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Cake day: December 12th, 2023

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  • I’ve been enjoying the use or weird lately. I’ve had some strong personal opinions on language lately. A lot of it comes with a huge increase of new words that sort of seem abstract from it’s meaning.

    I think with how rapid information can spread to large groups of people, it’s just too fast for my mind to keep up. All of a sudden I feel like I’m in a war with words and who knows which landmine of a word will get you in trouble. It causes me even more anxiety when someone comes at you with manipulative intentions in order to control the direction of the discussion.

    I think weird works because it’s an almost basic word. It’s simple and descriptive. It’s not a newer, more specific word that requires a deeper understanding of a broader topic. It’s understood by more people. People with varying degrees of language knowledge including people whose native language is not English. It’s easier for more people to understand.

    It’s a lot easier to understand someone is weird compared to someone being a fascist.




  • They look like springtails to me. I use springtails and isopods in my gecko’s terrarium as a clean up crew.

    The isopods eat the poop while the springtails eat any mold that would grow in moist conditions. I do have plants in there too so all that bug poop goes right back into the soil to be reused.

    They can’t survive outside of a moist environment for long and will simply dry out. I have no idea how harmful they are to plants alone but at least you don’t have to worry about mold.


  • Emotional intelligence has always been a sort of hidden magnet in my life that’s pulled me towards people who had the emotional capacity to treat people like people instead of treating people based off any first impressions or preconceived labels.

    The people who I remember and hold closest in my memories have been people who understood that I’m my own unique person, with my own experiences that shaped me, with my own way of solving problems, and my own way of learning from those experiences. They were able to assist and guide me in a more human and understandable way. It felt more positive and encouraging. I learned so much more from people with a stronger sense of emotional intelligence in comparison to people who lack emotional intelligence.

    Unfortunately, with what I believe to be a global mental health crisis brought on by the arrival of a global pandemic, it’s been obvious to me that there has been a critical lack of education in any form of emotional intelligence. Thinking back on my own education, there was more a focus on employable math and science skills, language with a heavy historical perspective, history with a heavily propagandized perspective and obedience within a narrow and confined learning structure. The only class that taught me any sort of life skills was the lowest level math class I had the option to take. The math class only “stupid” kids took.

    After the initial uncertainty wore off and reality set in with the global pandemic, those who lacked the emotional intelligence to look within began to lash out at everyone around them. To them, the world turned against them as they were expected to be empathetic towards other people. It’s been difficult to process and deal with such a critical lack of emotional intelligence on such a large scale.

    Those who are filled with hate for themselves and the world around them have far more energy than those with a better sense of their own emotional intelligence. Those who are filled with hate are burning out everyone else around them.

    I think now more than ever, there needs to be more emotional intelligence education for both young and old. It will be very difficult to help ourselves move forward if we aren’t being empathic towards each other and the world around us.

    I’m aware what I’ve said isn’t very specific to autism but it’s a topic that was made much more clearer to me after figuring out I have autism and understanding how it’s affected my life.




  • I was in a situation not long ago on the only discord server I frequent. This angry American guy kept posting women hating content that he thought was hilarious. Called him out on it and he tried to justify that women and men need their own community spaces. On a discord server owned and run by a woman for a video game we all play together.

    He tried to go off on unrelated tangents but I stuck to my main point. I made it clear that his type of behaviour is what makes women feel unsafe in many communities and spaces. I also made it clear that his approach to mental health care was deeply flawed and did so by a long string of questions and statements all pointing out his hypocritical actions. I think that worked?

    He kept going off on trans people, I asked him why he kept thinking of trans people. He kept saying women and men need their own spaces, I told him that if he is so desperate for men’s only spaces, there’s gay bars and clubs to go to. He kept bringing up other groups of people he hated in response to mental health questions, I asked him if he cares about his mental health or just looking for someone else to blame for his hate filled behaviour. When he deflected a question about why women feel unsafe in so many spaces, I brought it back around to challenge him to ask women why they feel unsafe and find out himself. The more he talked, the more he cornered himself. His actions never matched his words so I had a year+ catalogue of his hypocrisy to throw back at him.

    In the end he agreed to stop posting hate content and then disappeared for a week. He came back briefly to privately talk to the discord server owner, she laid into him with a couple paragraphs regarding his hate towards women. He never responded and has disappeared again. I’m hoping he is reflecting real hard about himself right now, but I’m low on hope.

    The biggest issue I have in dealing with hate filled people is that they have what feels like an infinite source of energy and their hate completely burns out all the good people they surround themselves with. Some of us are just exhausted and only want to play games, share stupid memes and post cute pet pictures. Don’t bring your hate trash everywhere you go, please. It ain’t funny.

    I’m so tired.


  • confusedpuppy@lemmy.dbzer0.comtoGames@lemmy.worldIndie games using retro graphics
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    3 months ago

    I’ve found myself lately a lot more interested in games that don’t focus heavily on graphics but instead allow other parts of the game to speak for itself. This allows for the imagination to fill in the gaps, as you mentioned.

    I’ve been playing a lot or Caves of Qud recently. It’s a rogue-like game with tile graphics and colourful text. Somehow this menu simulator game has drawn me into it’s harsh and unforgiving world. The tile based graphics actually allows for an amazing amount of creative freedom both from the developer and player point of views. The developer has created this futuristic planet with mutants and cybernetics roaming the planet trying to survive. The player has the freedom to play as they like and create the most unique characters they can imagine. My current character has two hearts, a scorpion tail, a fanged beak, two dagger wielding claws and a habit for stabbing.

    I think the rise of constantly better technology has inadvertently encouraged a focus on better graphics over other aspects of video games. While there are some absolutely beautiful games with higher hardware demand, I think as of late, I’m yearning for games that focus more on story or gameplay. Games where you can feel the developer’s passion. Games with polish and attention to details in the most unexpected ways. Games that attempt to push boundaries within certain limitations (think hardware or graphic styles for example).

    I think what I want is a game that feels like I’m reading a fiction book in a way. What I mean is that when you read a work of fiction, your imagination is filling in all that visual information. A game can provide you more than just text, but if it can balance graphics, gameplay and story, it can really transport and immerse your imagination into that world.




  • I’m a person of colour who has a white step parent and has grown up in Canada in a fairly mixed area.

    My family history would have started in India but my parents were born in South America and migrated up to North America (both Canada and the US) where my sister and I were born. I grew up “white.” My voice, appearance and behaviour are “white.” I was born and raised Canadian. I’m far from proud of this country where I have spent my life but I will identify myself as a Canadian. My family history had been thoroughly white washed and erased.

    I say all this because for all this history I have behind me, it means nothing to most people.

    The majority of Indian people here will look at me one way until I speak and then promptly ignore me because I’m not “Indian.”

    West Indian people want to be my best friend until they find out I’ve never visited any West Indian country. Then I’ll be treated as an idiot for not embracing a culture I have no real knowledge of and have not been immersed in.

    Then there are the white people… No matter how white I act, I will never be “white” enough. I’ll always be the colour of my skin. I could look, act and behave as awful as a white cop and still not be on the same level.

    In fact, I have a “friend” who is a cop. He’s not really my friend, more of an acquaintance I’ve known for 10+ years through another more decent friend. This guy is just fucking awful and every molecule in his body is racist and vile. He looks at me, arms full of tattoos and tells me I’d be a perfect “UC.” Undercover Cop. My only value to him is to be used to incriminate fellow people of colour. I’m just not a person or anything close to equal. Always something less.

    I’ve never really had a place where I felt I belonged while growing up. Hated for being me from multiple angles for reasons beyond my control while doing nothing harmful to anyone. There are good people out there who treat me as a person first but they are few and far between.

    Another quick story, I once had a Dutch guy in Australia tell me that his last name Hoffmeister means “House Master.” You know, from the times when they used to own slaves. Thanks for telling me that to my face, you absolute weirdo.



  • Judging from the stories of autistic women who are in my life, as well as stories I’ve read online, there seems to also be the issue of being heard or taken seriously when attempting to get diagnosed or treated. This is on top of societal or gendered expectations which makes masking that much more of a challenge to maintain.

    One of my closest friends had to stop seeing their therapist because she would leave her sessions crying and was only able to improve her mental health by refusing to visit that therapist again. Another really close friend had a doctor that kept prescribing the same medication to her even after stating multiple times at multiple visits that the medication was causing her suicidal thoughts.

    In comparison, as a male myself, I was able to walk in, tell them why I thought I had ADHD and later autism and was able to walk about with prescriptions or a plan of action within the same visit.

    I do think the the video spoke broadly enough that it could be informative about autism in general and could have added a bit more context to align the title with the video content.




  • I’ve had stocks in a couple forms over my lifetime and after a while, both times I have pulled all my money out.

    The first time was shortly after the 2008 crash. All those reassuring words my investing manager person told me were simply sweet nothings. I decided that taking the hit of losing half my money was a life lesson and used the remaining half to go travel and live a life for myself. That investing manager later went on to have a covid party out of defiance for masking requirements, caught covid and died. Felt good knowing my stranger-danger alarms were working even if I didn’t understand my decisions fully at the time.

    The second time I simply put my money into a low risk, government stock option for a few years. After watching global leaders fumble the handling of a global pandemic, I lost faith my own government to have my best interest in mind. I pulled my money out again.

    I personally feel super uncomfortable allowing other people to make money off my money that I am risking. Even if it is low risk. It make me feel exploited.

    Ultimately, I decided I don’t need my money to work for me because I don’t even want to work. I hate the concept of money. To me, money just disconnects us from community and nature.

    If you are curious to how I live, it’s with very little. I spent a number of years of my life living out of a 34 liter sized backpack. Living minimally while making sure what I owned had meaning, purpose or intention transfered over to when I finally started settling into a certain location.


  • This game has caught my eye. The visual style alone is what really draws me in to the world.

    There’s something about the Half-Life-ish graphics and unique style that sort of hits a personal nostalgia for me. It has a wonderful combination of weird and abstract with a touch of familiarity. It also feels both vibrant and gritty at the same time. Something I didn’t realize I was missing so much. Especially after playing Baldur’s Gate 3 which has absolutely gorgeous but very busy graphics.

    After I get over my Caves of Qud hyperfixation, I am definitely going to pick this game up.