The High Road is Hard to Find

  Ellis / Ven | She / Her | Aquarius | ~Games Industry~ | MA in Talking Too Much 

[venhediss]

find me other places just in case ig

neocities: https://ttsuuka.neocities.org/ i now officially take JP>EN translation requests here: https://ttsuuka.neocities.org/submissions

bsky: yuurinji.bsky.social

discord: venhediss

if you're a beloved mutual here, ask if you want my ao3

[byjove]

idioms are always funnier in languages you do not understand, especially when a native speaker is struggling to explain and actively digesting how ridiculous it is in real time

[undeadhousewife]

[eeby-deeby-dark-and-creepy]

Ok now I’m curious… Which do you prefer:

I have lived in and out of the city, I prefer the city

I have only lived in the city, I prefer the city

I have only lived out of the city, I prefer the city

I have lived in and out of the city, I prefer out of the city

I have only lived in the city, I prefer out of the city

I have only lived out of the city, I prefer out of the city

Bald/vanilla extract/I reject dichotomies under all circumstances/I can’t read

Remaining time: 3 days 18 hours

[venhediss]

almost every action you can take in kcd2 is moderately clunky which makes it sort of an unfun game to actually Play until you become accustomed to the clunkiness

but one thing i will say for it is that, as much as there are portions of it that feel designed to waste your time - by and large, the side quests are not like that. a lot of massive AAA open world games feel like the studio made the game open world because they weren't allowed (by audience expectations or marketing demands or what have you) to make anything that isn't open world, so when they have to populate that world with things to do, they end up making a bunch of copy-paste fetch quests to fill the space and force you to explore it.

by comparison basically every side-quest in kcd2 feels designed to introduce you to some specific facet of the social and cultural lives of the people in the setting. the stuff you actually do isn't unique - the game only has so many verbs - but a fetch quest to find and destroy dinosaur bones so the local peasants don't freak out about dragons is a very different experience than a fetch quest to find a lucky banner that was stolen from some miners who want it back before their intramural archery contest with the assholes from that other mining company.

[venhediss]

who put this hayes code ass psychosexually motivated irredeemably evil gay vizier in my 1400s bohemia simulator

[venhediss]

i genuinely don't think this character was written to hit all those tropes intentionally, i don't think i have the grounds to give the writers that much credit (?), but the accuracy with which he does hit them anyways has me baffled as to how it could be unintentional

what do you mean you tried to symbolically emasculate my player character by stealing his adoptive father's heirloom masterwork sword (phallic symbol of potency, masculinity, and the patriline), and when that didn't work you projected your displaced need to reassert domination/control onto a proxy for my player character who you made into your gay lover, because you associate control over sexuality with power

and it Wasn't Intentionally Written Like That.

[venhediss]

who put this hayes code ass psychosexually motivated irredeemably evil gay vizier in my 1400s bohemia simulator

[toskarin]

[surrounded exclusively by the highly cultivated circle of people I don't find it difficult to be around] it's crazy how every media property I dislike is widely panned yet still succeeds

[misscrazyfangirl321]

Being an adult will have you unironically craving a vegetable

[cannibalchicken]

[spin-the-wheel-polls]

You are an adventurer in a generic fantasy world and you use this weapon!

Do you like it?

YES!!!!!

yes

Eh it's okay

No

NO!!!!!!!

Voting ended onJul 21

[ashoss]

“word hashtag my word #myword” has done irreversible damage to my vocabulary

[amnesiaguy]

of all the stupid things i’ve posted on the internet it’s very baffling and awesome that #mytwig had such a lasting impact. anyway long live #mytwig

[venhediss]

i haven't used a keyboard or computer mouse in 3 weeks. this monitor is so big. what the fuck

[moveslikekeithrichards]

this might be kind of a reach but is there a way for printers to connect to devices so that documents can be printed from them

[venhediss]

if you want other people to perceive you as being as cool and interesting as YOU feel like you are, you do have to present yourself in public in ways that attract some amount of attention or interest

this is a life lesson i have only learned in my 30s because i spent a lot of my life before that desperately trying Not to be noticed by strangers in public. unfortunately, while that's a good strategy for not having to deal with people you don't want to deal with, it turns out it's also a terrible way to make friends and find peers as an adult.

[venhediss]

there's a list of reasons why i, specifically, also have trouble with this:

i don't like crowds or noisy, crowded places, or attracting a ton of attention to myself generally

i don't like wearing clothes that are uncomfortable or restricting, or that require a lot of adjustment or maintenance throughout the day to look good or sit right, even if they otherwise look really cool

i don't like wearing a lot of jewelry (i worry i'll lose or break it)

i don't like makeup for combinations of the above reasons (uncomfortable, pain in the ass to maintain, there's a whole skill to it even if you're not trying to do ""natural"" looking makeup)

i don't really go in for body modification of any sort

i don't dye my hair (salon would be crazy expensive for double processing my pretty dark hair, doing it myself would be time and effort intensive and involve working directly with bleach, no thanks)

another thing people say about how to make friends as an adult is that you should "join a club" or "do a community sport" but those things assume you have hobbies or interests that are social/communal (i don't, really), and that you have the TIME to be doing something for several hours a week at regular timeslots, and even if you do have that time, trust me when i say that you can only do so much, and one club or sport or community org is often as much as a reasonable person will want to take on outside of a full time job. and the chances that there happen to be a ton of people you want to be besties with in that specific group are.......slimmer than you might think.

so if you're like me and aren't interested in any of the above direct ways of making yourself stand out or inserting yourself into existing social groups, what else can you do to (and this is really the crux of all of this) give like-minded strangers a social excuse to come up and talk to you? i don't really have a great answer for this but these are some things i've thought of:

make or modify your own clothes or accessories. this is extremely time-intensive if you're not an experienced seamster, but it's a good way of making stuff that you like and that feels good on you that also stands out from store-bought stuff. a jacket covered in patches or with a custom back panel for example is a popular one.

do your solitary hobbies in public spaces. take your book or manga or sketchbook or knitting or studying or whatever to a bar or cafe or park and just do it there instead of at your house. people are often hesitant to bother you if you look locked in, but if you're not wearing headphones and you seem aware of your surroundings, there's a decent chance someone who's interested in what you're doing will come by.

wear merch. it can feel cringe but like if you're super into. idk. hadestown or something and you go out with your Hadestown Bag, it gives people an opening to go, hey, i love hadestown! and start talking to you about it.

if you have access to a local park or other community gathering space and you have a hobby or interest that can involve others, try just setting up a little table or blanket to do things like write short poems for people, do tarot readings, paint miniatures, play song requests on guitar or keyboard, play speed chess, whatever. get creative. invite others into your work.

keep an eye out for one-off gatherings or spaces that are more likely to have a higher density of people in them that share your interests. art shows, film or music appreciation nights, writing circles, etc. if these don't exist, consider hosting something.

that's kind of all i've got but if anyone else has suggestions of things that have worked in their lives to help find cool strangers to talk to, please share them lmao

[venhediss]

if you want other people to perceive you as being as cool and interesting as YOU feel like you are, you do have to present yourself in public in ways that attract some amount of attention or interest

this is a life lesson i have only learned in my 30s because i spent a lot of my life before that desperately trying Not to be noticed by strangers in public. unfortunately, while that's a good strategy for not having to deal with people you don't want to deal with, it turns out it's also a terrible way to make friends and find peers as an adult.

[venhediss]

once again i am asking what in the world i'm missing that makes people enjoy mamoru hosoda films

genuinely if you like mamoru hosoda. explain it to me.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Un jour, je serai de retour près de toi.

(One day, I will return to your side)