paultimate14

@paultimate14@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Rumors of Sony Acquiring FromSoft’s Parent Company - GAMESCENSOR⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  1. I don’t know the details of how hands-on or hands-off Microsoft has been or should have been with studios, but even at the time of the AB acquisition the reputation for results was bad. I found an article from 2018 looking at the studios Microsoft had purchased up until then. Mohjang is really the only success story- Bungie never got back to where they were with HALO and got spun off, Rare has never reached their N64 peak again, and several other studios just closed.

  2. Things have not been close to “okay” since these acquisitions. Microsoft laid off almost 2,000 people from Activision-Blizzard in January 2024. Then in May they closed 3 Zenimax-owned studios- Tango, Arkane Austin, and Alpha Dog. They then announced another 650 layoffs in September, with more expected in 2025. Microsoft is throwing money at buying up IP and then firing the employees and closing down.

  3. What don’t you like about Sony releasing their games on PC? Almost all of Microsoft’s games have been (at least most of the ones worth playing) throughout the history of Xbox. I think timed exclusivity is reasonable and I can be patient. Some of the ports had better or worse launch experiences but it’s been a while since I can remember a bad one. If anything I wish Nintendo would get with the program and release games on PC too, though that probably will never happen.

  The PS5 is leading the Xbox, but neither are anywhere close to the Switch. Microsoft absolutely dwarfs Sony as a parent company- Sony never would have stood any chance at buying Zenimax, let alone AB. I do agree that this isn’t necessary to remain competitive and would be and for the industry, but this isn’t anywhere close to the scale of those deals. I will note that the Activision-Blizzard merger is still pretty recent, and Phil Spencer has mentioned wanting to continue acquisitions (like King, the maker of Candy Crush), so this could also be Sony trying to respond to that.

  The estimated I see have all of Kadokawa values at ~$2.7 billion. My uneducated guess is that FromSoft is probably a couple hundred million of that, just knowing how many other assets Kadokawa owns (and remember- Sony has non-gaming-related interest in Kadokawa too). Activision-Blizzard was sold for ~$69 billion.

  Also it’s worth pointing out that Sony are already partial owners of FromSoft. And Sony, while not perfect, had a much better record of managing their acquired studios than Microsoft. Look at Naughty Dog and Insomniac for examples. I’d have to go back and do research to confirm, but I think the only studios Sony has closed have been ones they started. London studios (which was mostly focused on toe-in titles for hardware gimmicks like the Move and Wonderbook) and Japan Studios, which for years was more of a support studio and an incubator for talent they would move to other studios later- like Team Icon and Team Asobi.

  I don’t mean to come across as a PlayStation fanboy- Sony has made a ton of mistakes of their own over the years. But most of their mistakes have just been side projects like VR, Move, the EyeToy. You can argue whether the PSP and Vita were successful or not. On comparison, Xbox has consistently sold less and has still not been profitable in close in 25 years, while Nintendo has been wildly volatile with huge hits like the Wii and Switch and huge misses like the WiiU.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Rumors of Sony Acquiring FromSoft’s Parent Company - GAMESCENSOR⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I got into a lot of discussions with people who seemed to believe that Microsoft would “save” Activision-Blizzard. Clean up the culture, create a better work environment, shift the focus away from live-services and micro-transactions. People were expecting a lot of their older games to make their way to GamePass… Which is a whole other kind of predatory pricing.

  Lo and behold- AB went ahead and laid off almost 2,000 redundant positions after the acquisition and don’t seem to have changed their business structure much.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Rumors of Sony Acquiring FromSoft’s Parent Company - GAMESCENSOR⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s so funny to me how vigorously the internet defended Microsoft, a much much larger company than Sony, buying Bethesda and Activision-Blizzard, each much larger companies than Kadokawa.

  Consolidation is bad for everyone except owners and I hope this doesn’t happen.

  Silver linings: at the very least this would probably result in the Bloodborne re-release people have been begging for. If it were Microsoft purchasing them I would expect a ton of immediate layoffs and maybe studio closure after a few years. While Sony has closed a couple of studios (mostly their own home-grown ones that were re-structured into other things) they seem more focused on actually using their acquisitions than just gobbling the IP and eliminating competition.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Reliable bank account⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  “I kept overdrafting my account even though I opted out”

  Is this some SovCit shit where they think “opting out” of the terms of service for their bank account is an option?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Haters will say it’s fake⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Are they even good at gauging general sentiment though?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Haters will say it’s fake⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Bruh if you’re still giving a shit about what any pre-election polls were saying after they’ve repeatedly failed to predict so many elections I don’t know what to tell you.

  I said it before he stepped down- America is too misogynist and racist to vote in Harris. Even the economic left. Would Biden have done better? I can’t say. But I do think it’s pretty damning that Harris didn’t even win the popular vote like Biden and Hillary did.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nostalgia and remake culture⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Scarlet and Violet may only run at 10FPS and there are plenty of other flaws, but it’s still a ton of fun. And those are sequels, not remakes. The gameplay is a dramatic shift from everything the mainline series has done before.

  Legends Arceus has performance issues too, but was was critically acclaimed.

  As for the remakes, they’re generally pretty good upgrades. Gen 1 has really aged poorly, but FRLG are fantastic. I never liked Diamond or Pearl, but BDSP were really solid and fixed almost everything they could without making fundamental changes to the game. I’m really hoping they re-make Gen 5 because those are my favorite and they are stuck on the DS- my adult hands can’t handle holding something that small for hours on end.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nostalgia and remake culture⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Or… Maybe for most of human history we re-told the same stories over and over again for thousands of years until the relatively recent concept of “intellectual property” has forbidden us individuals from doing what comes naturally, forming this sort of weird resentment for when corporations do it?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Heavy Metal Darwin⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  No thats Nostradamus

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It's coming! :(⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Ah I just searched for Firefox news and the PPA thing was the only one that came up.

  As for firing the executive, I can’t find anything about him being specifically relayed to being open-source anything. Steve Teixeira was their Chief Product Office briefly- he only was hired in 2022 and left the company a few months ago, and prior to that he worked for Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter. So I don’t think this can really be framed as some attack on open-source or privacy. If the allegations are true that they discriminated against him for having cancer that’s shitty of course, but Mozilla has of course claimed that they did not and it’s going to court. They didn’t fire him either- they asked him to take a demotion to Senior VP of Technology Strategy and he chose to leave instead.

  Yes Mozilla bought an ad company. They’re called Anonym and their stated goal is to provide an advertising service that can exist profitably without violating privacy. I hate ads- I block as many as I can and I use a pi-hole. I avoid ad-supported services as much as possible. I’m also privileged enough that I can afford to pay for a subscription to a lot of stuff or just buy physical media to rip and store on my own server. But there was a time when I was a broke college student stuck using campus Internet and playing by their rules, so the safest option I could afford was just to watch ads. Ads can be an ethical business model that helps improve the lives of low-income households. For people with legal or ethical concerns about piracy, or additional restrictions on their Internet, or who just lack the technical skill.

  It’s certainly fair to keep an eye on Anonym and Mozilla in this regard, but I haven’t seen anything objectionable there yet.

  Similar for the Mozilla AI. It seems it’s still in it’s infancy and I’m not a fan of companies jumping on the air bandwagon in general, but at the very least Mozilla has identified the problems with other AI’s and is looking to create a better alternative. If they get caught stealing training data, releasing tools to allow high schoolers to make deep fake revenge porn, tell people to start putting glue in their pizza cheese, or some other crap like that then they should absolutely be criticized for it. But none of that has happened yet that I’m aware of.

  I also can’t find exactly what you’re referring to with Russia. The closest thing is that it looks like there were some extensions that were made to work around Russian state censorship. The Russian government passed a law in March banning such workarounds. In response, Mozilla took down 5 extensions, reviewed them, and then decided to reinstate them in June. Not quite ideal, but still seems like reasonable action to me.

  It’s fair and a good thing to criticize Mozilla and Firefox. But it seems like you’re trying to spin every single move they make as a sign the sky is falling.

  And I also know that there are both states and corporations paying people to go on the Internet and push propaganda. Firrfox has a lot of enemies. You cant just blindly believe every article saying they are succumbing to enshittification.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It's coming! :(⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve seen predictions of Firefox’s downfall for decades. Still waiting for it to happen.

  It’s really easy to see the headlines saying things like “Firefox is tracking it’s users and violating their privacy!!!” And panic. But digging into the latest “scandal” (the PPA), it seems like Firefox is behaving pretty reasonably.

  One of the main criticisms is that it’s opt-out instead of opt-in. Which… I kind of agree with Mozilla on. 99% of users aren’t going to know or care about this, and the 1% that do are the kind of people who probably would have extensions to disable it or just use some obscure ultra-private browser instead.

  I don’t fault NOYB for bringing it up either. It’s good to have organizations like that keeping an eye out for everyone.

  But I also get worried that sometimes communies attack their closest allies for being imperfect harder than enemies actively working against their interests.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered confirmed by ESRB rating⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Redoing animations? To me, that’s definitely more than a re-master. The musical equivalent would probably be something in the mixing phase- adding or adjusting effects, changing pan, level, EQ, automation, etc.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered confirmed by ESRB rating⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Technically it was never released on PS5. It was released on PS4 and later received an upgrade patch for the PS4 Pro.

  But yeah it works with backwards compatibility on the PS5. I would expect the PS4 Pro patch to work but I haven’t tried it myself.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered confirmed by ESRB rating⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s over 7 years old. Roughly the length of a generation. I think re-mastering console games from 2017 is reasonable in general.

  Not for HZD though. It was already one of the best-looking games on the PS4, and then they added a free upgrade for the PS4 Pro to get checkerboard 4k. Like… What’s left to improve?

  Maybe upgrade from checkerboard to full 4k? The FPS seemed fine for me playing on a base PS4, but perhaps there’s room for improvement there. The initial load time to open the game is pretty bad, but if you don’t switch between games often that’s not really a problem. I haven’t tried the PC version yet, but perhaps there were some UI improvements there they could apply to consoles?

  My main complaints with the game that I’d like to see fixed would probably be beyond the scope of the term “remaster”. The facial animations during dialogue were pretty uncanny in the base game, but they’re good in the DLC and sequel. Also the itemization system was clunky and felt like it was trying to be similar to an online multiplayer experience for some reason.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon boots up a game⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  While I mostly agreed another good application would be survival/crafting games with limited inventory. Or even games like Skyrim where you can put almost every object into your inventory.

  But yeah it’s overused.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon offers a harsh truth⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You cannot own love. You cannot own wonder. You cannot own joy. You cannot own the beauty of the universe.

  Desire is suffering. Why would you want to own a train? To seek to prevent others from admiring it? Nay, I posture, better let them run wild, for all to enjoy. To live free and reproduce in their natural habitats. To live along side is, not contained within a tiny rail network in your backyard or basement.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Day 21 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I’ve been playing until I forget to post Screenshots⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d say fantastically. I went back to it for a bit last month.

  I played the Legendary edition on the Steam Deck. Graphically, I think it’s fine (it’s way better than how I played it on the PS3 originally). The draw distance was always a strength, I think the Legendary edition included some visual upgrades, and being a game so much older than the Deck it runs at max settings 60FPS with no problem, so it looks better than it did on the PS3/360/most PC’s in 2011. I also think games from that era really hold up well because the generational jumps weren’t quite as big- the consoles had HDMI and a lot of games aimed for at least 720p, if not 1080p. Contemporaries like Assassin’s Creed, BioShock, Uncharted, and the Last of Us are all similarly still pretty good looking. Audio quality more or less peaked too, at least for stereo.

  There’s also the Anniversary edition, which I have on PS4 but not PC. It looks more modern- tons of fancy lighting effects and upgrades textures. The models and terrain are still a bit low-poly, the animations a bit stiff, but overall I think it’s good.

  The combat is simple- it always was, even compared to its contemporaries in 2011. A lot of people just call it bad, but I actually like the game design of Skyrim’s combat. Success or failure largely is just a preparedness check- is your combination of character level, skill level, equipment, buffs, follower, and consumable items good enough to get you through the fight(s)? It’s about resource management and good use of downtime. It’s not about mechanical proficiency or complexity, and I think that can be a good thing. I don’t have to be sober to play Skyrim. I don’t have to dodge and block for 3-5 business days before I get a turn to attack. It’s a power fantasy- ebony great sword go ‘brrr’.

  And I think that helps the roleplay too. Mechanically intensive soulslikes can be fun too, but I find they feel fun in a more arcade-y way. Using mechanical proficiency to defeat an enemy your character is underpowered for feels great as a player, but for me that also kind of ruins the immersion and reminds me that it’s a videogame. To apply the same concept to something other than combat- it’s similar to replaying a game where the player has all of the knowledge the character doesn’t - where the best items are, which direction to go, which NPC’s to kill before they betray you, etc. Speed running stuff. Which is great in its own right, just not what I’m always looking for.

  Then the quests. There’s a lot of quests, some better than others, but on the whole I would say they’re pretty good. The main quests early on are basically tricking you into visitng all of the major cities and points of interest across the map, introducing you to all of the factions and mechanics. A lot of quests are just “go clear that dungeon, either to kill someone hiding there or get an item”. Which is fine because clearing dungeons is fun- there’s a good variety of enemy types and dungeon themes. There is a LOT of voice acting for it’s time, and it’s mostly pretty good. Not on par with something like Hades, but still good.

  The puzzles are notoriously simple, but they function more as a way to change the pace and have downtime in dungeons. They aren’t supposed to be hard.

  On the whole, Skyrim probably isn’t (and never was) the deepest game in any one area. Soulslikes have deeper combat. Plenty of games have more intriguing plots and better characters. The lore is strong in the Elder Scrolls, but Skyrim only contributed a small part to what was built by other games. The crafting system is… Okay. There are hundreds of books in-game, but most are only a couple of pages. The leveling system is less complex than Morrowind or Oblivion. Everything is just as deep as it needs to be and no deeper. And that makes everything really intuitive.

  You can’t ruin a build with a bad decision. You can’t get screwed by a bad loot drop. You don’t need to min-max to feel powerful. You don’t need to find one activity that gives a lot of XP to farm to build other skills. You can’t kill 100 rats to level up your lockpicking- you just need to pick locks to get better at lockpicking.

  I also don’t mess with mods. I tried it out years ago and found it just wasn’t worth the effort of dealing with a mod manager. I find most mods are trying to turn Skyrim into another game. Shit posts like adding Shrek or Thomas the Tank. Adding ridiculous anime swords and big-tiddied women with bikini armor. Re-creating other games like Ocarina of Time or Morrowind in the Skyrim engine. Adding guns. Adding a bunch of fetch quests with whole novels of text and no voice acting. I’m sure there are some decent ones out there (especially visual and UI improvements) but the process of modding is much less convenient than Steam Workshop games. I haven’t seen anything that looks good enough to merit going to a 3rd party website to download stuff and fuss with a mod manager for.

  Also, I find vanilla Skyrim is pretty stable and bugs are rare. Some of that is from things being patched over time, but also I think Skyrim just received an unearned reputation upon release. The rag doll physics cause a lot of chaos, but I don’t know that I’d call that a bug. There’s the occasional clipping. Even back on the PS3 where I first played it, I’d say 80% of issues were solved by reloading the area I was in, with another 19% solved by restarting the game. There were some interesting exploits (Fortify Restoration potions used to be broken, there are still item dup’ing exploits with merchants, you can access the hidden “chests” that the game uses for storing merchant inventory in the overworld, etc) but I find most of them are things you really need to go out of your way to find, and actually can make the game more fun if that’s what you’re going for.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon is living like royalty⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Productivity has risen as well. Anon likely has a mind-nunbing job that produces more economically in a year than a village or two of those ancestors would have.

  Keynes famously predicted in 1930 that his grandchildren would only need a 15 hour workweek as technology would allow people to work less. Many others predicted similar throughout the 1900’s. When you look at a household perspective, Keynes was writing in a time when huge populations of women were expected not to work already.

  What we see now is that it is incredibly rare for multi-adult households to have singular incomes. For the household, the 40 hour workweek might have actually grown to 80. Or more, as individuals engage in gig work or get 2nd or 3rd jobs. Plus forced overtime is becoming an issue, and of course wage theft.

  Wages have stagnated while productivity has increased. Pensions (and unions) are gone (at least in the US). Inequality is constantly increasing - the rich use their power to get richer while the poor are stuck getting poorer.

  Anon mentions his freedoms, but neglects to mention he probably spends 50 or more hours a week either working, on break from work, getting ready, commuting. He cannot criticize his employer publicly. An arrest and a night or two in jail could throw him into poverty. Unless, of course, he is rich enough that he doesn’t need to work, in which case simply tossing his name around with he police can often get him out of any trouble.

  He mentions healthcare - US life expectancy not, and I do not believe has ever been, 90 years. Maybe for ultra-wealtjy women? Currently the average is 76 years for the whole country. But even then, women live longer than men, and the top-1% of income earners live almost 15 years longer than the bottom-1%. . So if anon is a low-income male, his life expectancy may be in his mid-60’s. Which is comparable to the average life expectancy of the late 1700’s- early 1900’s in Europe.

  He has a lot of fancy toys at his disposal, but his life is still being consumed by the wealthy in power.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Xbox Console Sales Continue To Crater With Massive 42% Revenue Drop - Slashdot⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  True, but I’m not sure how closely Xbox works with the rest of Microsoft. As far as I know you have never been able to put Windows on an Xbox or Xbox System Software on a PC officially. In contrast, the PS2 and PS3 had official Linux support (which Sony tried to remove from. The PS3 for security concerns and got sued for).

  Microsoft has a hardware division yes, but barely. It’s basically just Xbox, which is failing, and the Surface, which is also failing. They already lost the Mobile market. They seem content to have their laptop and desktop focus just be getting Microsoft software on other hardware.

  I kind of get the impression that’s the direction they are moving. They simply haven’t done well in hardware, and their more successful business areas are the ones that are putting Microsoft software onto 3rd party hardware.

  I’m still not convinced GamePass is really going to work, but Xbox and Microsoft seem to be. And while I don’t like subscriptions in general, GamePass definitely surpasses any competitor. So rather than roll out new hardware, I think they are moving towards putting GamePass on the Switch 2 and PS5 or PS6. Microsoft has instructions published for getting Xbox Cloud Gaming working on the Deck. I think they want that on the handhelds from AYA, AYN, Asus, Logitech, GPD, and everything else.

  They might want to make Windows a viable option for those handhelds, but… They also might not. That would be a huge amount of work for them to compete with Steam. And we’ve seen how unpopular Windows 11 has been. They’ve been downsizing the teams working on Windows for years and focusing more on Edge and AI. I get the impression they just want the Xbox division to lower costs and become profitable at this point.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon sets the mood⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  50 tabs? She dodged a bullet.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Xbox Console Sales Continue To Crater With Massive 42% Revenue Drop - Slashdot⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I have some questions there.

  1. hHs that even ever been so much as rumored? There were leaks from various suppliers hinting at the Deck and Switch long before they were in develop. It’s possible I missed something, or possible they just haven’t leaked anything, but so far I don’t have a reason to think they would be trying to enter that space.

  2. Microsoft seems to be abandoning that space. The Windows phone died ages ago, and the Surface seems to be languishing.

  3. Operating System. Would it be windows? There are already plenty of handhelds that run windows, and usually the biggest problem people have with them is that windows sucks for that application and they replace the OS. Would they have a custom OS like the Xbox? What would it bring to the table that Steam LS doesn’t? Valve already put in a ton of work to get Steam OS as good as it is- would Xbox/Microsoft do that too? If it just uses Steam OS, what does the hardware bring that differentiates it from the Deck?

  4. Software. I don’t know what the unit cost of a Deck is, but I’m guessing it’s pretty close to the sales price. The Deck does not need to be a profit center for Valve as long as it drives software sales on Steam. The Microsoft store has already failed- would an Xbox store on such a device manage to be profitable? Would it be locked down and incompatible with Steam? Maybe they could partner with Epic to compete? I’m just having a hard time seeing Xbox/Microsoft enter that business model.

  What might be more likely is something like the Portal or G-Cloud. An ARM-based, lightweight product designed to be used for cloud gaming with GamePass. Maaaaaybe some local streaming from your PC or Xbox too. Even with that they would be competing against other products and pretty much every smartphone and tablet. There might be room to move some units, but similar to Sony I don’t see that being huge.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon finds a plot hole⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  To go even further- I think she was too ambitious about her own writing ability.

  Having a series of 7 books, each tied to a school year, where the characters age over time, with the intended audience also changing over time. Sorcerer’s Stone is a book about 11 year olds, for 11 year olds. Goblet of Fire is about 14 year olds, for 14 year olds. There’s a lot of wiggle room, but that’s the baseline. Sorcerer’s Stone is a pretty simple children’s book. Prisoner of Askaban starts dealing with the history of Voldemort 's rise to power, starts dealing with more powerful banned spells that raise ethical questions, the criminal justice system, etc.

  I remember when book 5 came out being heavily disappointed in it. It was just a dark and depressing slog. Half-Blood Prince was just boring- most of the book focusing too much on just teenage drama and romance. Deathly Hallows had an entirely different tone from the rest of the series and felt like bad fan fiction. All the way up to eh epilogue, where we get a glimpse of the main characters as adults that feels like really hamfosted fan service. I think Rowling was just better at writing for/about 11-14 year olds than she was 15-17 year olds.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Purrs like a kitten⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Is that the Smilodon?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon is asking the difficult questions⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Both of these guys are going to remain single or, at best, in toxic relationships until they change their approach to both women and relationships.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon notices a trope⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  As a guy with long hair I did this once.

  First breakup. We were both young and toxic to each other, and let the other be toxic.

  After some reflection I cut my hair for a variety of reasons.

  I’ve seen the studies and speculation that it’s a control thing, related to exercising bodily autonomy.

  One was just that I was in college for business degrees- I always kind of knew my career would be better off with short hair anyways. Once I graduated, got a job, and got established at my company I grew my hair long again. It’s still long now, probably longer than it was originally.

  Another was that I wanted to be a different person. I looked back on who I was in that relationship and thought hard about who I wanted to become. While on a vacuum I preferred the long hair, and I objectively knew my hair could stay the same while my personality changed, on a subjective level I think yhe change helped. It was a visual boundary in time- when I go back and look at pictures of myself it’s very easy and obvious to see that change. It helped me to think about my long-haired self as the “old me”- younger, less experienced, more raw and flawed.

  Another was the emotional connection between her and my hair. While I liked the long hair and grew it before we had started dating, she really liked my long hair too. It hurt to have the same hair she used to run her fingers through swinging in front of my face. So in a sense, cutting my hair felt like cutting my connection to her.

  Finally, I also started growing my beard. I had always wanted facial hair, but she didn’t like it so I shaved. This seemed like a good opportunity to see what I could grow, but having long hair AND a beard seemed like a lot at the time. Now I have both of course.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon notices a trope⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The story of Mulan seems to take place during the Wei dynasty, and was probably written during it as well. So that would place it between the late 300’s and early 500’s CE.

  I immediately thought of Samson from the old Testament. It’s estimated that story takes place around 1,000 BCE. Not sure if anyone knows of anything older.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Loyalty⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  What are you talking about? It’s not fake maple syrup at all, but 100% real SYRUP, a completely and separate product no one would ever accidentally confuse for maple syrup when they’re in a hurry at the grocery store.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon wants to be a vampire⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  OP really thinks vampires aren’t gay?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ruby turds⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Ah yes, when I think of people accumulating vast amounts of capital my first thought is also… Communists.

  For those wondering, according to Forbes the top richest people are:

  1. Musk. South African/Canadian/American depending on how you slice it
  2. Bezos. American
  3. Arnault. French
  4. Zuckerberg. American
  5. Ellison (Oracle). American
  6. Page (Google). American
  7. Brin (Google). American
  8. Gates. American
  9. Ballmer. American
  10. Buffett. American.

  I’d also consider the Walton family as a whole. While split up, the often join their money together and are also pretty American.

  So… I know these things change over time but it seems really bizarre to list off countries famous for having too-wealthy people without naming America.

  Also the whole idea of taking one of the finest, rarest specimens of something the universe produces naturally and making it ugly for the sake of these billionaires seems incredibly dumb. It’s just further contributing to the erosion of the commons.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How long does it take for neurotypical (or just typical) people to get over a minor fight?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Neutorypical here (possibly a touch of undiagnosed autism but not a lot)- I don’t get into them.

  My wife and I take a very proactive approach to communication. We talk through decisions before either of us gets emotionally attached to an answer. We trust each other to have good decision making processes when that isn’t an option. We have thoroughly established that both of us are putting the interests of the household first. We know both of us are acting in good faith, we both apologize, and we accept each other’s apologies.

  In previous, less healthy relationships, I realized what made a “fight” was that her or I wanted it to be. Maybe one of us wanted attention or affirmation or had some inner problems was taking out on the other. Perhaps we just didn’t feel like we were properly heard unless we were angry. Whatever the actual fight about was usually something that could’ve been resolved without emotional energy.

  As for how long to recover after… When it happened it always depends on the specific fight. Sometimes hours, sometimes days, eventually the big one was that we broke up permanently. If the issue has been resolved and someone is harboring resentment because the other party disagreed with them, there’s more underlying emotional issues that need to be resolved.