emmavoid gaming

i have a file or folder on my pc that i want to share with other people. let's call it gayshit.mp3

unfortunately gayshit.mp3 is 750mb and im not paying for discord nitro so i need another way to send it

i put it into qbittorrent and it makes a torrent file. this is essentially a very small file that points to gayshit.mp3 so other computers can find it. kinda like a treasure map

i send this tiny file to my friend, who loads it into qbittorrent. their computer takes a moment to find mine over the vast expanse of cyberspace and then (as long as my pc is running and the file is still where it should be), it gets copied from my hard drive to theirs

this is the cool part: if somebody else loads that tiny file, they can download it from both of us. if i'm offline but my friend is on, the third person can still get it. this also means that if two people have separate halves of the file, they can download the other half from each other. as long as some combination of people have the pieces between them, they can all have the whole thing.

crucially this does not require a server!!! you can just upload the file to a few people and as long as they keep it, it's still accessible. as long as somebody, somewhere is still connected, it's available forever. the only way it goes away is if everybody disconnects from it.

Learn to play my ttrpg The Magical Land of Yeld with these neat rules comics! The book is full of them! So cool! So easy!

i see it now, too, in the girls around me. i'll ask if they want care – a home-cooked meal, relaxed company, sex without the expectation of reciprocation – and they say no, no, thank you, i don't need it; what would you like, what do you want, because in their head they're still doing that awful calculus, still training themselves to disappear in the eyes of the people around them.

i don't think i'd have died without transition – not in the conventional sense, at least – but to take that leap, i had to stop thinking of myself as a human experiment in fuel-efficient living and start nurturing the anemic, atrophied flame of desire in my heart. i had to learn to eat well, to exercise, to style myself beautiful, but harder than that, i had to learn to ask the people around me to work on my behalf in order to enrich my life and give me the things i wanted.

and i did it; i learned. and it was agony, but courage is a muscle you can train, and every day i get better at accepting gifts with the hungry gratitude i never learned in my years and years as a sad, scared, lonely boy.

so be patient with the trans girls in your life. better than that: be proactive, attentive, generous; be forceful, if you have to, and learn to distinguish real discomfort from the terrified reflex of self-denial that so many of us once learned to rely on.

so many of my siblings, especially those who are awaiting or beginning transition, step into transgender life as fragile, apathetic beings who have spent their lives being coerced, beaten, and tricked into winnowing themselves to nothing, doing the work of the murderers for them, because they have been taught to believe that trans people deserve to live suspended, half-dead lives as punishment for their abhorrence.

they do not. you do not.

Gender dysphoria, to me, almost felt spiritual. Like my soul was burning away with the shame and guilt of merely existing in such a deviant, wrong state. I kept trying to make up for it, or dissociate away from it, or pray to God for forgiveness for a sin I couldn’t name.

Honestly, I felt like I had lived past my expiration date, that I had to give people everything they wanted, that I could never be good enough to get away from it all. I didn’t think I’d make it past 30. I was barely gonna make it past 25 tbh.

Then I did the most selfish thing I’ve ever done and I saved myself, first by coming out and then by asking for so much help. I needed help to pay for FFS, I needed help with pronouns and a name, I needed help and support with starting HRT and learning how to dress like I was born in a hospital and not in a paper bag. I needed to learn to eat and dress and clean up after myself like I cared about *me,* instead of trying to avoid disappointing others. I asked for advice from trans people, I asked for support from my family and friends, I asked for ideas from store employees, I had to talk to professors about my identity and asked them for support in calling me by my new name and pronouns in classes, I had to remake myself.

It was all worth it. Yesterday I woke up from bottom surgery covered by insurance. I have 6 weeks of FMLA because I asked my boss for help and he gave me the number of the person who manages FMLA requests. I’m being cared for by my beautiful, patient, generous wife ( @cintailed ) and I’ve accepted financial, physical, and emotional support from others. I am so glad I made it, so lucky I found the words, so grateful I had the support I needed.

Asking for help can be so scary, especially when it feels as if you were born with burning shame coursing through your blood. But please do it! Learn how! Start with small things, practice therapy skills like decision, acceptance, and cognitive reframing, and allow others to be a part of you, allow their kindness to become a part of your soul. If you water the seeds of kindness planted by others enough, eventually you can even be kind to yourself.

Within a 10-15min walk, I could get to 2 different larger malls that had facilities such as a library and connects directly to the subway station, a light rail station and a bus interchange.

I could literally wake up at 2a.m. and walk to the 7-Eleven to get a slushie and a sandwich if I wanted. That was how convenient it was. I didn't need to spend hours commuting to and from the doctor's if I didn't feel well enough for work.

Grocery shopping is a part of many people's daily routine. We go to the market or supermarket on the same day we plan to cook.

And this is common here. We're a small city state, true, so the closeness of everything is kinda forced on us, but even so, neighborhoods are planned in such a way that everyone can easily access a variety of goods and services without too much hassle. And we do use little carts! They're useful and practical things!

literally everyone has one of these by the door. you take this with you.

the grocery store is usually on your same block or just a 1-2 minute walk away.

And grocery stores in cities DELIVER. Even grocery stores that don't normally deliver, like Trader Joe's, will delivery to a certain radius around them. There's grocery delivery services in cities, where you can only order a delivery bc they have no store they just operate as delivery. They are cheap too.

grocery stores in cities also pack all your groceries into two of those big paper bags if you tell them you're using the train. Some places like Trader Joe's just automatically pack everything in two bags bc they assume you are using the train to get home and need to be able to carry it.

the only disadvantage to cities is going to IKEA doesn't work so well there. Costco is a little difficult too. But regular groceries? Yeah we have systems for that.

The black route was the one that I started taking in first grade. It was nice, but I tended to be late after lunch because there was a guy who walked his dog at the same time and I was more interested in playing with the dog than I was in going to school. The red route was the one that I had to switch to as an alternative. It was slightly longer, but had fewer distractions. At no time on either route did i ever feel unsafe. (1960s Shaker Heights was pretty Upper Middle-class at the time.)

Yes, I actually *do* "push around a little cart or something". (I used to pull it behind a recumbent tricycle, but that got stolen last year. 🤬 ) I live near several stores and use it when I have to get gallon jugs of milk. (I'm 65 and neither of my shoulders is in any shape to be hauling those home any more. 😒 ) Also, eight bags of groceries is a rather unrealistic load since I live alone and that much would go bad before I could eat it all.

"Based in Christ"

i ended up binging the entire @tinytablepodcast yeld 2e arc yesterday

it was an utter delight. i was trying not to crylaugh in the grocery store. the characters were delightful (princess was my fave. love a fussy old lady dog). but mostly i was happy the tiny table crew had all the same praises of yeld that i've had since i first read it

as someone with cognitive and reading disabilities, the rulebook of yeld 2e has been one of the most accessible texts (not just ttrpg rulebook!) i've ever read. the clear visual signaling, the accessibly written text. but, of course, the big winner of the yeld 2e rulebook is the comics. having the rules broken down into comics, and having frequent examples of play in comic form (that, as the tiny table team point out, actually tell a story as you read through the rulebook) was such a game changer both in my access to the text, but also in opening up to me how ttrpg rulebooks could operate and be presented

and then there are the rules themselves. yeld 2e is truly one of the best designed games i have ever encountered, and it was easy to hear in the AP just how synergized the rules are with each other, the characters, and the world of yeld itself. games like yeld 2e are why im such a champion of bespoke games. everything is intentionally designed & harmonized to tell the story of yeld and the children who find their way there

the rules are simple, memorable, & deep. the core resolution mechanic stays the same, but situational effects, abilities, & PC options give that system so much depth. you're never going to have to ask "wait, which die do i roll for this one?" or "does this ability apply here?" there is so much texture to the world and so many PC options that increase over long-term play that get rightfully likened to an MMORPG

then, of course, there's the GM support & accessibility and the rotating GM mechanic. so good for new GMs or tables where everyone wants to collaborate on a story together while still maintaining narrative leadership

but what is yeld?

yeld 2e is a portal fantasy TTRPG in the vein of seanan mcguire's wayward children series, digimon, or the chronicles of narnia

the PCs, all aged 7 to 12, stumble through a magical door into the fantastical land of yeld. the door shuts and locks behind them, trapping them in yeld forever unless they find and defeat the 7 hunters of yeld who keep and guard 7 magical keys. if they can't, they'll have to stay in yeld forever. the catch is that upon turning 13, humans in yeld transform into monsters who can never return home

each player (including the GM!) will choose a friend type (like the know-it-all, big sibling, rival ... or dog!) as well as a heroic job (like the witch, shepherd, soul thief, or oathbreaker) as the core of their character. these options add to your stats, which are essentially pips that increase your dice pool for certain actions. actions are resolved by rolling your dice pool and adding them up - the more dice, the higher your potential result, which means you have a better chance of overcoming difficult challenges. some failures are a lack of accomplishment, while others can actually take dice away from your stats

the PCs can & will be harmed in various ways - but death is not the end in yeld. a fallen PC will remain as a ghost until revived, unlocking all sorts of cool ghost moves. combat is streamlined, collaborative, and creative - and also comes with consequences. while you can loot slain monsters and equip their parts for immediate cool effects, the world around you takes notes of your kill count. increasing the restless dead level will make monsters tougher, and nerf you and your friends. there are also nonviolent ways of ending combat, such as befriending or capturing monsters, or forcing them to retreat or surrender

as you continue your journey in yeld, there are so many options for customizing your character through their equipment, abilities, and jobs. PCs can go on mastery quests to level up their job skills, take on advanced jobs (like drudge angel, junk hound, or amazingly, tax collector) or, if they turn 13 while in yeld ... monster jobs like werewolf, magic eater, root warden, or oracle of the serpent god ...

while the PCs in yeld are children, and yeld is certainly engaging to and accessible for older kids & teens, yeld is not just for kids!! the rich world of yeld is full of strife, warfare, violence, intercommunity conflict, grappling with identity, and certainly at times some existential dread (all things kids & teens need to engage with as well!!). if you were turned away by the concept or (really charming) art, please give yeld a shot. as i said before, it's genuinely one of the best designed games i've ever encountered

the "milkman" is a common figure in stories depicting a woman's infidelity and adulterous affair.

this implies that the ability to provide milk would both decrease the likelihood of a man abandoning his wife and children, as it would eliminate the need for leaving to get milk AND would secure that man's marriage, as his wife would have no need to seek milk from an extraneous source.

therefore, all men should produce milk, through various means such as:

- being a cow

- being an almond

- being a woman

- being a coconut

- being in the omegaverse

- being an oat

(list is exemplary and not finite)

Observe

You

Are

Addorable

Thank

You

For

Scrolling

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