Hey love this idea! Random shit to start a convo: I just lost my job today (not great but I’ll be ok). I am maybe turning the corner w/ a longstanding chronic pain condition, after which I’m gonna get back to my hobby of fighting people in the park.

Also, if you feel like playing too: what have you been up to today?

My answer too.

And also for the benefit of anyone who’s just played the base game: the DLC is basically a sequel, and I found it even more impactful than the base game!

Yeah, pretty much everything one needs to know about what he’ll do as President is laid out by Project 2025. His ability to actually govern is secondary to the apparent desire for our own little christofascist Cultural Revolution. Wheeeeee

It’s something that’s important in personal relationships I think, but the context and human tends to get lost over the internet.

If a friend’s drowning in negativity, one can be present in some ways, but that can’t be fixed by anyone else nor would that even really make sense. They could be in a bad situation, in which case maybe there’s ways to directly help, but oftentimes it’s something only they can work through and we also have to maintain some distance and boundaries and recognize we won’t fix how they feel nor should we try to. And sometimes people just need to vent negativity and shout into the void or break down to a friend.

On the internet, we fire off walls of text under the presumption people will just read it and get it and fuck off and go change their whole worldview. It takes time and the ephemeral nature of communication on the Internet means we’ll never be around for the context or resolution of someone’s difficulties. (nor will they for our own.) So, even more than irl, we have to set boundaries on how invested we’re willing to get. It’s a constant frustration for me though.

ps muse dash looks cute as hell, have fun!!

Yep absolutely!

For me, it felt like my life was quickly progressing away from a youth I was not ready to leave for inexplicable reasons. In the end I ended up taking a nuclear option once I realized how uncomfortable I was with my future, and while it’s not been easy it’s been absolutely worth it.

Even though you may be stuck in the same habits and mistakes, they can be rewritten and you’ll be surprised how quickly life changes once you find what makes you authentically happy. A lot can happen in 3 years and I guarantee you’ll still be young at 24. You can still be young at twice that. There’s a lot of life ahead of you, especially once you take calculated risks to improve your future and make the most of the youth you still have. You may not know what exactly will make you happy, but trust in yourself and your judgement to find it as you go.

Wasn’t really allowed to harbor or express anger as a kid. Now I can’t summon an ounce of rage, even when it’s appropriate and helpful. It’s not ideal, so I spend a lot of time meditating, dropping away other emotions in hopes of finding a spark of something in there. Nothing yet, but I’ve found a number of other useful things in the process.

Mindfulness is a great skill to build to debug issues like this. It’s slow, painful sometimes, and doesn’t always feel worthwhile, but it’s definitely worth taking the time to try meditating to get closer to your base emotions and how they appear.

Worth remembering too that what you’re looking for probably isn’t a huge shift in thinking, at least in the short term. Incremental progress over time is all it takes. Some people are shades of tightly wound and that’s okay. You’re who you are for a reason and it’s worth being kind to yourself when unhelpful thoughts appear. Not to excuse yourself of behavior you don’t want to maintain, but to care for and guide yourself toward a simple step in the right direction.

Yeah, I think that’s pretty much all that is generally needed. I’ve had people assume but ask me first, just asking “she/her?” as a question, I respond yes, we go about our business. If you don’t want to assume, you can also pretty much universally use they/them in passing, or if it’s someone you interact with more frequently, people really don’t tend to mind if you ask.

I mean I’m trans, I get around quite a bit in queer spaces, I haven’t met anyone who would get super mad about initially assuming pronouns rather than just saying “hey I prefer XYZ” and moving on. Generally when people react strongly to being misgendered, it’s due to ongoing conflict over their identities, having to deal with people who use pronouns to casually disregard your Identity, familial abandonment, etc. It is often a response to complex trauma from elsewhere. That’s not really your responsibility, but I’ve been there and if you can offer them any grace in those moments, it’s extremely helpful.

Borderlands?

I love spicier ginger beers and sarsaparilla, they’re so much less sweet and have a lot more flavor

👉👈