Posts made by Solstice

I honestly could not possibly care any less about who's romancing who, as long as both parties are cool with it, in whatever form it takes.

I think it can be a dangerous line to walk to quantify certain types of "Writing a scene for funsies" as inherently better than any other type of RP, and it can come across as extremely dismissive to those who enjoy that sort of scene. When you add sexually-charged content into the mix, it gets even more of a fine line, as these are traditionally (mostly) safe spaces for people to typetypetype about that things they can't necessarily do in real life.

(Note: all examples fictional and not allegory for anyone I know)

Jane the Fite Warrior cutting the heads off of goblins is no more and no less valuable than Dillan the Diplomat, who loves to attend galas and gladhand, and that's no less valuable than Cody the Bard, who loves to romance his paramours and then fade to black, and that's no less valuable than Trudy, the healer who in her downtime is more 'Hello, Nurse', and steps on people for in-game currency.

But the community at large seems to have a tendency to look at these example and quantify, "Okay, Jane's cool, Dillan's like, really impressive, Cody's RP isn't very valuable, and Trudy should just leave, that <perjorative>. She's only that rich because she's a <perjorative>."

The community tends not to care that pTrudy is really nice OOCly, values consent, and constantly drums up plot for others in her role as a healer, or that pDillan is backbiting literally everyone on the game in their Discord server.

Defining the value of the player by the scenes they find valuable is inherently reductionist, and when you bring sex into it, weird and puritanical.

I'm not really going to touch on staff/non-staff interactions here, because I've never been staff and I've never been TSed by staff, but our community needs to put its money where its mouth is when it comes to shaming people just for bumping against one another.

I will take a dozen Trudys in a game over a single Dillan.

At the same time, if necessary.

Knowing exactly what's wrong with you, knowing how to fix it, but being completely unable to muster the energy or resolve to do what needs to be done.

Just found out that I am making 56% less than the person who was hired a week before me, is ten years my junior, and who has demonstrably fewer responsibilities (and to be petty, who barely understands the job.)

Guess I inadvertently low-balled myself when I took the job.

Yay, capitalism.

@ganymede

@redjellybean

There is a lot of doing things on your own as you work your way through the story, but when the game does 'force' you to do a dungeon or a boss, the community is extremely generous toward people that are new.

The game puts a little "I'm new" icon over your head until you've been playing for quite some time (Looks like a plant sprouting, so if people call you a sprout, it's not an insult) and the community is extremely tolerant of any errors committed by a sprout, and far more tolerant of mistakes in general. Unless you're raiding (which is optional and has no bearing on the story except for one), it's expected that your level of performance doesn't matter much. You'll still get the occasional jerk, but they're a rarity rather than a rule.

@23quarius said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@solstice YouTube serves widely disliked videos because it counts dislikes as engagement and finds somebody else to show it to.

Agggh. I dislike this.

@wizz

PREACH.

My YouTube recs are going through a similar thing, of being recommended some annoying transphobic 'doctor' who also advocated for like, 15 hour work weeks if you're not a lazy piece of shit. I keep smashing dislike, it keeps serving them up.

Thanks, algorithm.

@sunny

But hopefully not titanforge it.

@ganymede

Too soon to make any determinations about what good they do for the companies they acquire, as I can't think of many that have actually launched games since acquisition.

I will say, Gamepass is such a frigging good deal that it justified my XBox purchase. Can curl up on the couch and play games Netflix, essentially. It's been a godsend for my relationship during the Covid times to have some couch co-op.

If GamePass didn't exist, I'd be in intense buyer's remorse for my Series X.

@flyrannosaurus said in General Video Game Thread:

Halo Infinite is probably the best title they've put out since Halo 3.

As much as I agree with the rest of your post, this snippet made me giggle.

Halo is the best title they've put out since Halo!

Their first-party title ship is not stellar. Small wonder they feel the need to bolster it.

@testament

What a weird point in time where I think, "Ooh, Microsoft bought a company. I bet that will improve the quality of their games and their workplace culture."

I hope it gets Bobby out of the industry, even if it's on a golden parachute.

@ganymede said in The Work Thread:

Or continued operation is necessary for the business's continued existence, which means failure to adhere means everyone losing their jobs.

I'm sure this is the case in plenty of for-profit sectors. For what it's worth, it's a non-profit that doesn't rely on sales of any kind and could operate on its endowment alone. They actually lose less money by people not being present.

So yeah, no out for them, there. It's entirely motivated by archaic 'You're not productive if you're not in your seat' wisdom.

@wizz

It's not great. And we keep getting performative theater instead of actual action. They asked that less people come to the morning stand-up meeting.

Literally with a fraction of the positivity and a fraction of the cases, we were shut down in 2020. The amount of head-in-sand bullshit it takes to be putting a 'This is fine' hat on when we don't know the implications Omicron may have toward Long Covid, the very real danger to people who are immuno-compromised or have comorbidities is all just fucking galling to me. The only reason we're not shut down is because people got tired of the logistical changes.

I'm so beyond tired, so beyond furious, so beyond betrayed. This is/was the best job I've ever had, but their callous disregard for the wellbeing of their workforce is enough to make me want to slap my resignation down without a plan lined up. That's a fantasy, and I won't do it, but it squeezes the pit of my stomach in the exact same way.

Stop pretending everything is fucking fine.

Am I taking crazy pills?

@solstice said in The Work Thread:

It took a massive case surge in our organization (which I hopefully? dodged), but I'm back to fully remote.

I'm ecstatic about this.

So that lasted all of a week. Our department head got furious at the notion that we wouldn't have butts in seats to, I don't know, plug in USB cords or something. So, back to the Covid farm, despite my company having a 20% positivity rate over the last 21 days.

Feel like I'm gonna cry. This is so nonsensical.

@greenflashlight @Macha

Currently have thermal curtains up (they help a little, but not quite enough) and am indeed sleeping with earplugs in. The ideal would be to get to a place where the earplugs come out.

@Jeshin

Teach me your waaaaays.

@jeshin

Do tell - it's to the point where I am considering breaking the lease, so I'm willing to try things.

New apartment was supposed to be a good change.

Instead, it's been constant road noise keeping me up while trying to sleep to the extent that I feel like I have to drug myself to get a good night's sleep because the soundproofing in the unit is so abysmally bad.

I have fantasies of booking a hotel room just to get a good night's sleep. I'm tired all the time, and just want to cry. Shouldn't have left the old place. Living in a laundry room was better than sleeping on a highway.

It took a massive case surge in our organization (which I hopefully? dodged), but I'm back to fully remote.

I'm ecstatic about this.

I just want to feel safe enough to enter a movie theater to see it.

Whiiiiich I don't. Dang it.