Only two possible reasons they agreed to the debate in my view: sheer hubris from Biden and team, or Biden’s staff knew something like this would happen, so the sooner they debated, the sooner the nation would have this conversation and we might get someone else other than Biden… because it sure as hell wasn’t gonna happen on its own.

It’s a little conspiratorial and I’m not married to the idea, but it’s not impossible that this was the whole plan. Especially given reporting today that Biden and his family are furious at his staff, blaming them for all of this

I say we lean into whatever the fuck sundowning Dark Brandon says.

I’ve always been in favor for beating Medicare. Medicare for No One - force that vote now!

I’m glad everyone is eligible for Covid. In 2020 it was limited mostly to GOP voters, frontline workers and the immunocompromised. That’s equity I can get behind.

Make the second debate a golf match on the Golf Channel. That shit would be comedy gold.

Dem leaders, campaign surrogates and White House staffers aren’t going to publicly bash Biden. It‘s their job to do PR spin. And don’t think for a minute they aren’t singing a very different story privately this weekend.

All of us know that Biden in a coma will always be better than Trump. But the problem is that the average American voter - the average griller, if you will - saw a Biden that showed all the signs of sundowning. The average griller needed to compare Biden and Trump with their eyes and ears Thursday night in order to rub their two brain cells together and come to that conclusion too. But the average griller never got to the brain cell rubbing part because we can’t deny what our eyes and ears perceived with Biden.

And it’s never going to get better - that Biden can turn up anywhere now. We don’t have the Benjamin Button ray gun technology yet. For everyone saying it’s just one debate, that it’ll be forgotten by November… no. No it won’t. Moreover, it’ll be a running risk, a dark cloud, at the convention speech, the second debate, at dozens and dozens of rallies in the next 4 months, etc. Will he deliver all of those flawlessly? It’s possible, but not gambling odds I’d take.

I agree that everyone will be watching the polls in the coming days - especially the political class. But right now everyone sees Biden as a train heading towards a cliff in November - including the vast majority of Dems in Congress privately. It’s scary, uncharted territory, but we have the chance to switch the train tracks to someone else in the next week or two max.

We don’t know where those tracks will take us - and that’s scary too - but we’re absolutely running towards that cliff in November if something doesn’t change.

If the DNC truly had no backup plan for it to potentially be Kamala, then we were predestined to lose.

Even if Biden moped the floor with Trump at the debate, the man is 81 and running for reelection for one of the most stressful jobs in the world. Man could have a heart attack or become objectively unable to run medically at any minute.

They always, always needed a Plan Kamala in the wings and if there truly wasn’t one, the uncharted waters might be more appealing than trying to ride out the Titanic taking on water.

I say if Biden doesn’t drop out by Monday on his own:

Plan B: Kamala, Bill & Hillary, Barack & Michelle, Nancy, Chuck, Hakeem, and whoever else they can muster basically order Biden to do so for the good of the party and country. Brokered convention incoming.

Plan C: If he still doesn’t, he gets 25th amendmented. Kamala and the Cabinet vote. Kamala becomes acting President and hard pivots publicly that, while she was always concerned about Biden’s age privately, the debate gave her and the Cabinet what they needed to actually do something about it and have the American people’s blessing. Biden can still protest it all if he wishes, and then Congress would have to vote to approve Kamala remaining acting POTUS and pass it with two-thirds. Even if the Dems all fall in line, expected at least some GOP members to block it to make the situation even worse for the Dems - and maybe some voting with the Dems by thinking replacing Biden with Kamala plays into their hand. Best case scenario is that Biden just resigns and drops out of the race on his own out of disgrace.

Plan D: Try desperately to move ahead anyway and gamble the fate of all democracy on his elderly shoulders.

“To a dark place, this line of thought will take us. Great care we must take.” - Yoda, Revenge of the Sith

It’s true the sitting president usually has a bad first debate - probably a mixture of having most everyone around you agree with you for 4 years and having to defend your own record, all while actively being the president.

But there’s a bad first debate of a cycle… and then there was what Biden did tonight. I’d forgive a rusty debate performance, but our guy just looked like he needed to be in a nursing home, not the White House. Most cringe-inducing thing I’ve seen in years. He looked ancient and missed layup after layup - the average liberal on the street could have mounted a better debate performance against Trump. And what’s maddening was how weak Trump was. Even 2020 Biden would have been able to run laps around tonight’s Trump.

Biden needs to drop out, and the DNC needs to go to the smokiest backroom imaginable and make something happen. Or we’ve all gotta pivot hard to make this not about Biden at all but about a Dem admin. Literally running ads saying yes Biden is old, but even a brain-toast Biden admin is better than any Trump admin.

Man, the next 4 months are gonna be painful / wild.

Agreed - TJM rushed it for fan service (though there is technically a missing year of untold adventures between that movie and the main series), but Arnold and Helga would have to be a long game over many years to work realistically.

One thing I really like about the Married episode was that it highlighted how Helga likes the idea of Arnold more than anything else (at that point). In Helga’s dream he’s literally just a trophy husband. Meanwhile, Arnold is actually contending what it would be like to make a marriage and kids work with Helga. Arnold is Helga’s escapism and Helga is Arnold’s real future in that moment.

I agree that in reality it’d have to be a slow buildup. Maybe post TJM the new comedic hook would be that they are only “secretly” dating, and Helga’s diving behind trash cans to pull out of a locket with their picture now in it, and Helga monologue’s about how she wishes they could tell the world but she can’t handle it socially. Kind of a “the more things change, the more they stay the same” thing

And I’m a firm believer that they need to spend most of their high school years or so completely separated - Helga needs to develop as a person and that requires removing her Arnold security blanket. Then they have a shot at a healthy relationship

Everyone laughs it off when Big Bob “hulks out” in the 2002 movie, and when he also fights Nick in Might Pete, but that’s just straight up assault.

Big Bob objectively has it in him to be physically violent. To his daughters and Miriam? Probably not, most likely to those he views as threatening him. But I also wouldn’t test that theory too hard neither.

If the show went on to show Helga’s home life through middle and high school, I think if it were played straight it’d get pretty sad.

Lila had a great intro episode by portraying her as a hopeful, kind person whose family had went through / still struggled a lot. But then the rest of the series she’s just an obstacle for Helga and a one-sided love interest for Arnold.

If they had dropped / lessened her “ever so much” and “whatever do you mean” sorta annoying lines, her character could have easily carried a spinoff imo… if it was the original Lila from her intro episode. But by the time that would have been a possibility, they had already ruined it by making her more of an unintentional antagonist than anything else

I think it was a by-product of the new trilogy format and the need to make every location bigger.

In OG it’s a breath of fresh air because it’s the first place where everyone knows and acknowledges the problem the party has been talking about all game. Midgar and Junon are Shinra cities, Kalm is just kind of a sleepy small town, and everyone at Gold Saucer and Costa del Sol are too busy having fun to care about the fate of the planet. And the people of Corel had more immediate problems to think about. It was the first location where everyone there “gets it.”

But because Rebirth is the second part of the trilogy, it couldn’t be the place where all the mysteries (new and old) were answered. Also, because every place in the remake trilogy does need to be bigger to be to scale, if you had it where the whole town was like 100 local planetologists, it would totally just come across as a weird cult in HD graphics rather than a place of comfort.

So they turned it into a tourist trap, like some towns you might see in the western part of the US. Pretty smart call in my book. Besides, now Bugenhagen is setup to challenge his former beliefs, so he’ll be in a good spot to tell us the answers to the new mysteries in Part 3 (because without that belief challenge arc, he’d have no motive to know anymore than he did in OG.)

I’m gonna ignore the butting in comment because this is a public Reddit discussion, by your logic Moonlit and Katherine could easily say if they wanted that you butted into their convo first, and in conjunction with my gatekeeping comment that just seemed to really unintentionally press a button of yours.

I read your initial comment as telling moonlit that, if one is aego, they are asexual. And if you’re asexual, you can’t be attracted to anyone sexually (or it’s a low-level attraction). If they feel attraction, that’s orchidsexual.

But because both aego and orchid are both asexual microlabels, I didn’t see how that meaningfully changed anything. By that logic, an orchid would still be asexual, which means they can’t be attracted to anyone sexually according to you, which I took to mean that one can’t be aego or orchid and claim they are still sexually attracted to anyone. Which isn’t true based on my own understanding of these ace microlabels. Which I read as gatekeeping what the aego and orchid microlabels are and what they can mean to people.

Because one, like OP, can be consistently sexually attracted to a gender (OP’s use of straight), be heteromatic in that he romantically is only attracted to women in his case, but doesn’t want to engage in real sexual activity, which is aego. The very first bullet point under this subreddit’s “am I aego” master post is enjoying the idea of sex, but not irl.

That’s why I replied by emphasizing that there is 1) sexual attraction, 2) romantic attraction and as moonlit explained it how one 3) expresses or experiences sex. Those are all three different things imo, and I read your original comment as #3 erasing 1# - that if you’re aego or orchid, you can’t be consistently attracted to someone. Which isn’t true, imo, and saying so is dismissive of others lived experiences imo.

So in context of OP’s original comment, it was never a convo about just being aego. It was a discussion about being aego, allo, and heterosexual all at the same time.

So our core disagreement it seems is, if someone is aego, but also consistently is sexually attracted to others heterosexually, what can they be called/call themselves? My read of your argument is that they have no right to call themselves straight but have to use the term asexual only. I view who you’re attracted to and how that’s expressed as meaningfully different things, and so being both straight and aego at the same time is a valid way for one to describe themselves. Experience and sexuality being different things and experience not necessarily modifying sexuality.

Sorry OP, but according to Jeto you can’t be aego and be consistently attracted to women. On or off the fence according to them, but not me, mate.

Edit: Typos in the penultimate paragraph

This whole convo is gatekeeping what means to be on the asexual spectrum, imo.

There’s 1) romantic attraction, 2) sexual attraction and 3) one’s desire / expression / comfort level in real-world sexual encounters.

If someone like OP is a male, romantically only attracted to women (heteromantic), has sexual attraction/thoughts/fantasies about only women (heterosexual), but doesn’t want to act on those thoughts in the real world, he could be aegosexual or orchidsexual (the differences are really a whole other topic).

But both aegosexual or orchidsexual are covered under asexual spectrum, which is inclusive of those with no or only some sexual attraction to others.

OP, yes, you can be straight, heteromantic and aego.

I’m sure there’s a group within Ramsey that’s just waiting for Dave to fully retire / hand the reins to someone else so that they can rebrand to be somewhat relevant.

Remix the baby steps by changing the starter emergency fund amount to 1 month of expenses, being more nuanced about credit cards and the debit snowball vs. avalanche method, updating retirement withdrawal rates, etc. I just know someone has a plan on what to do asap once they get that far-off, unlikely approval.

Likely will be far too little, too late by the time they would be allowed to do it, but kudos to that someone who knows videos like these are digging the company’s grave

To be fair, both pieces of advice are really, really bad. If followed to a tee by all of Dave’s listeners, many would be in a needlessly worse financial situation and often homeless.

At least enough people are “Dave-ish” enough to take some of it with a grain of salt.

The fact that those who would make the best leaders often don’t want to be leaders is pretty universal, imo.

Again, I’d vote for Stewart in a heartbeat, but I just don’t see it happening. He seems happy to have a weekly outlet for his thoughts at this point. Basically a gig for a few more years before he seemingly retires from day-to-day public life.

Also, he’ll turn 62 by the end of this year. If he ran in 2028 he’d be 66 on Inauguration Day. If reelected, he’d be 74 when he left office. Younger than Trump and Biden, yes. But everyone thought they were too old to be president 4 years ago… and it’s a rematch 4 years later. I have to believe in 2028 the general public, the national parties and the donor class will be hungry for candidates younger than retirement age.

Agreed. If Jon Stewart was ever on a ballot I’d vote for him in a heartbeat, but I just think at heart he views himself as just commentator and advocate, and never a politician.

Remember, his core critique of Hard Ball was that they were on a real news network and were a joke compared to Jon, who was on after Crack Yankers. Central to that argument is “I’m doing your job better than you are and you should feel bad” rather than “and I should take your job from you.”

Also, while times have changed since then, I have a feeling Stewart was turned off to the idea forever after Colbert’s 2008 “run”.

We have other real political talent on the left to foster vs. just electing the funniest, most relevant right-wing basher in popular media.

It’ll be a packed game story-wise, but that’s not the concern for me. I’m actually more concerned about tone. Compared to Remake and Rebirth, part 3 is going to have apocalyptic overtones - a giant meteor in the sky, weapons rooming the world, war, the world in fear for the end times, our main hero losing it, etc. It’s a far cry from the city living and road trip vibes of Remake and Rebirth.

Great point - while I’m glad they didn’t hide from his inner trauma during the trials, the canyon’s reaction was glossed over in Rebirth.

To be far, that guard was genuinely glad to see him, he and Bugenhagen had a private moment to catch up, and Red was greeting everyone else at the Canyon while Cloud, Tifa and Aerith were with Bugenhagen, it was certainly brushed aside.

Nice Zack / Elmyra / Marlene theory! My theory is that Elmyra and Marlene will eventually make their way onto the Highwind in part 3, along with Chadley, Chocob Billy, etc. There’s not a strong reason for Elmyra and Marlene to be in Kalm now given the story changes. As long as Elmyra isn’t basically forgotten like she was in OG really.

Unfortunately, I think Cloud’s perfect chest is just a pothole. The hand wave explanation will be that a mako tank is basically like a bacta tank. Was my very first thought / complaint when I saw that beach outfit.

And I do have faith that Zack’s parents will get proper closure in part 3. Just was mildly disappointed that they sorta kinda repeated OG’s mistake of not having another scene with Zack’s parents when you learn more about him in Rebirth.

After all the community talk about him, Tankceratops will definitely get Hell House treatment in part 3 to make up for it hahaha

I get where you’re coming from with Bugenhagen, but I think it was a story necessity… can’t have the wise old sage spilling all the beans 2/3rds of the way through the game, nor in the 2nd part of a trilogy. So they wrote around it by making him stuck in his ways. But he saw the errors of his thinking in Rebirth though. That sets him up and gives him time to noodle more deeply and then fully explain the new mysteries in part 3.

Ah, I mean I see where you’re coming from but best you can realistically even hope for is more “skip section” options for main story content I think. The side quests are staying, under the tried and true principle of “skip it if you don’t like it”. Especially the chicken quest… unironic best quest

Apologies if that came across as callous - wasn’t the intent and I get Barret’s still a very broken and hurting person during the game’s events.

But, in proper time, I would like for Barret to be happy and healthy enough to form a new relationship, should he want to and meet someone.

More than anything, I just want him to both be happy and avoid his fate of kinda-sorta being too comfortable with leaving Marlene with Cloud and Tifa for long periods of time while he’s traveling the world in search of oil as the next big thing to replace mako. Don’t feel like oil baron Barret ever served his character, but especially Remake’s Barret.

I’m calling it now that in 2030 they’ll announce FF7: Reunited for the PS6 and it’ll be all three parts rolled into one mega game, with minor gameplay, UI and graphical tweaks for overall consistency.

I don’t know if you’ll get your wish on fewer side quests, and no way they’ll be cutting it all down to a 15 hour game (OG is almost 40 if you’re playing casually) but it would be nice to be given the option to skip / meaningfully reduce select chapters that most of the community would call out as padding in the grand scheme of things (Remake’s sunlamp chapter, an abbreviated train graveyard, skipping the second sewer visit, and in Rebirth an abbreviated Shinra mansion and Temple of the Ancients, etc.)

World intel in Rebirth talks about the Republic of Junon basically being a massive fucking boat / floating fortress. That’s not Gilgamesh Island, which I think should be viewed as a bridge between realities in Rebirth more than anything. We’re getting sick submarine stuff for part 3 it sounds like.

Plus they’ve been planting seeds for other things in Rebirth… Costa del Sol has a building you can never enter and a guy telling you it’s a Duel Club that you’re not invited yet, I’m pretty sure the 2nd floor of the Shinra mansion has story significance for Cloud / Vincent, the base of Lucretia’s waterfall can be driven by via the Tiny Bronco, etc. All seed planting, my friend!

My money is on Return… Remake and Rebirth use “re” as a prefix, so in my mind words without that prefix usage aren’t in play.

Then you gotta factor in words that just aren’t marketable… which in my mind would be words like restore, recode, reform, etc.

With “reunion” off the table and “reunited” a perfect title for some future, PS6 definite trilogy edition, “return” seems most likely from where I’m sitting