I have honestly thought about trying to make money this way. Maybe I’m just good at talking myself out of trying, but I found one good reason to think it’d be harder than it seems.

People say the book can even be bad, and they’re half right. It’s genre fiction, and those have a very specific style and convention unique to each genre. It’s not just allowed to be bad, it’s supposed to be - and in a very specific way. You need to be familiar with that to write to the audience’s expectations. Being too unique and creative is not a good thing.

In other words, if you want to have any success writing gay minotaur smut, you have to first read enough gay minotaur smut to understand it. I couldn’t force myself to read it, not because I’m judging, but I’m just not into it. It bored me too much and felt like a huge slog. But if you can read it you can write it, and the process of familiarizing yourself with that market should also help you figure out how to get discovered for that genre.

It has its moments of quiet exploration and somber reflection, but it’s nothing if not varied. It’s chill in that there’s no penalty for dying and indeed you’re literally forced to. But it’s still wild and exciting, and sometimes even terrifying.

While I was playing, I had someone ask me my favorite death and I knew my answer right away. That was one of the moments I realized my experience of the game had started to flip, because I had been enjoying even the parts I hated.

Better time control helps a bit too. You can wait at the fire before launch to get a better alignment for where you want to go or for a specific event. I think it was the tornado planet I tended to wait a short bit just so it lined up better? You can also end a loop early, but that you have to be taught. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say, but if you do don’t finish this paragraph (not sure my app is doing spoiler tags right):

As for my favorite death: I was trying to land on the interloper but missed slightly and it flew right past me. I scrambled to change momentum and chase after it. It got farther and farther away but then slowly I started gaining on it again. I gained more speed and started leveling out after what felt like minutes of turning as hard as I could at max thrust. And then the sun appeared from off screen, like an angry father that just caught a misbehaving child. My punishment was immediate and thorough.

I couldn’t stop laughing for the entire loop animation. (and then I went to the interloper as planned)

It did for me too the first time I played. I’m very bad with time limits and feeling rushed. It was never going to be a good fit for me.

But a friend convinced me to try again and it did eventually get better. It’s a combination of things that’s hard to quantify. The log of hints/objectives in your ship is a huge help, as is making liberal use of the autopilot. Then as the game unfolded and drew me in, I couldn’t put it down. Now it’s one of the most unique and unforgettable experiences in my nearly 40 years of gaming.

It starts out as a bunch of random stuff to explore and it didn’t feel to me like there was much direction or even motivation. But the more I explored and learned, the more I started to ask certain questions. I’d find myself thinking I wanted to explore a place with something specific in mind. But it’s a gradual shift that builds and builds and keeps building like a book that you forced yourself to read one chapter a night. Then it’s two, and before you know it you’re keeping yourself up way too late reading until you’re left empty that there’s no more.

I only say this because you always hear about the people who adore Outer Wilds, and I wasn’t one. I utterly bounced off it and set it down for years. But I’m so glad my friend got me to try again. I want other people like me to know that you can still get into the game and end up loving it even if it didn’t click at first. It’s also okay if you don’t want to. But I have only heard one person ever say it wasn’t worth it, and it was someone who spoiled themselves.

So, so many people couldn’t handle living in a world that wasn’t built around their needs. For one brief moment I got to experience what it’s like to live in a world that actually fits mine.

I like how all three of them have wildly different body language, and the guy on the left is not using his inside voice.

I’m sorry you had that experience, but glad that you continued trying and had better ones. There are definitely bad therapists, and more often it’s just a bad fit. The same way you’re not going to be friends with everyone, not every therapist can really work for you. It can take a few tries to find one that really clicks. I’ve met too many people who just gave up after one try, some after literally one session. Most were not anywhere near as bad as your experience. So give yourself a lot of credit that you kept trying even after that!

I wrote this out partially for anyone else who may be earlier in their mental health journey. If it’s not a good fit after a few sessions, you can ask for a referral or just stop and find someone else. A professional will not take offense. It’s pretty normal and an expected part of their job.

Ironically, those tools to filter out AI will also be AI. I do believe they’ll be necessary, but also what the fuck. It’s a bit like a bunch of people have decided to just piss all over the place, and rather than cleaning it up and putting an end to the rampant pissing, everybody’s just gonna end up putting on masks so they don’t have to smell it.

Oh please tell me it’s actually in the works. I want to switch to piefed but I’ve been a Boost user for years and every time I try to get used to something else I’m just reminded how much I like Boost.

Similar story here. It really sucks to feel like I’m still learning how to be a functional adult. I hope you keep making progress and celebrate all the little victories along the way.

I see white/gold too, and this always fascinated me because I’m wrong. The real dress is black/blue. It’s very hard for me to perceive that way, partly due to the bad quality picture, and particularly the background lighting.

The gold is black and the white is a dark blue irl, but in the bad coloring/lighting of the picture, the deep blue is quite washed out. Know that the colors are very washed out, know that the “gold” is black. Focus on the lower left where the colors are closest to true and block out the rest, especially the bright parts. The thick black stripe in the middle can also be a good spot to start to see it.

Hot take: their older games are better and the newer ones get progressively worse. Demon’s Souls was a solid RPG with rough edges and an interesting, detailed world. Dark Souls improved on the world and exploration, but they also specifically started to cater to all the fans that loved how “difficult” Demon’s Souls was. Ironically, they were praised for making a game to their own vision without compromising just for the sake of popularity. But difficulty alone was never the main draw of Demon’s Souls or the strength of From Software as a developer. They always specialized in immersive, detailed worlds. But ever since Demon’s Souls, they’ve catered increasingly and exclusively to the get gud crowd because it’s obviously successful (and you can hardly blame them tbh). They’re succeeding off the reputation for not doing the thing that they’re doing.

All that said, Demon’s Souls and DS1 & 3 can be enjoyed by most players if you’re willing to play slowly, level build, and use cheese strategies. I can’t speak to 2, I kinda bounced off it (I’m sorry, Zin). The rest are much harder to enjoy solo without literally just getting good at the game, as per the memes. Co-op may be a different story, obviously. If you can get into the really old stuff, King’s Field (series), Eternal Ring, and Shadow Tower Abyss are actually really fun once you get accustomed to the jank. They have a lot of the charm of the souls games without all the annoying git gud crap. RIP, they shall be missed.

Tribute? You steal men’s souls, and make them your slaves!

It’s one way communities can grow. Especially in lower population forums, it makes sense to start out more general to concentrate enough traffic instead of spreading it out into a bunch of mostly dead, niche communities that fail to hit the critical mass required to get people coming back and posting more. Once the community has grown enough to the point where a certain type of content is drowning out the rest, that content gets separated off into its own subforum or community. You’re seeing it as a mistake to avoid repeating, but it’s actually a great benefit to both this community and the future communities that will eventually spin off.

This is an important message and a positive one. Thank you.

Live content has lots of downtime and dull gameplay moments. It can’t compete with polished, edited videos - except in the one area it shines: human interaction. That works better when you can see the person. So most streams feature a person or at least an avatar, while edited videos often place a higher emphasis on gameplay. Each format is simply playing to its strengths. The ones that don’t you rarely see because they’re buried at the bottom of page 726 with four views.