u/Tiny_Celebration_262

1. Viscous
   1. Cursed Relic: put it on anybody that Viscous has Cubed and they will get unCubed (including Viscous)
   2. Indom: fuck puddle punch
   3. Juggernaut: fuck puddle punch (and splatter)
   4. Enduring Speed: a cheaper option in lane for the slow in his splooge
2. Pro and Skill
   1. NOT SLOWING HEX. STOP BUYING IT: the burrow IS NOT A MOVEMENT ABILITY because Yoshi loves his little piggie and slows don't touch it
   2. Counterspell: for the ult
   3. Debuff reducer: They're all about nerfing you as hard as they can before they diddle you, so make sure they have as small a window as possible
   4. Focus Lens: their fatass hitbox takes so much damage that the extra percentage that they take at the end of the duration can get you (and has gotten me, many times) a free kill
   5. Knockdown: Slap it on them while they're still at a distance so they can't close the gap the way they want
3. Apollo
   1. Slowing Hex: annihilates his kit
   2. Silence Wave: see above
   3. Counterspell: he has one of the most telegraphed ults in the game, and most Apollos aren't smart enough to hold the ult to bait counterspells
   4. Healbane: actually not bad with his new changes. Maybe not worth buying just for Apollo if it's not already in your build, but if there's also an Abrams or Victor on his team it's a good buy
4. Paige
   1. A brain and a set of WASD keys: STAY OUT OF THE DRAGONFIRE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD
   2. Indom: For spike and rally charge stun
   3. Maj Leap, Phantom Strike, or any mobility: Paige doesn't have any, so if you can jump her, she melts
5. Celeste
   1. Knockdown: No zooming around the map for you
   2. Counterspell: If I can counterspell her daggers consistently, any idiot can
   3. Debuff reducer: For the debuffs on her 1 and 2
   4. Indom/Enduring Speed/Juggernaut: So you can run from the ult
   5. Veil Walker, or any other invisibility: The animation on her ult is really telegraphed, so if you see it coming, run through a veil so she can't hit you
   6. Maj Leap or Warp Stone: Same idea as above. As soon as she tries to cast her ult, move fast and in an unexpected direction so she whiffs it more often than she hits it
6. Doorman
   1. Counterspell: for the cart
   2. Indom: for the cart and Baroness
   3. Silence wave: For the cart
   4. Dispel Magic: For all the nasty debuffs you get if he nails you with a bell, or if you get CCed going into the Baroness
7. Ibrahaim
   1. The goddamn parry key
   2. Vertical distance: Makes shoulder charge useless. He doesn't have any in his base kit, so you'll force him to spend money/an item slot if he wants to keep up with you
   3. Healbane: obviously
   4. Spirit Burn: obviously
   5. Decay: Delicious percentage damage
   6. Capacitor: will turn off that fucking siphon, this + literally any other antiheal or resist shred will turn him into tissue paper
8. Mina
   1. Suppressor: Or literally any fire rate debuffs to make it harder to proc her passive
   2. Walls and a pair of eyes: If you didn't know (and if my lobbies are any indication, a lot of you don't) when you first take damage from Mina, there will be a progress bar on the side of your screen labeled "love bites". She fills that bar by shooting you, and when it fills up you take a fuckton of damage and make Mina's ult stronger. This can be avoided by monitoring the progress bar while you're fighting Mina and running behind cover when the bar is almost full, and waiting until it disappears
   3. Slowing Hex: Turns off her bats
   4. Knockdown: for the ult
9. Drifter
   1. Pressing Tab: Most Dronglers will play him as a gun carry (and these reccs are with that in mind) but they do build spirit sometimes. Make sure you know what the player you're fighting is doing before spending a bunch of money
   2. Disarming Hex: No gun no damage
   3. Rusted Barrel: a cheaper option for lane
   4. Metal Skin: Because fuck you for playing this stupidass character
   5. Cursed Relic: Turn off his entire kit
   6. Dispel Magic: Might need a fact check on this one, but I think it will turn off his tp if he nails you with it
10. Mirage
11. Dispel Magic: Get rid of scarabs and his passive
12. Slowing Hex: Turn off his sand tornado thing
13. Enduring Speed/Juggernaut: for the slow on the sand tornado
14. Kelvin
15. Healbane: not for Kelvin specifically, but takes a chunk of value away from his 1 and 4
16. Knockdown: Will knock him off his ice path and turn off his beam
17. Enduring Speed/Juggernaut: for the slows
18. Playing Dynamo: not a counter item, but I need to put out the PSA that Dynamo can pull teammates out of Kelvin's dome with his tp if they're close enough to the wall

Before anyone asks, I've got therapy starting next week. The last few months have been the worst mental health episode of my life, and my self-maintenance and that of my living space has been pretty lacking. I've cleared up most of the garbage and laundry that accumulated, but I've still got a bunch of bugs driving me absolutely insane. Any tricks would be appreciated.

I've been watching the nonsense about Billie Eilish that's been swirling around the internet for a week or two now, and it's really convinced me that, when it comes to actually convincing people that a certain position is correct, the way it's said and the person saying it is WAY more important than the actual content of the statement. Billie's actual hot take was vague and kinda dumb: You can't love animals and eat meat. Like, okay? What good does passing judgement on someone's emotional state while they engage with their typical diet do anyone? How is it even possible for you to know how another person feels about anything? It's stupid.

But the backlash to it has become much more about the feasibility of veganism for different groups of people. Most people are saying that Billie didn't take into account the huge variety of lifestyles that people in various economic situations around the world live, and that such a sweeping generalization is damaging. The people that agree with Billie are saying that veganism is the best lifestyle for poor people, actually, since lentils, tofu, and beans are some of the cheapest proteins you can get your hands on, and the poorest around the world tend to rely on them as primary sources of nutrition.

Neither side is really 100% wrong, but the issue is that Billie Eilish might actually be the genuine worst spokesperson on the planet to try to convince the average person to eat more plant-based. Not only has she been rich and famous since before she could legally drive, she's shown herself to be an out of touch hypocrite on every social issue she's taken a stance on, INCLUDING ANIMAL CRUELTY. She takes sponsorships from non-cruelty free beauty brands, and regularly features them in GRWM videos on her socials. She bitches about other artists releasing a bunch of vinyl variants, citing environmental concerns, then releases 20+ for one album of her own. She preaches about freeing Palestine and Black Lives Mattering, but gets on stage and fangirls over a known racist and Zionist.

People don't like blatant, unacknowledged hypocrisy, ESPECIALLY from someone with the means to avoid it, like Billie. Out of all of us, she's the one who could actually pass the leftist moral purity testing, if she wanted to. The fact that she doesn't pass, but still gets on her high horse about the rest of us failing too indicates to a lot of people that she doesn't actually care. It gives the feeling she just wants to feel superior to all us poors about something. The truth is that vegans are right about a lot, but that will never matter to the general population if the way those ideas and facts are communicated is from the mouth of an out of touch, soapboxing hypocrite with an inflated idea of her own intelligence and more money than sense.

I'm currently working on contract, and my time is coming up. There's no indication that I'm going to get hired on (or any of the other contractors for that matter) and the last thing I want is more contract labwork, but that's all my skillset seems to lend itself to in this job market. Everything is contract or temp, and the pay is all kinda crap. I'm fully open to anything except more grunt benchwork.

I recently discovered and became obsessed with SH2, so I did what most people do and went online to scope out the fanbase and HOLY SHIT. DEAR GOD these people are illiterate. The mental backflips I see people doing on Twitter, Tiktok, Blusky and Tumblr in order to justify why they like James are INSANE. I'd post examples but I think I'd get removed. The ENTIRE PLOT of Silent Hill 2 fundamentally hinges on the FACT that what James did was selfish and inexcusable and Mary didn't deserve it. It was NOT morally gray in any way. It was as morally black and white as it's possible to get. It was SYMPATHETIC, sure, but it was also EVIL. The amount of people saying VERBATIM that "James isn't a good man, but he's not bad either" almost getting concerning, on, like a societal literacy level. THE GAME IS ABOUT A TOWN THAT TORTURES HIM FOR BEING A BAD MAN.

The amount of morons I see around the internet genuinely arguing that James and Mary somehow shared the blame for what he did, or that it was "reactive abuse", since apparently Mary was verbally abusive is INSANE. A terminally ill woman lashing out and then IMMEDIATELY APOLOGIZING FOR IT is NOT abuse. And even if it was, it's not an excuse for smothering her to death. James straight up said TO THE DAMN CAMERA that he hated Mary at the end and did what he did because he wanted her out of his life. If James wasn't a murderous piece of shit, he would have made use of the thousand other options he had to get away from Mary. But he chose the absolute worst one, AND THAT'S THE WHOLE DAMN POINT.

You people can like James! You can! I do! I think he's incredibly well-written, compelling, and sympathetic. You can like any character in any story, and it has no reflection on you as a person! Literally the only way people could be making these takes is if they a) didn't play the game or b) are so insecure about their own tastes that they have to fundamentally rewrite the media that they like. I feel like post-2020 fandom has taken that ancient "your fav is problematic" meme and made it into, like, an actual moral litmus test for themselves and others.

People are are so frantic to justify their tastes in media to the lowest common denominator on the internet that it genuinely interferes with their ability to engage with and interpret the art they experience. Liking fictional characters is fundamentally different than liking real people, since THEY'RE NOT REAL PEOPLE. Liking James Sunderland is not the same as liking a real-life murderer, since HE DIDN'T KILL A REAL PERSON. HE'S NOT A PERSON. He's a tool to explore grief, guilt, caregiver syndrome, and living with yourself after you did something awful. Finding that compelling and engaging does not reflect on you the same way it would if you like, enjoyed the company of a real man who was guilty of killing his wife, SINCE NOBODY FUCKING DIED. It's EXHAUSTING trying to engage with people who can't draw the line between reality and fiction.