My doom, as I have said countless times, is that I understand what every person means when they speak. I know the irreducible part. I can understand them without agreeing with them, which is good, because this process is more or less instantaneous. If the process of understanding were inextricable from the process of believing, I would be in an incredible amount of trouble. So I understand Mike when he makes the case that the endpoint of widely available generative frameworks is a less human world. It's some Philip K. Dick shit, honestly. In the PKD version, of course, Mike would be an AI, worried about a new generation of simulated intellects. You wouldn't know that until the end! But yeah.

"Well," I said. "I guess we found your politics."

This new FTC is definitely the gritty reboot, huh? They belong on DC's Vertigo imprint in the late nineties. They're hardened bureaucrats from a future where we failed to curtail corporate power - and they're determined to right the wrongs of the past, in the present.

Dear Jerry, you are very hard to shop for so I drew you a picture. Merry Christmas!

The problem isn't snow, it's the Eloi who live here. They can't handle it when it rains, either. They can turn a half hour commute into a two hour deathmarch. They don't know what to do. Scare when thing fall from sky - big scare. Wet. Cold wet fall, and scare! I'm not some kind of fucking cryomancer, but I know what way to turn the wheel when the driving surface gives my car airs above its station.  Seattle people are timid, bristling creatures, but for some reason they'll also destroy your family's car just to beat you to a stoplight.  They're a whole-ass thing.

Gorbiriel is back to his old haunts, apparently haunting them himself. Although since he plays with Kara, my guess is nothing like this occurred unless it was something they already worked out between them. I don't know, I'm just throwing it out: her character is a night elf, and she's never been to Ironforge before? This is already weird enough to stop doing it.

Long ago, around the time my youngest daughter Ronia and I started playing tons of games together, I turned on a setting - I don't even know where this setting is, honestly - that automatically hid pervert shit on Steam. That's just not for me; I don't go there for that. It's a lotta VNs and games that were basically Bejeweled, Bejeweled in every single way, except for like… you know. The demon tits.

I suggested on the Tweeter that it didn't seem like the creators of the new Willow show had seen Willow, which I feel like would have been a solid prerequisite. We really like that movie in our house. When Brenna and I were dating, like… what. Twenty seven years ago? We both had a really bad fever and watched it. If you ever get a bad fever, put it on - and find yourself healed.

Just to save you some time, unless you wasted it already: there isn't some secret repository of cloaca related content here on Penny Arcade somewhere, as much as Holly Conrad would like that. She would love nothing more than to see Penny Arcade become a 25/8 display shelf for a bird's most sacred hole. And we'd do it, too. But we ran the numbers: she's the only one who wants that.

It’s probably been a decade since Kara and I played World of Warcraft. The last time I was really interested in it my kids were little and my life was very different. The game has changed a lot but it’s been interesting to see how much is still the same. It’s probably not much different from a man of my advanced age going back to an old neighborhood. The nostalgia is thick but generally you don’t want to go back and live there. 

Overwatch 2 has been a bust in the Krahulik house. This is a game they've played as a family since the kids were little, no joke, and Blizzard has goosed it in some way that's ruined it for them. But, like a mythical predator, it's only goaded them into one of its other mouths - one that is arguably deeper and more ridged with wicked teeth than the other one.

Garabbas bounced off Midnight Suns immediately, instantly; I'd be surprised if he hadn't already installed it, just five days from release. I think he would rather have nothing than the possibility of more that. As Penny Arcade's Chief self-flaggelator, I have been lashing my bare back with it for the last couple days. Results have varied!

When we wrote the comic, it was earlier in the week because we needed to build up a backlog for PAX Unplugged - they hadn't voted on anything yet. I was surprised to learn when I started writing the post that they voted 8-3 to hasten some OCP shit by authorizing the use of deadly robots.

Hi! I deeply misinterpreted my calendar, and a panel that I thought was at one time was at another, much earlier time, which meant I needed to do two panels back to back the moment I got out of bed! It was very exciting. Typically I'm able to scrub away the filth and effluvia the body creates o'ernight, but this time I emerged on stage cocooned in a rustling, amber crust - a crust insects prize.

It is a delicacy to their kind.

Every now and then you get a little shudder, the flap of a butterfly wing, about a Splinter Cell reboot. I think Ubisoft is pretty fuckin' good at reboots. Shit, they're good at rebooting a franchise into a new genre in the middle of the series, as it's going! Conviction is a great example of this. But their Prince of Persia reboot, and then their reboot of the prior reboot - were both inexplicably good. So maybe we're entering into a new era of Splinter Cell, and what better way to, you know, get it poppin', but to tantalize the senses with a BBC Radio Drama(?)

You might remember me mentioning that I drew a few cards for the new Marvel Snap game. Well it looks like the first three have appeared in the game with the latest update!

One of my favorite Star Wars Things is a completely throwaway line, in the first movie, where C-3P0 gives thanks to a ill-defined Maker. That blew my mind apart as a kid. There's so many things he could have meant by that, and I spent a lot of time embroidering the possibilities. And now Andor, in its manifold blessings, has given us cool new robot shit to think about - you might have a robot that is essentially part of your family. Like a robot that needs help from you. Imagine introducing BB-8 not as a merchandise opportunity but as a real character. That's what happened.