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Cake day: June 23rd, 2023

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  • I often get game choice paralysis, so I have extensively categorized my game library to help with both decision making, but also time management. I use numbers to force my categories to sort in the order I want rather than alphabetically by category name.

    Also worth noting I only started doing this after I stopped playing an MMO and reclaimed whatever % of my life.

    First is my “currently playing” category. This contains roughly one game from each other category/genre.

    • A story driven RPG (Witcher 3 at the moment, the Metro series after)
    • A rhythm game (McOsu, an Osu mod)
    • An optimization/building game (Shapez 2 but maybe back to factorio soon)
    • An action rougelike (going back to Hades before Hades 2)
    • A deck builder (currently MTGA, but my group really wants to ditch WotC)
    • A puzzle game (probably Blue Prince once it comes out)
    • A dedicated indie game spot (the Cairn demo)
    • A few other odd games that I like having quick access to because I like them

    There is sort of a secret bonus game to this section, but it also sits outside of this system entirely, because I will ALWAYS go back to it. And that’s the “block game” category. For a long time this was various flavors of modded Minecraft, but I’m so fed up with Microsoft enshitifying my baby that I’ve jumped ship. I’m playing Vintage Story (also heavily modded) and it’s just a better game top to bottom in my opinion.

    Then there is an “Interesred” category for games I’ve either been told I should try and also think I might enjoy. I try to keep this small, following roughly a similar “one per genre” as the previous category. I honestly don’t really touch these much, it’s more there for when a spot is freed up in the “currently playing” section. This is also where demos for unreleased games go.

    Then there is a “favorite” and “liked” category which largely contain games I’ve played before or are intentionally hyper replayable. This has a lot of my favorite puzzle games, a lot of the various rogue likes with a different game as the core mechanic (think peglin and ballionaire) stuff like that. Basically things to sift through if none of my current games are sparking an interest.

    After this is just genre categories used for storage essentially so I can collapse them and not be sick scrolling the whole list.

    I have a decent amount of time to game, but also work a very physical job, so I need to be very into a game to prioritize it over sleeping and such.









  • Not immutable, but I slapped Garuda on a 2016 gaming laptop to give it a second life and it’s been great for the most part. I got a bit fiddly with it and had to fight my way through some partial upgrade issues, but know I arch based distros better and it’s stable as can be. I honestly don’t update it that often since it just serves are my TV box, and I’m seriously considering swapping to a Nix install now that I’ve mostly stabilized my package list for the purposes of gaming and video encoding. Proton is one of the only things I think get regular updates on that device, but those are entirely handled by Steam, so immutable is very attractive to me for a gaming only system.

    I’ll also add that my primary device has arch on it and I do most of my gaming (but also work) there. It’s great, and I can’t help but feel a lot of the distros that are “made for gaming” suffer from a lot of the issues that windows does. They are trying to be preconfigured to work with any and all hardware. This leads to bloated package lists, and just extra guffins to work around as you trouble shoot. I’d say my arch install took a bit longer to get gaming super stable, but I’ve also had to fix much fewer issues compared to the Garuda install.

    All the people mentioning Bazzite are making me eye it to replace Garuda tho.




  • I finally kicked my Destiny 2 habit by installing Linux, and while I absolutely miss the gameplay and my team, I haven’t really looked back. I’m involved and interested in so many other things now. I still see the odd post that gives ma a pang of FOMO, but the thought of booting into my windows install makes me want to peel my skin off with tweezers.

    Not an MMORPG by any means, but I’ve been really enjoying a “Minecraft like” called Vintage Story that is giving me the same feeling. The commodification of Minecraft has finally frustrated me enough and I’m jumping ship.




  • Oof yeah, the work environment sounds rough. The industry I’m in overlaps a lot with queer, and neurodivergent folk, which helps set the tone of a lot of interactions for sure.

    I really relate to the being “one of the more engaging folks”. I’m very good at being interested in new information, which often translates to people talking to me when they should be talking to the whole group. That is super draining because once it’s started I feel a bit of a responsibility to maintain that so the person giving instruction doesn’t get thrown off.

    The part about first impressions is interesting to me. I feel like people that are that quick to write someone off aren’t really people I would personally want to hang out with. Obviously in a work environment that is tough because you’re around them no matter what, but yeah, seems like those people aren’t very accepting or accommodating.

    Have you considered talking to your employer about potential accommodations? I read an article recently about a bunch of adults that finally brought their diagnoses up to their bosses and it actually went really well.

    Thanks for the kind words at the end of your reply. Keep on keeping on!


  • Some of what I’ll say has probably been said, but here are some of my thoughts.

    I really struggle with small talk. Like I would rather sit in silence than exchange useless thoughts/information, so a lot of the “standard” ways society makes conversation just really pain me, even as just a start for more interesting conversations.

    I’ve remedied this in a few ways. The first, as others have mentioned, try to find something about the person you take interest with. Getting into fashion has proven to be a wonderful tool for this for me. It’s very easy to find an item in someone’s outfit I like. If it’s an interesting piece of clothing or jewelry it probably has a fun story behind it. So much of the clothing that actually gets sold these days is really bland I feel, just overpriced basics. Many actually neat pieces are vintage or at least second hand, and often come with stories of where they were from or how they came into someone’s possession.

    I’m not saying become a fashion girlie, but a lot of people carry indicators of their interests in some way. Stickers on water bottles or pins on bags. I love seeing someone with a sticker from the same fandom as me, or a pride pin. Even if it’s just a “hey I like your pin”. Getting in the habit of stuff like that will just help you approach people, and make you more approachable.

    Another thing I’ve started doing more is smiling at people. This was something I had to get used to as I started passing more, but most people that were not socialized as men often smile at one another in passing. Even just actually looking at people. Like I don’t feel as weird observing things I find interesting, because worst case if someone notices me looking at them or something, I’ll just smile. Show some joy, people will often join. I feel like there was this period where I assumed I was “smiling wrong” and just looking like a creep, but idk, I’m just smiling in the way that feels genuine to me, and most people seems to get it. From there if more interaction happens then I got back to my first point.

    Between these two things I think I’ve just become a more socially accessible person. I’m good at being interested in things, I had to get better at noticing things I can take interest in.

    Finally, it is tiring. Make sure to take care of yourself. If your social battery is empty, don’t be social!! As I’ve lived more of my truth, with both my autism and my transition, I’ve naturally fallen in with people that are also very accessible and accommodating. If I need to have a non-verbal night with friends they won’t question that and in fact we all know enough sign language to make that very doable.

    You’ll start meeting people that you mesh with!! It is absolutely tough putting yourself out there, and you’re clearly putting lots of thought and effort into this. Keep going!