Mossy Feathers (She/They)

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.

Give her a bottle of NyQuil unsupervised and bash her over the head with a brick for good measure.

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.

2 would be the closest I’d consider to being ideal. The handle kinda looks like it sucks tho.

Ideal would be the head of 2 with the handle of 5.

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.

Sure. Just make sure there’s a gate for marginalized communities who are trying to get out.

I have a lot of trans Texas friends, few of us have any decent options to leave. A fun fact: Texas ranks 2nd when it comes to % of trans people. Yet we have no voice, and a big part of that is thanks to how fucked the Texas voting districts are. That’s why a trans person in Dallas can be decently safe, but a gay person in Tyler will get their knee kicked in by a neo-nazi in broad daylight (this actually happened to someone I know, they have to walk with a cane now and they aren’t even 21); yet cities barely end up with any blue politicians at a state or federal level.

Sorry dude, the world’s richest and most powerful country is currently melting down and turning to fascism. That affects everyone, directly or indirectly. You’re gonna get a lot of politics.

Honestly, based genie. Instead of fucking you over by twisting your wish into something negative, he fucks you over by spending time on small details. At least the latter will likely result in something you actually want, whereas the former will probably suck.

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.

There are many types of mosquitoes, but only a few suck blood. It’s the bloodsuckers they’re talking about when they say no one would miss them.

Yeah, but, imagine the possibilities in humans

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.

Thanks, I kinda fucking hate it. Everything about it looks wrong.

At least you can have a pet rat and there are plenty of guides on what to feed them.