I didn’t realize it until after she died, but I mourned my relationship with my mom for years before she actually kicked the bucket. I had long since accepted that she didn’t want to have any kind of relationship with me and that I would almost certainly never have any meaningful relationship with her, unless she had a serious change of heart. So I just assumed that I would never speak to her again. Then when she actually died, it just kinda… ticked from 0.1% chance to 0.0% chance. Still felt shitty to have it finally close on that note, but I hadn’t really expected anything different. I still sometimes wonder if I could have had some kind of breakthrough conversation with her but the reality is that she made her choices and there was nothing I could do to change her mind.

I don’t think we have one. I think we’re all just players, and we make up the game as we go along.

Thanks ❤️ I really wish I knew what to do, because I still have relatives on both sides that are deep in the cult. Not to mention my inlaws 🤦 They occupy a spectrum of dangerous / crazy and some of them I don’t talk to at all, some I still talk to occasionally but it’s hard to figure out where the cutoff line is. I think I’ve had some productive conversations around how dangerous Trump / MAGA are, but it’s hard to tell because I think the effects only manifest in the long term really and it’s hard to tell whether I’m helping or just pushing them away. I don’t think anyone suddenly has a lightbulb and thinks “Oh god, I’m in a cult”, at least not in my experience. It’s more gradual and requires sustained conversations, which incidentally is why cults generally encourage victims to cut off family members who aren’t also in the groupthink. So, I just try to meet the ones I don’t think would likely try to kill me for being trans where they are and do my best to be a good influence in the sphere of influence I have.

As for the reroll, lol I hear ya, but as a wise wizard once said, “so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

My parents were both… medium-core republicans. Didn’t go to rallies or buy swag, but they weren’t interested in non-R candidates or ideas. Dad died of covid before the vaccine was available. Pre-existing immune deficiencies. He was one of the ones they couldn’t fit in the morgues because they were all full. My mom watched all this happen, still refused to get vaccinated, got covid twice (that she told me of) and died of “complications from asthma” two years after the vaccines were generally available. IDK what role covid played in her death but I doubt it helped much. I really don’t know what I could have said to her if watching dad pass in isolation wasn’t enough. I think about it a lot though.

I’m glad it’s not just me lol every so often I’ll think “I haven’t done a python project in a while I’ll try FastAPI” or something and I have so many issues just getting the env set up.

I know I was being flippant. What I mean is, the few (several…) times I’ve gotten into internet arguments I am always drained and unhappy and profoundly do not want to do it anymore, even if I am arguing over sincerely held beliefs. I guess I can see why trolling can be addictive, eliciting engagement is a kind of power over people, and power is addictive. And arguing over things I don’t care about probably takes a lot less emotional investment than things I do care about… I feel like I’m talking myself into being an internet troll. Still though, seems like a miserable way to get your rocks off :/

Well this is bullshit I have ADHD where the heck is all the dopamine?

I haven’t actually played this character yet because the group I made it for failed to launch (and I’m currently between tables), but I really want to play this character. He’s a Dwarven Wizard, scion to a massively wealthy trade baron. He got a job as a diviner for the family business and worked there most of his life, but at some point he realized that long-term divination is mostly bullshit, the bit that isn’t is just statistics, and his job is just a sinecure to keep him comfortable since he will likely never run the company (too many older brothers). He studied magic on his own time because he thought it would help him with his job so he has some skill as a wizard. Sometimes he will go to rougher pubs and listen to adventurers talking about their adventures and imagine what it would be like to leave it all behind. Then, after a messy, public divorce, something snaps and he walks out of his job, goes to the outfitter and buys a bunch of fancy equipment, and signs up with the first adventuring crew he can find under an assumed name.

Same. It’s a real joy if you have a good table. It’s more work though, which makes DMing a bad table that much more painful.

Damn girl are you a 16:10 display device because that ratio is visually pleasing and comfortable to hold.

😭 nooo I can change

The poems
I wrote,
I love 'em
but I'm broke.

I have an old laptop that does that and the keys are very distracting whenever I hold it in tablet mode. I find myself holding it awkwardly on one side to avoid them, even though I know they’re disabled. It is still a nice feature though, I like being able to transition a laptop to portrait mode sometimes.

I do this too, but I usually can’t remember the numbers for a stair I use regularly unless I’m actually at the stair.

I have also tried not counting and I can still tell there’s a part of my brain still stubbornly counting.

Mine locks on the first press, then beeps to confirm on the second (within a timer). I press it twice because every once in a while I’ll mix up the buttons and actually hit unlock, which has a different confirmation beep.

I do this too, usually because I’ve run across an odd word choice or turn of phrase. I am way less accurate though.

TW: spiders

I do this too, because my parents did it. I made it a conscious habit after I found a tiny spider skeleton right under the opening of a can I’d already started drinking out of. Now I at least check, usually blow, sometimes rinse.

I’m not superstitious, but when I’m walking on sidewalks or tile floors I have tended to try to avoid cracks or lines. It’s an easy but engaging puzzle to try to do it while maintaining a normal gait, like the ambulatory equivalent of Sudoku.

Then, one day, my high school geometry teacher taught us about angle bisectors and the game changed permanently. Now, in addition to visible lines, any line intersections now produce invisible bisector rays that must also be avoided. I made a picture to show where you can’t step on a sidewalk. It has been decades since high school geometry and I still try to avoid bisector lines any time I’m on a suitable floor. I have never added another rule to the game since, and it wasn’t til this post that I thought about how strange that is.