Secretly an opossum.
Weighted Wildlife. They specify how much each one weighs on their site. I have an opossum from them and I love her. She’s one of my favorite plushies (don’t tell the others I said that though). They’ve also got some 5lbs dragons in the works.
Creep Cat Toy Company also makes some weighted plushies like the raccoon and opossum, and the weighted ones come with a zipper in the belly so you can, remove, or move the weighted bean bags around.
That’s… actually a form of dysphoria. I can attest from first-hand experience, wishing you were a woman is a form of dysphoria. You don’t have to feel sad to be dysphoric, having a somewhat persistent desire to be seen as a different gender is enough.
Edit: this is assuming you aren’t already a woman >.>
It could make things slightly more difficult straight out of college, but beyond that? Not really. It took me 8yrs to get through college. The fact that you’re almost done means you’re doing great!
Edit: if anything I should have stopped and listened to the voice in my head telling me that the path I was on wasn’t the one I should have been going down. The voice didn’t start showing up until about 6yrs in to a 4 year degree, and listening to it would have meant it probably would have taken another 3~4yrs to finish, but I would have also actually had a career; one that I would have enjoyed, no less.
The ones I had were pretty shitty, lol. Like, I had some good ones like Zoombinis or Freddi Fish, but most of them were stuff like “Milly’s Math House”.
Windows 98
Windows XP
Dialup
The Old Internet aka when 90% of it was html and shockwave flash
Weird childhood obsessions; some were good, some were bad, some became things that defined me as an adult.
A lot of the edutainment games I played as a child. I actually went back and installed them to see what they were like through the eyes of an adult. There were a few that were still fun, but as you might be able to guess, most were pretty shitty.
That said, there have been a few things that ended up being 100% worth revisiting. CRT monitors, for an example, are unironically still kinda awesome. I just wouldn’t replace my main monitors with one.
Communication.
Communication, communication, communication.
A running theme I’m noticing is a lack of communication between you and your friends about what’s going on. You’re asking us to tell you if it’s normal or not, yet it sounds as though you haven’t reached out to them to say something like, “hey man, what’s up? Everything good? Sorry I haven’t been talking as much, how’s life?”
I’m gonna take a wild guess and say that you’re cis male because this is a thing common with cis men: most of y’all don’t know how to communicate with one another. It’s totally possible that the ones who still do things together are actively communicating in the background.
So… What’s stopping you from hitting them up on Facebook, discord, telegram, signal, Whatsapp, etc?
What’s keeping you from trying to help carry the torch?
Relationships are two-way streets, after all. It’s exhausting when you’re always the one to initiate with someone. Like, trust me, that’s me. I’m the one who’s always having to initiate. Even as a very outgoing gal, it’s fucking exhausting.
The people who don’t regularly respond to my messages or only respond in short statements are the ones I let myself drift away from. They rapidly drain my energy and I lose interest in talking to them very quickly. Why would you hang around a brick wall?
The ones where I always have to initiate but are otherwise communicative are the ones that stay friends. Sure, I’m the one who has to remind them of my existence, but they have lives, they may have anxieties, they will typically have something interesting to say whenever I talk to them.
The ones who initiate with me are the ones who I end up being closest to. Those are the ones where friendship (or otherwise) feels effortless and will actually restore energy when I talk to them. They’re the ones who end up at the top of my friend’s list.
Communicate with your friends. See what’s going on in their heads. If you can’t do that, then of course you’re gonna drift away. Like, sorry to be blunt, but you may come off as a boring person. You gotta remind them that you aren’t by talking about hobbies and whatnot.
Community is absolutely still a real thing. In my experience, however, you have to be willing to step outside of the mainstream and you have to be willing to touch grass every now and then. Socializing IRL is completely different than socializing online, which is different than socializing in VR, or in voice chat, or so on.
That said, there absolutely is a case to be made for idea that “community” being slowly ground into dust, possibly intentionally so. The death of open gathering places, the rise of online-only interaction and so forth, erodes at the kind of socialization you need in order to build a community. My tinfoil hat theory is that it’s easier to sow division in the unruly masses and keep them at each other’s throats when everyone is alone, so the rich and powerful have an incentive to kill the concept of community so that it’s harder to rise up against them.
At this point, I believe the places where you’re most likely to find a strong sense of community will be within marginalized groups; people who’ve traditionally been downtrodden tend to band together for protection, relationships and support.
This is my experience as well. Anecdotally, at least. Lately I’ve been slowly putting together a community of friends, and my anxiety and depression have been dropping like crazy. Between that and the self-esteem boost I’ve been getting from finally starting hrt, I’m actually starting to feel competent enough to tackle things like getting a job, moving out (I’m gonna go looking at rental properties with a friend tomorrow), going grocery shopping, things like that.
God, I’ve always wanted to be able to just do something so plain as going grocery shopping for myself.
I can also tell that the anxiety causes a lot of issues with my motivation from the fact that my wonderful mom always throws worst-case scenarios at me whenever I try to become more independent. She’s been throwing the entire warehouse at me lately because I’ve been talking about how I’m moving out with a friend. My excitement has been turning to dread despite my friend’s reassurance that they’ll catch me if I fall; and as a result my motivation and ability to get out of bed has been plummeting.
But… Yeah. Anecdotally, it’s not laziness, it’s being anxious, overwhelmed, overstimmed, depressed, feeling lonely (I mean, what’s the point in doing anything if no one cares?) and so forth.
Did she get snubbed by someone who’s ace or something? Asexuality is possibly the most inoffensive sexuality in existence.
Like, oh no.
They don’t experience sexual attraction.
That means they’re probably significantly less likely to objectify or assault you than someone who isn’t ace. Isn’t that a good thing for someone supposedly so concerned with being objectified and violated, Miss Rowling?
What a wildly brain-dead take from someone who loves claiming to be a feminist.
(Yes, I know she’s not actually a feminist, but it’s another piece of hypocrisy to throw on the pile)
The world around them is collapsing. Tate promises to have the solution. For whatever reason, his solution makes sense to them. So they follow him.
Who’s gonna do that? Like, who’s gonna start rounding them up? The DoJ is on Trump’s side, and the Judicial branch needs them to actually enforce shit.
They’d absolutely exploit it, but the technology necessary to exploit it would likely cause significant advancements that would likely filter back to Earth-side tech. It wouldn’t be the first time, laptops in their current form and cellphone cameras are two examples of tech originally developed for space. On top of that, the moon might not be as big as earth, but it’s still pretty big. It’d likely take a fair amount of effort to put a noticable dent in it.
I found a group of people who actually give a fuck about each other. I am never letting them go. They are stuck with me now.
Until recently I would have said 0%, but probably 95% of my current friends would rush me to a hospital (if it was physically possible) the other 5% are perpetually busy and would probably find someone who could.
That’s only true if you don’t look under the covers.
Spoilers: there’s a furry orgy hiding beneath.
I find it really amusing that furries are probably the most unique American subculture, yet we get shunned by most Americans. Go figure lmao.
It’s forcing an agenda or an “ideological war” in the same way the civil war was about states rights.
Yeah, it was about states rights: the right for non-slave states to choose not to return escaped slaves. That’s a huge reason why the south got so pissy at the north, the north decided they didn’t want to return slaves to the south; slavery wasn’t legal in the north and so being an escaped slave in the north effectively meant you were a Freedman. The south didn’t like that because they saw slaves as property that was basically “stealing itself”.
Something similar is going on with trans rights, only it’s even more complex than the factors leading to the civil war. It’s about the right to do what you want with your own body. The right to be seen how you want to be seen, and treated how you want to be treated (yanno, within reason; I’m not gonna bow down to someone who claims to be a princess and kiss her feet, but I will call her a princess if she asks). These are, in my opinion, basic human rights and as such, attempting to state anything else is “The Agenda”. Unsurprisingly, history repeats itself and the bigots are now attempting to force their agenda and ideology on others while claiming the other side is the one doing it (this, btw, is called projection).
Note: there are a ton of different cultural factors that make bigots believe that they are right and everyone else is wrong. Tbh, I don’t really want to get into that because I’d be writing pages instead of paragraphs. However, a lot of it in the US specifically has to do with religion and adherence to tradition; and how as life gets harder, people adhere more and more strongly to tradition. Well, life’s getting hard for the average American. They’re feeling increasingly squeezed for time and money, so out goes rationality and empathy, and in comes tradition and religion.
It’s hard to accept change when you feel that change brings more bad than good.
Btw, if you and your sister are both AFAB then, for the love of god, support her. As a trans woman who didn’t start transitioning until she was 30, it would have meant a lot to me and radically changed my life if I’d had friends I was comfortable truly being myself around; and it means a hell of a lot more if the support is coming from your peers (in this case, female classmates, especially cisfem classmates).
It’s scary as fuck being trans, and I won’t lie, cis women are intimidating. I don’t really give a shit about how cis men see me. In my head, cis-women are the ultimate judge of who gets to be called “a woman” and it makes me feel like a little part of my soul dies every time I’m rejected. Like, I’m sorry I wasn’t born pretty. I’m sorry I was born with a penis, and I have wide shoulders and narrow hips and my tits are still tiny because I just started hrt. I can’t help it and there’s only so much I can physically change. Anything else is too expensive.
I just want to be myself and be accepted for it.
Treat her as her preferred gender. Make her forget she was AMAB and the bigotry of the world around her. Invite her to girls nights, let her try on clothes and do a cute little spin when she puts on a skirt. Help her do make up and braid her hair (if it’s long enough). Play games together, watch movies together, treat her as one of you. Be her friend’s “cool big sister”.
And when life kicks her in the balls for being “a man”, make sure you and your sister give her a shoulder to cry on. Remind her that, when it comes to human anatomy, a penis is almost literally just a huge clit. No, seriously. Fetuses start out with female genitalia regardless of chromosomes, and then the female genitals turn into male genitals before birth (if you have XY chromosomes, usually). So she doesn’t have a penis, just has a very well endowed clitoris.
Do that and you might also find other trans gals (and possibly trans guys and non-binary pals) congregating around you. Your sister’s friend may feel like they can be more open about being trans, but not everyone does. For every trans person who lives out of the closet, there are probably 5 more who are too scared to be their best selves out of fear of rejection. Publically showing acceptance will help others feel accepted themselves (and in turn, help them to accept themselves, because that’s a really hard thing to do). Public acceptance also helps normalize being trans as being “Just A Thing Some Humans Do”, which helps fight against bigotry itself.
Join the revolution, fight against bigotry, hug a tr*nny.
Edit: also, if she’s old enough, make sure knows she still needs to use condoms if she wants to top (or her partner if she’s a bottom and likes penises). Just because she’s a girl doesn’t mean she can’t get other gals pregnant, and STDs are still very much a thing. You gotta be on hrt for the sperm to stop swimming and even then it takes a little while for that to happen. I personally wouldn’t take the risk (and that’s ignoring the possibility of STDs).
Edit 2: oh! I almost forgot, this is one of my favorite resources to send people who are questioning or want to understand more about what we go through. Give it a read and consider sending it to your sister and her friend as well. There will be kids who use it against your sister’s friend and other trans kids at her school, so keep an eye out for people getting bullied; buuuuut it’ll tell you about the different ways dysphoria can manifest, why gender affirming care is important, and the kinds of changes hrt can bring for those questioning.
No, she’s just a bully and an asshole. If you sister can’t kick her ass, kick her ass yourself and help your sister find better friends. Your sister probably needs the support, otherwise she probably wouldn’t be “”“friends”“” with people like that.
shrug Idk if it’s really that insane. Tbh I’m not convinced the hype isn’t being manufactured. I have a cousin who’s a pretty bog standard, flavor-of-the-month gamer, and he’s said nothing about GTA VI.
Not saying you’re necessarily wrong, I guess, just that something seems off.
No, I’m honestly surprised. I’ve barely heard anything about GTA VI. Seriously. I don’t care about it, none of my friends have talked about it despite being the kinda game that they’d be into, and I’ve only seen one or two articles on it.
You sure it’s that highly anticipated? My observation is that people have gotten really sick and tired of AAA games, and this is a shift that’s occurred since RDR2 came out. Very few of the people I know still regularly play AAA games, and those who do almost never buy them on launch. I haven’t seen anywhere near the same amount of hype for GTA VI as I saw for GTA IV or GTA V.
You’re accusing me of being disingenuous? Maybe you’re the one who’s buying into the hype and overestimating public interest. Or perhaps the true answer is somewhere in the middle. Who knows. I was not intentionally downplaying your favorite series though.
Do it on the clock, during a work day. Make sure you plan for nothing to get done that day. Make it optional: go to the field trip (expenses paid), or take a free day of PTO. Either way they get paid and, because you planned for it in the development schedule, don’t have to worry about potentially having to play catch up because of the day off later. That way it gives them the choice to go do something fun on the company’s dime or stay at home and recharge. Another thing to note: don’t limit yourself to game-related stuff like video game museums.
Go to an aquarium.
Go to a zoo.
Go to a national park if there’s one nearby.
Go to a natural science museum.
The artistic side of game dev takes inspiration from a wide variety of sources, not just other forms of media. Tbh, the most boring field trip I can think of would be to go to a movie theater or video game museum. I want to see something new and take inspiration from that.