That was very nearly my exact same thought. Maybe not for curious children with carrot-sized fingers, but for adults, how convenient! Business competitor’s body won’t quite fit in your fancy frunk? Just while away on your phone for about 10 minutes, let the cat do its magic, and off go the legs! Travel-sized!

Christ, do you understand how big this could be if anyone would let it? (they won’t)

Even a ton of “more environmentally friendly” textiles are as bad if not somehow worse than their already destructive counterparts. I ran the numbers once in an argument and a recyclable shopping bag requires a little over 70 uses just to break even with the comparable pollution it took to make it, but most people who even use them throw them out after less than 20.

God, I wish it said anything about how resilient it is as clothing in comparison to regular leather. I’ve known about the making of lab-grown ghost hearts and stuff through a similar method for a while now, but this never even occurred to me. I know next to nothing about bacteria, clearly.

Sadly, there’s still too much money in doing anything else, I’d bet. So many companies put too much effort into PR, greenwashing and general slavery to want to move over, and this would affect more industries than one.

It’s really a mix of both. More heavily the way the site has been for years because people love drama more than anything else. If you want the sweet serotonin of karma, you’ve gotta be simultaneously the funniest, meanest, and most jaded person in the room, and everyone is jockeying for that position.

It just breeds assholes by design. I’ve noticed my own behavior has changed, too, since leaving that place, although partially that’s because I just didn’t want to be like that anymore.

But it really has been noticeably affected since the protests. I was originally trying to stay for one single sub I was in, because they were the kindest, calmest community I’d met since back when forums were a thing.

Just the best group, for reasons none of us really understood and some of us kept trying to find psychological commonalities to explain. Truly 98% of them were people I’d chill with irl and I still know a few on discord. And also here. If you’re reading this, hello!

But the migration away was enough to completely alter the atmosphere imo. A lot of the more conscientious users left for other pastures, leaving behind those that were more neutral or even openly hostile about the protests.

There began to be fights and insults thrown where before this, any aggression had been unusual. The posts took a turn that reflected that feeling and I really stopped bothering with the place after a few months. I’m still a bit sad about it and there are things that I miss, but there just wasn’t enough to hold me anymore. It seemed to increasingly echo every other part of the site.

For the moment, this place is quieter but better. We still get dumb shit every now and then, but it’s not to the same degree and hopefully never will be. As above, I blame the demographic. We’ve grouped all the people with stubborn morals into a little room and it turns out they have things in common. I do miss a couple people I used to see everywhere all the time when kbin first ramped up, but we run in different circles and they’ve gotten lost in the crowd.

And yes, btw, I am also going to name you one of my favorite users to see around. You seem as kind as you are prolific.

I was just thinking the same thing. More than the usual amount of love went into that one, and most people probably wouldn’t even stop to notice. The subtle fade-out at the top. That is some pleasing vomit.

Ok. Mini-rant because I can’t contain myself atm. Do you wanna know a badly-kept secret? I’ve been making art on and off for 29 years. My ass wishes I could draw too. A ton of artists wish they could draw.

Talent will only give you a leg up, and mainly just at the beginning. The rest, all of us have to struggle for and I’m quite sure very few of us appreciate having to do so. And no matter how good they get, there is always something they have no idea how to do yet or they have some idol whose style they envy more than their own. Or they’re the type that only hates what they make because they’re the one who made it.

Van Gogh had a painter friend named Gauguin, and they were both jealous of each other. There is no magical point that one hits where you feel like you’re Good Enough. The best you can aim for is the kind of steady improvement you don’t even notice happening except on a scale of years, and the confidence to acknowledge those improvements instead of hyper-focusing on every way it isn’t what you saw in your head (it never is).

Go get a pencil or your ipad or whatever. Youtube is by far your biggest friend. Go look up videos about how to actually see what’s in front of you instead of what your brain insists must logically be there. USE REFERENCE. Trace a photo over and over, then immediately try the same thing freehand – this one is super useful, because a lot of drawing is also muscle memory. Break things down into simple shapes and then build on those. Use the open space between objects if you need to, to trick yourself into drawing something complex without getting lost in intimidating structural details.

When you’ve got those down, move onto perspective and composition. Cry a little if you have to, then get back to it. Because now you’re able to do whole backgrounds. People? Do tons of deliberately imprecise gesture drawings. Give your OC a terrifying robot head, a pillow for a torso, and springs for limbs. But go get. Your pencil. And be ok with drawing at first like everyone thinks they draw.

Barring that, my second choice is singing.

Ideally, global warming, but it would be fair to view that as pointless when dissipating the extra CO2 doesn’t necessarily return the trees and the problem would degrade again in a couple hundred years. You’d have to introduce a new fuel source that is sought after, clean, and eternal. Which would be two wishes.

So you have to define it as both of your options, since the loss of either worsens the other. Turn the whole environment back to where it was in the 1200s, overrun the streets with bears, see if I care. It’ll give 'em something to do. Especially the Amazonian avocado farmers.

The part where the ecosystem is in collapse?

In that case, I also choose NZ 802 years ago.

It was my understanding that this is just how science people act

It can be a little stressful even for me. And yes, the inventory management is atrocious btw, it’s a common complaint.

Like someone else mentioned, you can always pay a little to respec if you find out a character doesn’t have the stats to do what you’re wanting/what they’re built to do. That does require gold, and it is something that needs to be read up on and ultimately taken for a test ride to see if it’s even fun for you. That many options can feel really daunting.

But I think with enough cleverness, the game can be won with almost anything. Just last night, I watched a playthrough of a guy who had challenged himself to beat the game without killing anyone or manipulating anyone else to kill them for him, and he did it.

Whole game. The only NPC he had no way around personally harming could still be knocked out and left alive. He tricked the end boss into murdering itself through careful use of explosive barrels and he himself never fired a shot — a super cheesy fighting tactic common enough that the term “barrelmancy” is a thing.

I’m not gonna say there won’t be reloads, but there are a multitude of ways to handle most if not all altercations. Some things can be talked out of, or allies sought to help.

If not, it could be a huge, horrible fight taken head-on for the awful fun of it, or you could sneak up and thunderwave them into a hole and be done with it. Covertly poison the lot. Command them to drop their own weapon and then take it, and giggle while they flail their fists at you. Cast light on the guy with a sun sensitivity and laugh harder at their own personal hell.

You could sneak around back and take the high ground, triggering the battle by firing the first shot from a vantage point the enemy will take 4 rounds to reach through strategically placed magical spikes.

I passed one particularly worrying trial by just turning the most powerful opponent into a sheep until every other enemy was dead and I could gang up on them. Cleared another fight sitting entirely in the rafters where they had trouble hitting me, and shoved them to their death when one found a way up.

Going straight into a battle is the most expected way to do it, but there are usually shenanigans that can be played, is what I’m saying. Accept with grace the attempts that don’t work. If the rules of engagement seem unfair, change the rules.

If it helps any, the game does also reward xp fairly generously. Just reaching new/hidden areas grants a little bit, to say nothing of side quests.

That guy I was talking about, the one that finished with zero kills, ended the game at level 10. The level cap is 12. That was all just wandering around, doing stuff that didn’t require fighting.

Know which stat each class mainly uses and focus on that. Do not make the mages wear armor, it is not a happy fun experience. Beyond that, be clever and moderately lucky with your cleverness. You’ll be fine.

It’s a lot to get used to and does take time to be familiar with all your options, but I started out not very far above where you sound like you are. You do get used to it if you take your time, and I’m certain most people would be overjoyed to help.

I’m not so sure. I’ve not played the first two to be able to measure between them, but I do recall thinking that if I hadn’t been so into watching videos of other peoples’ dnd campaigns, I would be so helplessly far out of my depth.

As it was, I was already struggling a little bit with which class was best for my likely playstyle. Who can use what armor, why, and what happens when they don’t. What skills go with what stats. The general info they don’t have a need to go over when you’re not the one at the table.

Those aren’t things OP would know enough about to even know they don’t know, so I’m glad they have someone helping them. I don’t consider myself anything remotely resembling intelligent and they’re starting out with less. For being easily one of the best things I’ve played in years, it would feel impossibly daunting for a noob

The post can, yeah. The predictability with which all posts or comments containing the word “Google” will have several responses underneath evangelizing Firefox almost certainly will not, after it exceeds a point it very clearly routinely exceeds.

Not because you guys are wrong, (you’re not), but because you’re annoying, which is almost as bad. There is something in psychology called reactance theory, and it’s the reason why, when you’re just about to do the dishes and then someone else tells you to do them, it’s suddenly the last thing on earth you want to do.

It is a choice so small it isn’t worth arguing over, but it’s no longer your choice born out of your own free will, and now you feel cheated and resentful and you are not doing it, both out of spite and more truthfully to regain your sense of choice.

This is the same reason everyone hates vegans so much. They’re not wrong. They’re annoying. Firefox has vegan PR.

I held off listening to Hamilton for three years for no other reason than nobody else I met would shut the goddamn fuck up about Hamilton. Same with the TV version of Good Omens, whatever stupid cartoon jester thing has been in a third of the memes lately, and a hundred other things.

I am very likely to switch over to Firefox myself in the ever-nearing future. That ice is breaking. But it will not be because a bunch of strangers whined at me over my own choices for over a decade. It will be because the cons of whatever Google, Windows, etc. have done finally outweigh the pros of not having to exert effort to maintain my experience.

It bears consideration that in the meantime, Firefox users have a tendency not to even read the several duplicate comments before they start jacking off into them, not uncommonly in a way that’s loudly judgemental towards their own target audience.

The resultant spam cements a mental association between Firefox, the brand and the feeling of being annoyed and insulted. Don’t be those vegans. If I had to think, be like the art community treats Adobe. Fuck Adobe, but I’m not just gonna overload someone with aggressive pompousity who’s only using the industry default.

The thing is — not trying to sound snarky about this — do you honestly believe there is someone on the fediverse that hasn’t heard of Firefox before.

I am uncomfortable to say that I failed 3 of the human ones. In my defense, the guy on the bottom right has pointed teeth like Sweet Tooth

When I get deeply emotionally attached to my data analyst, I might care if they’re moonlighting on the side. Sex, work or not, is still an emotional topic for most of the human race and it’s not new knowledge to anyone.

Enough that it would not naturally occur to me that “please do not engage in prostitution while we’re together” needs to be said out loud. I will casually ask if you’re monogamous and if you say yes, that’s how monogamy works.

Even aside from that, yeah, tbh, I would consider it good form to let your partner know you’re considering a new job regardless, just so they generally know what’s going on. If you have to hide it, maybe something is wrong.

I think we very much do understand it’s a problem and there is not a whole lot women can do about it that we aren’t already doing. The majority of feminists would love for men to see a fucking therapist. They keep fighting it tooth and nail, though.

They’ll either not open up at all for fear of being judged, or they’ll ONLY lean on the women in their life. The one or two women in their life, because in my anecdotal experience they don’t seem to stick around women they can’t sleep with.

You guys want and desperately need actual emotional support, but you seemingly refuse to support each other. When we tell you to so much as just give each other the compliments you’re looking for, it’s met with whining because the respondents want women to do it. Even though mainly the compliments we get are…also from women, and going along with this request puts us in harm’s way.

A lot of men are so beat to shit from such an early age that they can’t even put a name to a lot of emotions besides anger. Which causes them to be both unable to manage what they can barely explain, and to feel significantly uncomfortable (outmatched) in marriage counseling, watching their wife run circles around them.

But biting the bullet and improving on emotional literacy via counseling and/or self-study and deep reflection never seems to strike the fancy. Their date has to teach them. And they WILL be fighting every step of the way.

I would love to date someone who doesn’t define their entire existence through their job. That’s nearly the entire reason two out of my four relationships fell to pieces.

-I- didn’t give a shit. I met one of them when we were both homeless and said yes anyway. But if I made more money or they got laid off at any point, both of them would have a months-long binge drinking breakdown regardless of what I said.

You know you could just stop, right? That’s what’s incredibly frustrating about this for me. A lot of problems that are specific to men seem to be an issue of self-image, and are thus self-imposed, and you could just. Stop.

I can’t make anyone not pick me up by the throat, but any day you could just wake up and decide your paycheck doesn’t actually fucking matter and never date someone who thinks it does.

You could be excruciatingly nice to people for no reason instead of demanding women do it, work out what’s going on with you and tell people about it, and give them both barrels if they think a human being needing help is gay.

As much as I feel for men as a group, it’s the empathetic part that makes me want to hold them upside down and shake them till the sense falls out. Take. Care of each other. Fix the thing.

I warned my ex to be safe when the biology of it was just beginning to be understood back in March/April 2020, and his exact response was, “It’s not like I’m going to die.” He says, occupying every high risk category except “immunocompromised.”

So yeah, apparently.

Rewrite it for someone who doesn’t drink.

Same course it took the first time, only sped up by three years:

• Confront my “fiancee” about what the fuck his problem is, and make clear that if the relationship keeps going like this, there’s no point in keeping it.

He won’t care any more than he did the first time around. He was too pigheaded for that and he never believed I’d actually do it. But I would have given him an overt shot.

• A bit more mindful of the bc, perhaps.

• Take an ex-friend up on their romantic offer much more quickly. I wasn’t ready to jump back in at the time, but in my head I would now have been single for years.

He’d probably have the same reaction to this that he had last time — evaporating from my life completely — but I figure I might as well while we’re still talking and I’m not going to lose anything I haven’t already lost.

• Consider transportational/long-distance options in regards to the same college as before, as I am magically aware of one single existing career option that I’m actually passionate about instead of just performing for sustenance. Don’t drop out this time.

Also fight tooth and nail to take A/P like the requirements suggest is necessary. There is a fuck up either in their system or in the counselor’s brain.

• Call my dad/accept one of his calls.

He has an impossibly hard time not being abusive at pure random, and I don’t think there was ever any choice I could make that he wouldn’t find fault with. Telling him all the above may make him proud but probably not. But he kills himself next year and he turns out to be the parent that loved me.

• Persuade him about/do not dawdle on what little he leaves you in the will he never signs.

• Put your inheritance in the stock market where it belongs, not in “good people” who “really need the help” so they aren’t “legit starving bro” like you’re starving. Two legs bad.

• Cry substantially and more than once. The best baby kitty you will ever meet is at the helpless mercy of someone you don’t want to share a state with, much less “date” in order to care for her.

What do we do. She has no one else, so now she has no one. Do we have an obligation to pretend, in the hopes of taking the cat when we leave?

hasn’t talked to me since Monday.

I would normally interpret “we’re not friends” to be joking, but not if it lasts more than a couple minutes. If real, it is the end of the 4th day for OP, going on into the 5th.

Whatever happened, it wasn’t something good. Offering someone money to like you probably won’t improve one’s social standing. Not to say almost a week of the silent treatment bodes well for problem solving, either.

Without knowing the full story, @cRazi_man, maybe the two of you should at least think over seeing someone? A lot of couples see it as a last resort, so they end up waiting til there’s basically nothing to save before trying to do something about it. This is…a concern.