I fucking love games that have the bare minimum of story in order to tell you who you are and what you’re doing

but then the world is so vibey that you want to read more anyway, and it turns out there’s a bunch of optional lore that you can read to learn about anything you want

Mass Effect’s codex system is my absolute favorite example of this because the lore is unlocked as soon as you start wondering about a topic, and you can access it any time in the pause menu with no bullshit

for some reason I hate RPG elements when they’re framed as attacking an enemy but I love them when they’re framed as Clicking On Rocks

like why the fuck do I love Runescape but not Pokémon? they’re effectively the same thing: do a braindead simple task an unreasonable number of times in order to unlock a slight variation on that task that you have to do even more times

what’s weird too is that WoW’s combat-oriented progression systems frustrate me. but the crafting progression systems? fucking love them

maybe part of it is I just like being able to make my own gear and see the aesthetic change of wearing different gear that looks cooler and better

for a long time I thought speedrunning meant “go as fast as you can” and to me that means exhausting myself rushing, which is not sustainable and not fun

but now I understand that it probably means “play the game so frequently that going fast is almost automatic”. it’s not that in their head they’re frantic for the entire run - instead it’s more like the “slow is smooth. smooth is fast” philosophy:

they started at the fastest pace that they could complete all of the required tasks with no mistakes. (this was probably pretty slow at first) then they practiced at that pace until they were able to go faster while still making no mistakes. and then they got faster and faster

so it’s not exhausting and hectic for them - it’s a practiced skill that feels natural

and to be honest, I wonder if the whole concept of speedrunning came from autistic people replaying their favorite game over and over. starting at a normal pace and getting faster over time until they started wondering “how much faster can I go?” because trying to be faster added a new layer of fun to a game they already loved

starting to think that I should stop posting eight million polls per day. sorry everyone

(I do want to continue the build-a-partner thing eventually though. I feel like I probably just asked y’all too many questions back-to-back with no real reward yet. so instead I’ll probably pick the traits that I want to write about (from the tie-breaker poll) and try to paint a good, evocative picture of them. and if folks are interested then I can do the lewd questions that I was saving for dessert, because I would love write erotic/kinky things about that character)

hi fedi i have a request for a friend who doesn’t use fedi

do yall know any artists that are good at drawing robots/dolls and do commissions? any suggestions are good, so if this is you or someone you know or whatever, feel free to promote!

• carrie

congratulations to Boba Fett - the galaxy’s first visor drone to come out as nega-trans

winning 100,000 internet arguments about why Linux is better than Windows or why FOSS is superior or why enshittification is bad

is still worse than helping one (1) non-technical person install Linux on their machine that can’t run Windows 11. or helping them install and learn to use LibreOffice because they can’t afford Office 365. or teaching them how to disable the spyware and adware on their Windows machine

for every person who’s staunchly anti-FOSS, there’s someone trying Linux for the first time and overwhelmed by driver issues, or someone who simply doesn’t know how to find good free software, or someone who wants to learn photo editing and can’t afford Photoshop

so don’t be pushy or smug or argumentative towards those who have already made up their minds. be informative and helpful to those who are open to help. tell them what their options are and be ready to provide support if things go wrong

looks like Windows 11 just updated and installed Copilot on my PC (including the incredibly invasive screenshotting “feature”). but thankfully O&O ShutUp 10 had already pre-disabled Copilot and it’s still disabled now, so all is well

I’m ngl I would never recommend that anyone use Windows 11 unless they’re also going to run O&O ShutUp 10 alongside it

you either die elegant and minimal or live long enough to see yourself become bloated and kludgy

the less interesting a YouTube video’s topic sounds, the more interesting the video will be

anyway today I am learning about the history and culture of Chinese takeout menus

The only thing that is truly essential for an opera is at least one character wearing a supremely silly hat.

HES SO RIGHT THO EVERY TIME I HEAR THIS I THINK THIS EXACT THINK THJANK YOU I M THE ANNOYING SPOON

-carrie

Is Pokémon Intentionally Designed to Waste Your Time? | Design Delve

I have so much respect for JM8 for pointing out all of the deliberately slow, time-waste-y aspects of Pokemon. and a moderate amount of respect for this new Pokemon game for trying to address them and apparently doing a decent enough job