definitely seconding this - I used it the most when I was using Unreal Engine at work and was struggling to use their very incomplete artist/designer-focused documentation. I’d give it a problem I was having, it’d spit out some symbol that seems related, I’d search it in source to find out what it actually does and how to use it. Sometimes I’d get a hilariously convenient hallucinated answer like “oh yeah just call SolveMyProblem()!” but most of the time it’d give me a good place to start looking. it wouldn’t be necessary if UE had proper internal documentation, but I’m sure Epic would just get GPT to write it anyway.

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Like any term, highly dependent on context. The porn category / hentai connotation is pretty strong and I would feel really icky being called it out of the blue. But some friends of mine, mostly trans women, throw it around amongst ourselves and it can be amusing too. There is also the rare context, with a LOT of existing trust, where I do like the sexualized nature and view it as affirming. It’s not 100 percent appropriate or inappropriate in any context, but if you’re not sure probably don’t. Especially if you’re cis, pursuing someone, or on a public forum. It’s never a word ya need to use for someone.

“I love dogs! I’ve always loved dogs!” has to be one of the funniest movie lines I’ve heard. but for my money it was probably the bees choosing their space queen because they “respect royalty”

do actually recommend getting some friends and drinks to see this one, we laughed our asses off at space-twilight and had a good time

more complex yes, but more hands in the family unit and structure between the other two can be a really nice perk too. when conflict happens, you have someone else you love who knows your partner and relationship who can bridge the gap and give perspective.

not OP, but I’m in two minds about it. I don’t really care to step in on caitlyn’s behalf, she can kick rocks for all I care. and I don’t think the intent of the post was hateful, but whenever a trans person does something bad and newsworthy, deadnames start to come out and even if it’s directed at someone I actively despise it still sucks to read. revoking someone’s chosen name out of personal disgust is just something we deal with irl a lot. it’s a similar kind of ick as when a female politician does something reprehensible and the discourse gets flooded by a bunch of people crudely commenting on her appearance.

eta: with a very minor change this same exact point could be made without deadnaming her, so to me it’s uncomfortable and unnecessary.

only tangentially related, but I have observed some protest more to injections than other forms of medication due to what I can only conclude is the squick factor. it comes up more in conversations with cis folks about HRT, like people feeling that taking oral estradiol is OK but being a lot more resistant to injections. they’re functionally the same thing but needles are more associated with scarier clinical interventions or drugs and that’s what it ends up being compared to. just speculating but I wouldn’t be surprised if the same “needle = artificial/dangerous” association is made among the antivax crowd.

astrology nft or son daughter?

I have two sets of beliefs here. There’s what I rationally believe based on what I know, and there’s the story I’ll be telling myself for comfort if I know the end is soon (and I think benefits me in day to day life too)

The experience of death and if anything comes after is inherently kind of unknowable and if there was a truth to know I don’t think human minds could comprehend it. Even if the answer is nothing, I can’t comprehend experiencing nothing. When consciousness lapses we only have what we experience before and after to contrast it to. So I have to live life with the understanding that I will die and I can’t know what that will be like until it happens.

That being said, we really don’t know anything about how consciousness is connected to our physical forms, and we don’t know that experience ends after death, either. Especially when you consider time may not be linear in the way we perceive it. The closest thing I have to a belief would be some form of reincarnation, where consciousness would resume in another life in another time. Maybe every life is the same consciousness reborn an uncountable number of times. I can’t say I believe this per se, more that it’s just as possible as any other theory, and it’d be a comfortable delusion to pass on with. it helps me feel closer to others too.

I guess my main point is go play Outer Wilds (and its DLC) if you haven’t gotten to it yet. It helped me grapple with a lot of this and even if I’m still scared of the end, I no longer find it overwhelmingly distressing.

idk this gave me the mental image of someone whacking it and muttering “jake jake jake jake jake” in rhythm to themselves through the whole thing

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

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.