lapis

hell yeah, awesome that y’all have open communication about these things. hope the kiddo loves Borderlands, it’s one of my favorite co-op game series.

note about Battlefront: there are the new ones that have a splitscreen mode but it’s kinda a glorified practice mode for the online-only modes, and the remakes of the originals (Battlefront Classic Collection) that have proper splitscreen campaigns but (from what I’ve heard) poor online play.

oh, yeah, would not get an 8yo who dislikes anything sexual into Borderlands, one of the running themes throughout the series is sex jokes - the sex jokes did ramp up in BL2, but there were still plenty in BL1, as I recall.

unfortunately there just aren’t many splitscreen coop games anymore, and especially not looter-shooters, most of ‘em are one player per TV with online multiplayer. this is a very sad state of affairs but it’s so rare for a game to buck the trend that I can’t think of anything other than Borderlands.

if you drop the loot requirement, I think the SW Battlefront classic collection would fit the splitscreen shooter requirement? but yeah I’m drawing a blank otherwise.

I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're refering to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.

Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called Linux, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.

There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called Linux distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux!

honestly super mad that I got made fun of so much for practicing different voices as a kid that I stopped, imagine if I'd kept that vocal flexibility through to now and could just slip into masculine, feminine, or androgynous voice at will.

TransVoiceLessons

she's so cool, I need to actually train instead of just watching her videos some day.

I tried desperately to overcome my autism and understand which parts of my throat she is talking about.

oh my god this is such a mood. I always have either direct control of a body part and no ability to use muscle memory, or I am incapable of finding the specific muscles I'm supposed to be using because that function of my body is so autonomous.

on the one hand, I don't want to voice train because I'm morally opposed to the need to voice train, societally.

on the other, girl voices pretty.

on my secret third hand, it's kinda a roller coaster when I get gendered correctly (or at least misgendered as a woman rather than a man, which is its whole own thing), then open my mouth to respond to someone, and they fall over themselves trying to correct what they thought was misgendering earlier.

feet too! all my shoes are too big now, thanks HRT.

on the upside, I can actually find women's shoes and heels in my size now, I guess (I've found it a lot easier to find women's 13 than women's 14, no clue why that's the cutoff though).

while I don't think trans women should need to voice train, this is actually a just-for-fun transition goal of mine! did you have a professional voice coach, or are there some resources you used?

yes

hot in cold weather, iced in warm weather (or sometimes just bc I feel like it).

you're not wrong, but I've interviewed for higher-paying positions and it's always incredibly stressful. I also work for a very small web hosting company (literally less than 10 employees) where everyone's chill and the owner doesn't make an insane amount of money compared to the rest of us, which just feels... I dunno, less awful than working for a big company where the CEO rakes in several orders of magnitude more than I do, somehow?

idk how I feel about this, it's definitely not this cut-and-dried – it's situational but I've both been the friend who says no worries over coffee or food or whatever and the friend who says "hey pls pay me back the $30-50 for [movie/concert tickets, pricy thing we went in on together, etc.], thanks". but I'm also very much on the low end of income for software engineering (below six figures) and providing for a disabled spouse, which has me (probably unnecessarily) always at least low-grade stressed about money.