ready to lead later Ukrainian gov

Oh there is an extended edit

The full 4 min of this diatribe is even worse. Lex is preparing the ground for his Putin interview release. https://t.co/SvJNR3JrFH

— Oleg Kostour 🇺🇦🇨🇦🇺🇸 (@OlegKostour) January 20, 2025

Dude, stop calling Ukrainians bots @lexfridman.

Millions of us dislike you for what you’ve said.

We don’t want to hear hogwash Kremlin propaganda in English.

Anyone who goes to the Kremlin on friendly terms is a traitor to America.

Stop the charade and admit you love Russia. https://t.co/BZcPeRs5xz pic.twitter.com/fuI7akJ7xR

— Oleg Kostour 🇺🇦🇨🇦🇺🇸 (@OlegKostour) January 19, 2025

Nooo you can't attack the greatest leader of all the time

TLDR: it's bad etiquette for politicians of that calibre to swear

The following 4 years will be a great teaching opportunity for those who will be self-aware enough to swim out of the conspiracy whirlpool, and actually realize that the prices of everything will double because of their own credulity that made them vote for a scam artist, who promised to stop inflation by implementing one of the origins of inflation, namely tarrifs. They will have to endure through many inconvieniences, like when they step into the human feces on the street that the saar who just took their job shat there, the same saar that was just invited in by Trump, when our dumbass with the shitty boots thought he was voting for the orange saviour who promised to get rid of all the undesirable aliens, and not bring even more in. And when our hero won't even have to worry about which game franchise's new entry he won't buy that the blue haired DEI pronoun lady ruined, because he will have to scour the garbage cans for food, because even food he won't be able to afford. It all will be a struggle and hard confrontation with your past guilible self, I hope you will be capable of it.

Please destroy reddit inshallah

https://old.reddit.com/r/GenZ/comments/1ik40gv/genz_are_pretty_pro_2a/