I embarked on a mission to play as many of the Sonic games as my aging laptop will handle last year some time. So far, the only Classic era games I either haven't started or 100%ed are the odd ones out, like Sonic Eraser, the SegaSonic games and Tails' Skypatrol. Not sure I'm even gonna bother with Sonic Eraser because it's actually just a shitty little match 3 game that obviously used Sonic for marketing.
As far as the Modern era goes, I haven't got too far in yet because I've been pretty hooked on Sonic Adventure. Going to be doing my 3rd run of Sonic Adventure soon, this time with the Japanese voice tracks and the retranslated subtitles mod. I got to the Biolizard in SA2, took a break and haven't returned to it yet. Honestly a little disappointed with SA2 because I was hoping for more of what we got in SA1 but better, like a hub world to run around in that actually has more to do than just go from point A to point B, like side missions and shit. And I've started Sonic Heroes, which is honestly pretty fun so far.
And the game that I fired up as recently as today was Sonic Advance, where I've completed Sonic's basic run but haven't collected all the Chaos Emeralds yet. And I've just started an Amy Rose run.
I go through obsessions. My previous mission was to watch every DC Comics adaptation, which has now faded into the background and provides me with something to watch when I can't find anything else. Just because there's so damn much of it. And I can see my Sonic the Hedgehog run going the same way because I can already feel that I'm starting to burn myself out with it.
The next non-Sonic game that I'll probably get into soon is an indie game called Unsighted that's been on my to play list for a while now. RPGs are usually my jam but it's been nice having a break from the lists and endless pinned wiki tabs that usually go along with them.
I struggle with separating the art from the artist, personally. Even though I was previously a Gaiman fan, I don't think I'll ever be able to read or watch his work again without thinking about this. I'm getting used to finding out that certain musos or actors are pieces of shit though. I think at this point, Keanu Reeves might be the last famous man left that would absolutely shock me if he turned out to be an abuser or bigot.
conveniently silent
Always. When the previous conspiracy theory / rapture date / return of JFK / illuminati plot doesn't turn out to be true, there's no talking about it or self reflection, it's just right onto the next conspiracy theory / rapture date / return of JFK / illuminati plot.
The thing that I don't like about '3D' movies is that they're clearly flat 2D images like a bunch of cardboard cutouts with a bit of trickery to get certain things to stand out more than others, and I can't see it as anything else. I can lose myself in the movie for moments at a time but am constantly pulled out of it and back into the real world every time something fucky happens with my perception or I try to look at a detail in the background that just stays blurry.
That's awful and I'm sorry. But seemingly the way bullies are handled and I just don't get it. I never faced anything nearly that bad. My major bully for a while was also my 'friend' that would tell me things like everyone else thinks I'm a nerd and loser and that he's the only one that likes me, and would completely and randomly out of the blue put me in a headlock or wrestle me to the ground when I wasn't expecting it. That stopped after I kicked him in the balls during one of those headlocks. And there's one other guy I can remember that would do shit like pull me hair if he was sitting behind me. But most of my bullies were teachers to be honest. My class / grade 1 teacher went so hard (literally SCREAMING in your ear if you dropped your pencil or didn't write neatly enough) that I ended up with a stutter for a little bit.
But I think I lucked out geographically in the '90s. In South Africa those were very hopeful times, at least when I was a little kid that hadn't seen through the lie yet. Mandela was in power, we prided ourselves on being progressive and having "the best constitution in the world" and I bought in fully to the 'rainbow nation'. We never really had bully problems in any schools I went to and there weren't cliques like in American movies. Just the normies and not normies. Those on the inside and those on the outside. Plus we also wear school uniforms and boys have to have boy haircuts and girls have to have girl haircuts etc. So it was impossible to present as anything even remotely different to your AGAB, even if you wanted to.
Most, if not all Ghibli women and girls are awesome IMO. And Nausicaa just might be the most badass. Maybe next to Mononoke.
Tooth issues are the absolute worst and I'd only wish tooth pain on the worst of my enemies. Just one of the areas I've wrecked my life personally. Even now I still haven't developed the clockwork habit of looking after them and have to stay consciously on top of it. I've been working hard on it but I'm still paying for my past in that regard. And just on the subject, what I get for that movie ticket price is fillings and extractions and that's it. For anything else, like root canals, you have to go private. Although $6000 is just sadistic (so is $500 for an extraction actually) and I'm sorry that you have to deal with that. I would definitely be considering Mexico in your position.
nobody seems to notice and everyone just walks around like nothings wrong
I don't use this expression a lot but so much this. It's like everyone has just accepted that things are shit and so they're going to wallow in shit and that's fine. This reminds me of another story that's probably going to be at least another paragraph, so if you check out of reading now, I don't mind.
When I was in boarding school, at one point the staff punished the entire hostel for something that someone had done but not owned up to. I don't know what was in the water that day but people were pissed to the point that a protest broke out. Marching around and going where we weren't supposed to be, singing protest songs. I was in my element. I still remember our over religious, hypocritical asshole hostel master peering out from behind his curtain with a scared look on his face, it was lovely. Then the bell rang for homework time and the protest immediately stopped then and there and everyone went inside to do their homework. I can't remember if the punishment was lifted but I doubt it.
And I think that moment left a lasting impression on me as far as my opinion of people in general goes.
She's definitely a wild child and a bit batshit but probably also the victim of media smear campaigns, considering that she was one of the first to ever call out people like Harvey Weinstein, long before metoo.
Ah yes, Fox News. The company that is simultaneously 'news' or 'entertainment', depending on which description serves them better at the time. These are perfect representatives for the era where billionaires are supposedly 'anti-establishment' and book burners that police other people's identities and force their religion onto others are supposedly all for free speech and freedom of expression.
I just don't know anymore. How do you deal with people who will point at a fly and tell you that it's a bird, while sincerely believing it?
Nah lol, not accusing you of anything. I just thought I'd go and take a look and see if I'd been duped by a photoshopped post but there it is, right at the top. Just below his description of "Professional Neckbeard" and pinned address where all the marks that support him can send him free stuff.
It's literally the first unpinned post on his Twitter profile.
That's one game that I never got into the hype train with and still haven't got around to trying, even though it looks like it's right up my alley. So I might be mistaken but wasn't Minecraft originally an indie effort? I don't like it but I can understand and appreciate giving indie devs support while they're still working on things a lot more than paying the mega corporation for the privilege of being a beta tester.
NOW only it's finished? When did it become normal for these companies to release half finished trash and use their paying customers as beta testers?
Not American but doesn't money from California routinely go to 3rd world, mismanaged, bumfuck red states for everything from disasters to public funding? And yet I've never seen the states where the majority of money is telling these people that they're going to withhold funding unless they stop fucking their sisters.
They have a browser but from what I gather, it's just Chrome / Firefox fork no. 35,683 with a custom skin and a few add-ons pre-installed.
Here's the most recent take of his that I've seen:
But he's definitely a repeat offender in these circles.
As opposed to signalling that you have none.
I feel like in this case, it's more than that. They've weaponized social media and successfully used that weapon within their own borders and now they're targeting somewhere else. They want to freely push right wing ideologies and make right wing politicians look good everywhere. Says a lot that in order to achieve that, they need to do things like remove fact checking. But it's been proven now that 'alternate facts' are very effective at convincing masses of people that you're a free speech warrior while burning books in their faces, or that you care about the kids while campaigning for child marriage and child labour, just for a couple of examples.
It's convinced working class people that union busting, eternally greedy, multi-billionaires are their 'anti-establishment' heroes. And it's convinced whiny, insecure, porn addicted men that they're all 'alphas', every one of them.
We're entering an era where freedom=slavery and it didn't even require any master plan or deception. All it relied on was the fact that people are inherently shitty and only see and hear what they want to see and hear. And it worked. The people they worship or openly slimeballs and garbage human beings for us all to see with our own eyes. But it worked.
One thing I found about Bluesky is that the 'Discover' feed is actually very trainable. It's easy to fill it up with politics, or art, or anything that you've been liking, commenting on and following. Mine started with mostly art and interesting people, then after one too many socio-political hot takes and follows of politically charged accounts, it went very political. So I made the effort to 'like' and follow more art and interesting content again and fixed it.
Personally, I enjoyed that feed while I was there. And wherever I saw people complaining about how awful it is, I just thought "it's a reflection of what you've been liking and following, buddy.."
"Microblogging" platforms
I hope that this works because apparently even though I'm signed up on lemmy.world and visiting a sub native to lemmy.world, all that this subreddit loads for me is one single post from 2024 (and yet I can see all posts from my myserv.one instance).
I don't mind if no one reads this, I just need to get my experience of my chest, especially my Bluesky experience over these last couple of months.
I've tried Twitter on and off, well before Musk, and it never really clicked for me. I could sort of see the appeal but largely it came across as a sea of jocks and trendy assholes. So it was never much of a big deal for me to just walk away from it.
Enter Bluesky. I was attracted by its left wing reputation and all the cool queer people there. But I'm afraid that over all, it didn't do much to change my opinion that this sort of social media is for the 'cool' kids, cliques and people who prize their image above all else.
In the beginning it was pretty fun. I used the same profile pic and account name as here and didn't list my age in my profile. And I was having enough fun to stick around. But after the 3rd DM from someone that I'm pretty sure was a teenager, I decided to do the right thing and mention my age on my profile. I also decided to use my real name and add an actual photo of me, making it clear that I'm AMAB despite my tastes and the company I want to keep. And I can tell you, from that moment, the little bit of fun that I was having there completely dried up. From that point on, the only people following me were porn bots and these weird accounts with no posts that look like they lifted the profile pic from the 'management' section of a website somewhere.
Now, to be fair, there were a few cool people in my age group (38) that I followed but most are married with 2.5 kids and are these bluewave people where every second post is a picture of Trump's face or Kamala Harris. And as far as men go, my faith and trust is also at an all time low at this point. But that still doesn't make me feel any less like a reject piece of shit.
I also did something there that I will forever regret. While I had my real name and photo up, I decided to take the major step of telling the world that I realised I'm non-binary a couple of years ago. My heart was in my fucking throat because I was now putting myself at risk of people in the real world finding out what's been going on with me. And the reception that I got to that was crickets chirping. Not even the few clearly NB / trans / non-conforming people that had deemed me worthy enough for a follow back chipped in with anything. I ended up deleting the post in shame 24 hours later and reverting back to anonymity.
So yeah, Bluesky was largely heart breaking for me and made me feel a dog desperately scratching at the door to get in somewhere. I don't know how people do it. Every attempt at socializing that fails, and the endless tweaking of my profile to try and attract some friends feels pretty degrading to me. I WAY prefer a platform like this where I can join a conversation about She-ra and the Princesses of Power and gush about how rad Adora is if I want. And actually get feedback and someone to let me know that I'm alive without taking a look at my profile picture or age and judging me before the conversation has even started. I just wish this place worked better. Thanks for listening.