definitely helps to bow out instead of talking down to a beginner. “it seems you’re having an issue with X, I would recommend reading up on Y and Z because [how they relate to your problem]” is helpful, a very natural stopping point, is useful to people who search and find the thread in the future.

probably the only thing that’ll bring me back to professional game dev. especially cool to see after how brutal of a year it’s been for the industry. hope this works out for them!!

like most engines, UE5 is whatever you hack it into being. I hate developing with Unreal but I do have to admit it’s solid in a lot of ways. and has pretty mature content/LOD streaming, one of the biggest issues I saw with Cyberpunk at launch.

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I haven’t played the witcher specifically, but I do think it’s worth pointing out that this is the usual experience for women playing mainstream male-led titles with romance arcs. women have been playing and enjoying the witcher for a long while, including its sexual elements. if it’s possible for us it could be possible for you too! I know if I’m replaying Mass Effect I’m actually probably more likely to play as male Shepard (because I can’t be gay with Tali 😫)

ultimately one of the coolest things a game can do imo is encourage you to step into the shoes of character unlike yourself in a situation you’ve never encountered and ask you to make decisions as them. If you’re uncomfortable roleplaying romantic enounters as a woman, there might be some value in trying anyway! you may find the experience to be more similar than you’d expect. I recognize it’s probably more complicated if you have more paternal feelings toward her, but telling her story from her viewpoint does mean including elements that conflict with how she’s seen by Geralt - it’s her story now and it’d be a disservice to only include what’s comfortable from Geralt’s POV.

In any case, sexual content may be in the game and referenced here and there, but if it doesn’t interest you I expect you’ll be able to not see it. correct me if I’m wrong but my understanding is that you could play Geralt as aromantic and asexual if you wanted, yea? I imagine the same would be true here too.

and for anyone who’s played the base game - make sure to check out the DLC, it’s essentially a sequel! and I found it even more fascinating and affecting. an improvement on all fronts to an already very special game.

I am so happy to hear you found something that worked for you and it sounds like it was a hell of a fight but that kind of intense care can be so impactful if it’s the right fit for you. It sounds not unlike a good psychiatric crisis center but more focused on treating physical symptoms that are often deeply interlinked with mental health in a way few providers treat effectively.

ultimately no two cases are the same and I feel like I’ve needed the opposite treatment in some respects. I hit a wall with PT and strength conditioning and while it’s definitely still an important part of my recovery, it seems that isolated muscle strength is not the problem, and it’s actually possible I’ve been overtraining to try to feel better. best working theory is I’m hypermobile and instinctively locking my joints to retain stability. I generally have a lack of sensation and don’t feel much direct pain, until my posture / muscle arrangement is so out of whack that I can’t function anymore.

so the work has been more focused on building bodily awareness and imporoving proprioception, and when I work out it tends to be pretty freeform and meditative and I have to aim for working out less than I want to but making the most of it. I have a provider who does specialized massage therapy combined with somatic work, and acupuncture has been an amazing low-impact way to poke into my fascial tissue and get it to chill the fuck out a bit. PTSD work and psilocybin have also been really helpful. I needed a muscle relaxer in the early days but am glad my doc stopped prescribing it after a few months. definitely getting back to feeling more normal though I suspect it won’t ever fully go away. but I’m happy to have been forced into building up this much awareness of how my body works.

I’m of the opinion both violent and nonviolent means are probably necessary and there’s plenty of nonviolent means of engagement. no war has been fought without support from somewhere, whether that’s a national war machine or the supporting element of an insurgency. there’s always logistics, resources, and well organization that has to occur.

I’m in no condition to fight myself, but over the coming decades I’m gonna have to be thinking about how much violence I’m comfortable being around and how much we can support people in the thick of it. violence is definitely present already in day to day life, but it’s more of an orphan-crushing-machine kind of violence that feels more normal.

chronic pain conditions are something our healthcare and disability systems specifically don’t handle well and I haven’t met anyone suffering from them that doesn’t want to [redacted].

my experience with it has been nebulous and hard to diagnose but incredibly disabling. certain treatments like acupuncture or cupping that specifically target fascia, or shit like somatic therapy, aren’t really legitimized by insurance so absent of a diagnosis with a known intervention your choices are to go to a pain clinic and take something possibly addictive or pay your way into alt medicine providers who can either be exactly who you need or hokey grifters.

and I can only imagine the hell that insurance companies put you through for surgical interventions they are supposed to cover but definitely don’t want to. reading my partner’s rejection letters from her company disability provider has been fucking fascinating

too many misunderstand anarchy to be about destroying structures that exist. many of them are doing a pretty good job of that to themselves already, and the ones that are left would rather slaughter us than disarm. it’s the final throes of a dying beast. too dangerous to throw more lives at, but nature will run its course eventually.

so we (anarchists) instead create structure to survive where we are, with the goal of directly helping people help each other, aiming to grow past existing power structures. it has been surprisingly possible to do a lot of praxis without even firebombing a second Chipotle

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but are you the shit tho?

It sucks because I know a lot of people referred to as SJWs, myself among them sometimes, and my read is that what pisses people off about them is not exclusive to minorities or the left wing, but the label tends to just apply to people advocating for the oppressed, and the behavior often comes from pain and vulnerability.

A lot of marginalized people lack the space irl to be politically active in a meaningful way. This goes double if you’re trans or closeted or showing up irl is dangerous in any way. Online, you have a platform and can speak your truth, but that’s about it. Social media platforms are incentivized to put a bunch of chuds you don’t agree with in front of you to keep you engaged, and so people end up angrier and angrier, stuck constantly responding to bigotry but never able to actually do much about it, or even hold a good faith conversation. Pet peeves become big sore spots because people keep poking at them and it feels like there’s nothing that can be done to change how anyone feels. Small disagreements over language become big blowouts because it’s probably the tenth time it’s happened today and it might not feel like anyone’s on your side.

Funny enough the person I know who fits this description the most is a right-wing incel, marginalized in some ways due to neurodivergence. He’s prone to big conspiratorial blowouts at the mere mention of climate change or queer people because he sees it as necessary to “educate” people. I don’t think most would call him an SJW yet his engagement with politics and the ways in which he pisses people off are exactly the same.

Same one I got!! And as someone with an overactive duty complex and an inability to be taken care of…

…please?

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Hi, this sentiment from non-americans pisses me off and it’s okay, but I feel it’s important to explain why so I’m copying another comment I made today.

Goodness knows some of us are trying our best. I mean keep in mind our country is a democracy in name but systemically props up white supremacists in excess of the real popular opinion. And a media disinformation machine keeps the working class divided against itself, with open support from the wealthiest and owners of the most popular social media platforms. Social media platforms that, let’s be honest, are super recent inventions we are not yet capable of engaging with safely. It makes it an uphill battle to try to reach out to people whose necks aren’t on the line. And the responsibility to do so falls upon the disenfranchised themselves, who are increasingly saddled with economic and health burdens that might just kill us someday.

I get the potshots at Americans, but frankly I don’t plan on taking the blame if this goes tits up - many of us did a hell of a lot more than vote to resist fascism. Nothing happened here that isn’t happening elsewhere. And I’ll fight the notion that citizens at large are the problem. It’s a cynical outlook that serves to individualize the responsibility for a systematic disaster. Our country was built to make this possible after all. And I sure as hell know I don’t plan on giving up. Kind of morbidly curious about how much of an incompetent clusterfuck Project 2025’s implementation will be.

Victory or no, fascists are paper tigers and I plan on sticking around to remind them of that fact however I can.

Goodness knows some of us are trying our best. I mean keep in mind our country is a democracy in name but systemically props up white supremacists in excess of the real popular opinion. And a media disinformation machine keeps the working class divided against itself, with open support from the wealthiest and owners of the most popular social media platforms. Social media platforms that, let’s be honest, are super recent inventions we are not yet capable of engaging with safely. It makes it an uphill battle to try to reach out to people whose necks aren’t on the line. And the responsibility to do so falls upon the disenfranchised themselves, who are increasingly saddled with economic and health burdens that might just kill us someday.

I get the potshots at Americans, but frankly I don’t plan on taking the blame if this goes tits up - many of us did a hell of a lot more than vote to resist fascism. And I’ll fight the notion that citizens at large are the problem. It’s a cynical outlook that serves to individualize the responsibility for a systematic disaster. Our country was built to make this possible after all. And I sure as hell know I don’t plan on giving up if Trump clinches the presidency. Kind of morbidly curious about how much of an incompetent clusterfuck Project 2025’s implementation would be.

Victory or no, fascists are paper tigers and I plan on sticking around to remind them of that fact however I can.

It’s been an intense few weeks. Been offering up space to some other folks in the community and we’ve been working through some heavy shit. Feels good to be living polyamory as mutual aid, something I’ve always believed in but hadn’t yet implemented to the level I wanted.

I’m also experiencing some really major improvements with fibromyalgia for a few reasons. I’ve been able to get to the gym a lot more, and having the equipment there to get my joints back in place is helping a lot. Still can’t make my way through a workout without feeling really out of place and dysphoric and I’m sure I’m glowering at everyone but nobody’s given me shit yet and I doubt they will. I also definitely didn’t hear this many dudes before I transitioned at the end of their sets loudly announcing “87… 88… 89…” and racking their weights like they’re benching the earth itself.

Psilocybin has also changed things significantly and microdosing has been helping so so much. So glad to have people who helped hook me up.

NIIIICE good choice!!! Like fire engine red, purple-red, or orange-red?

The way I see it is that tradition is working pretty damn well on the whole. People are producing kids just fine, taking care of them as they grow and become adults is the hard part. That lineage you point to is the only reason I’m alive today, yes, but there are a lot of other “only reasons” I’m alive today that happened after I was born, and many of them were very much not from my biological parents.

Personally there was a lot of generational trauma in my upbringing and I don’t wanna pass that on. These days I’ve taken that parental drive and repurposed it toward the adults in my community whose parents have decided to abandon them, usually due to being queer. It’s different than having a parental relationship to a kid, but I’m finding a community guardian role is filling the same emotional need. The people I care for won’t carry my name, but I didn’t even carry my own name lol.

I used to struggle with the fact that nothing I do will likely outlive me, but now I feel it’s just as worthwhile to make the present day better for the people who need it. I’d still love to work with kids, maybe teach or something, but being trans makes many parents less willing to allow their kids to be around me. I might foster someday, it’ll be a challenge but I think it’s something I’d get a lot more out of.