I haven't tweeted much lately for various reasons, so he's a thread of stuff that's backed up inside my weird head
1 - Always online single player games are annoying even when I end up loving the game. I get angry when I can't play a single player game cause the internet is down. 2 - I use Diablo 3 as the biggest example here, because it's the game I probably like the most that has this feature that isn't an MMO. It doesn't annoy me as much in Diablo 4, possibly due to the Multiplayer Open World focus of that game.

Okay, so now, after a day or so (I took my first dose of Vyvanse around 8 am) here's my report on how it's affected me.

1 - Actually went to sleep around 8:30, stayed asleep until noon. This is more sleep in one sitting than I've managed in two years.
2 - Cleaned the toilet. 3 - Went for a walk with @JulianJRossi and actually remarked out loud that it was a beautiful day.
4 - kept smiling at odd moments, because (and I only realized it later) I could actually experience joy. I've had anhedonia for years now.

So, I’m starting a medication this week, because at this point my depression is so obvious that my pharmacist could diagnose it from the food I like to eat. Because I don’t like to eat any food at all. Or really enjoy much of anything. But I do still feel anxiety. I am not yet on the medication, and worse, while the doc told me what it is, I was so anxious during our conversation that I have forgotten what it is. Worse still, I’m anxious about getting the ability to feel anything strongly back.

Seeing people tweet about Waffle House and I'm again reminded of my permanent outsider status. No matter the subculture, as soon as I am introduced to it, I'm almost immediately sent to the outskirts, staring in.

Why does Waffle House remind me of this? Back in the late 90's/early 2000's I had a friend named Meghan. She had a blog -- that's how we met, through our blogs -- and so, around summer of 2001 I decided to go on a trip and meet her. She lived in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

I wonder what the 'super soldier serum' they're using in TFaWS is. It's not Erskine's formula because that caused radical physical transformation. It's not the formula Ross had, that required multiple doses. It's not whatever Banner used, that was gamma activated. It seems likely it's whatever version of the serum Howard Stark had -- the version Hydra had WS kill him for. Or possibly whatever version of it Hydra tested on Bucky over the years.

Piggybacking off of this thread, I just realized MCU Thanos didn't wish for 50% of all life to vanish. That was merely the EFFECT of his snap. MCU Thanos isn't a death obsessed madman, he's someone who believes himself to be coldly rational and willing to do what must be done.

https://twitter.com/MatthewWRossi/status/1383674609753419777

So what did Thanos actually command the Infinity Stones to do, if not to kill half of all life? Well, that's the thing. They weren't KILLED, were they? They simply ceased to exist. Blew apart into dust. He didn't strike them dead and leave their corpses to rot, he unmade them.

So, look, I don't mean to be the grumpster. But here's the thing. I've had an itch in my head since Avengers: Endgame came out, and now, watching Wandavision and FatWS, I realize that Tony Stark was a fucking insane egomaniac and NOBODY SHOULD HAVE LISTENED TO HIM. Thanos didn't just wipe out half of the humans, or half of the sapient beings in the universe.

He wiped out half OF ALL LIVING THINGS.

EVERYWHERE. HALF OF EVERYTHING.

Watching Snyder Cut now, and it's amazing how much of Snyder that was scraped away from the original release, and how much of it is back in this cut. Love him or hate him, this movie feels like a movie made by Zach Snyder. It's rare in today's world for a filmmaker to manage to get another shot at realizing their vision. I don't like a lot of the vitriol and the petulance from the people who demanded this cut, but I am happy for Snyder that at last the movie he wanted to make is the film we have.

The reason so many anti-vaxxers are anti-vaxxers is that they have grown up in a world where vaccines were common and effective, and as a result, did not experience the waves of outbreaks and deaths that previous generations lived with. Polio, measles, mumps, smallpox and more. This is why you'll see people who grew up after 1955, when Jonas Salk's Polio vaccine first became available, dismissing vaccination. They have reaped its benefits and have confused those benefits with some trick of their own innate superiority.

Whenever I see someone drag out the 'it only kills a few people under 60" bullshit, I realize the issue is simply that the speaker doesn't give a shit if people over 60 die strangling in their own fluids as their lungs fail, but there's a disconnect there as well. First off, in order for it to only kill a few of those under 60 that contract it, there needs to be robust medical care, including hospitalization in many cases. This means our medical system is full. Our doctors and nurses are stressed. If you need a doctor for anything ELSE...

Today I had to walk to the Veterinarian's office to pick up pain medication for one of my two sick cats -- she has massive arthritis, like you have no idea how bad this is, she needs to get blasted on serious shit to function. It was a hell of a walk, sunny here in Edmonton. My knee has been in pain for a few days now, so it wasn't a fun walk, but I love my cats so I did it. Got to the vet's office, called them to say "Hey, I'm outside wearing my mask, please bring my cat's drugs out to me" and they said "sure, that's how life is now"

True story -- my first girlfriend in high school was Jewish. One day, we went to my grandmother's house to visit her. I spent a lot of time there, as my cousin Billy lived there, and he and I were close growing up. What I didn't know was that one of my uncles had moved back home. I also didn't know he was a huge collector of Nazi memorabilia. Bayonets, guns from the German army, flags. Nor did I know that he'd put a giant Nazi Blood Flag (yes, THAT flag) up in his bedroom, which had previously been storage.

Sometimes I do things just to see if people notice. I've been rereading a lot of old D&D books on pdf lately, and I enjoy them, but I'm noticing a LOT of "This nation is dominated by men, women can't own property or be considered citizens" stuff. What if I reversed that? What if I sat down and wrote a campaign setting where almost ALL of the nations and city states were matrilineal or otherwise dominated by women. "Men CAN be adventurers or fighters, but it's socially looked down upon." "Men aren't allowed to be clerics here."

This month alone, we found out that ICE is literally committing genocide with forcible sterilization of its prisoners. The idea that finding out the President wanted to use a heat ray on protesters is somehow going to matter is unspeakably naive. I mean, I'm still seeing people demanding that Biden go further left or try and appeal to hardcore progressives, and seemingly 'not excited' by his campaign. Meanwhile, the incumbent is presiding over literal genocide. And his supporters are fine with it.

Because apparently this ALSO needs to be said --

Seeking help via therapy is admirable.
Telling people they need therapy because they feel differently about a video game storyline than you do is pretty arrogant, unless they're actively attacking people over it. And just so you know...

Me saying "This story hit me hard and I need closure" is not me attacking anyone, especially not you. If something affects me differently than it does you? That's not because I'm broken and you need to help me.

Gonna do a thread with the pictures of my fucked up eyes Not this tweet, wanted to give you a buffer

Watching the 1980's Conan movie and it's got some great environmental storytelling and the music is phenomenal but Arnold does an absolutely wretched job of conveying the character of Conan as Howard wrote him. There's none of the gigantic melancholies OR mirth in this portrayal Ah yes, the incredibly awkward "Conan has sex with a witch so that she'll give him directions" scene, which is simultaneously hilarious and not at all trying to pretend it's not here so we can see Conan banging someone

I've always kind of hated Alignment in D&D, and I have a lot of reasons why. But basically, I think it leads to some really dumb assumptions on the part of players and DM's. I remember the first Paladin I played, Tar "Tieronymous" Bars. Tar was a drunkard. I felt like that was perfectly in keeping with a lot of religious people I knew, but I kept having to justify it with the DM because "It's not lawful good to be a drunk" to which I responded "It's not in the code of conduct you showed me for the Paladin order"

Stories, narratives work in a specific way. The fact that you have recognized how a narrative will go just means you are capable of grasping the elements that make up a narrative, not that the narrative is told poorly or is somehow poorly constructed. Not every story shocks you.

https://twitter.com/byelacey/status/1300407620948365314

I often find this idea utterly maddening. I am hardly an award winning writer -- I doubt I'll even be counted as known within my lifetime. But the fact remains, I've written enough to see the gears of a narrative. It's like arguing a watch sucks because it's not a cuckoo clock.

If nothing else I ever say resonates with you, please remember this - you do not have to read the box text in the modules directly to your players. You should absolutely read it. But once you have, please, feel free to paraphrase or otherwise restate or reframe that info. There are several reasons for this. First, relatively few DM's are such skilled cold readers that they can just read a chunk of text to their players and not SOUND like they're doing that. I stumble over words from time to time, it's just something that most people would do.

Back in 1995 to 2005, I had maybe three times the gaming library I have today. I sold a lot of stuff off in our lean times - a ton of Call of Cthulhu, Werewolf, Vampire, Mage, Changeling and Wraith, Kult, Conspiracy X, Unknown Armies and a lot more

https://twitter.com/MatthewWRossi/status/1298154469843034113

I mean, just looking at the shelf to my left, I see The Strange, Talislanta, D20 Modern, Jovian Chronicles, Heavy Gear, Champions/Hero System, In Nomine, Silhouette System (Dream Pod 9, same system as Heavy Gear/Jovian Chronicles) Star Wars, Kindred of the East for Vampire...