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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 23rd, 2023

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  • Not immutable, but I slapped Garuda on a 2016 gaming laptop to give it a second life and it’s been great for the most part. I got a bit fiddly with it and had to fight my way through some partial upgrade issues, but know I arch based distros better and it’s stable as can be. I honestly don’t update it that often since it just serves are my TV box, and I’m seriously considering swapping to a Nix install now that I’ve mostly stabilized my package list for the purposes of gaming and video encoding. Proton is one of the only things I think get regular updates on that device, but those are entirely handled by Steam, so immutable is very attractive to me for a gaming only system.

    I’ll also add that my primary device has arch on it and I do most of my gaming (but also work) there. It’s great, and I can’t help but feel a lot of the distros that are “made for gaming” suffer from a lot of the issues that windows does. They are trying to be preconfigured to work with any and all hardware. This leads to bloated package lists, and just extra guffins to work around as you trouble shoot. I’d say my arch install took a bit longer to get gaming super stable, but I’ve also had to fix much fewer issues compared to the Garuda install.

    All the people mentioning Bazzite are making me eye it to replace Garuda tho.







  • Oof yeah, the work environment sounds rough. The industry I’m in overlaps a lot with queer, and neurodivergent folk, which helps set the tone of a lot of interactions for sure.

    I really relate to the being “one of the more engaging folks”. I’m very good at being interested in new information, which often translates to people talking to me when they should be talking to the whole group. That is super draining because once it’s started I feel a bit of a responsibility to maintain that so the person giving instruction doesn’t get thrown off.

    The part about first impressions is interesting to me. I feel like people that are that quick to write someone off aren’t really people I would personally want to hang out with. Obviously in a work environment that is tough because you’re around them no matter what, but yeah, seems like those people aren’t very accepting or accommodating.

    Have you considered talking to your employer about potential accommodations? I read an article recently about a bunch of adults that finally brought their diagnoses up to their bosses and it actually went really well.

    Thanks for the kind words at the end of your reply. Keep on keeping on!


  • I was about to say something similar. Like I started wearing some “women’s” underwear and running shorts even before I realized I wasn’t a guy. Obviously for people that aren’t trying to hide things I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it, but some of the underwear I have now is just better than tons men’s underwear I wore pre-transition. Just materials, and seam placement, and color options, all of it. You can still find boxers and everything. It’s kind of just better.


  • Some of what I’ll say has probably been said, but here are some of my thoughts.

    I really struggle with small talk. Like I would rather sit in silence than exchange useless thoughts/information, so a lot of the “standard” ways society makes conversation just really pain me, even as just a start for more interesting conversations.

    I’ve remedied this in a few ways. The first, as others have mentioned, try to find something about the person you take interest with. Getting into fashion has proven to be a wonderful tool for this for me. It’s very easy to find an item in someone’s outfit I like. If it’s an interesting piece of clothing or jewelry it probably has a fun story behind it. So much of the clothing that actually gets sold these days is really bland I feel, just overpriced basics. Many actually neat pieces are vintage or at least second hand, and often come with stories of where they were from or how they came into someone’s possession.

    I’m not saying become a fashion girlie, but a lot of people carry indicators of their interests in some way. Stickers on water bottles or pins on bags. I love seeing someone with a sticker from the same fandom as me, or a pride pin. Even if it’s just a “hey I like your pin”. Getting in the habit of stuff like that will just help you approach people, and make you more approachable.

    Another thing I’ve started doing more is smiling at people. This was something I had to get used to as I started passing more, but most people that were not socialized as men often smile at one another in passing. Even just actually looking at people. Like I don’t feel as weird observing things I find interesting, because worst case if someone notices me looking at them or something, I’ll just smile. Show some joy, people will often join. I feel like there was this period where I assumed I was “smiling wrong” and just looking like a creep, but idk, I’m just smiling in the way that feels genuine to me, and most people seems to get it. From there if more interaction happens then I got back to my first point.

    Between these two things I think I’ve just become a more socially accessible person. I’m good at being interested in things, I had to get better at noticing things I can take interest in.

    Finally, it is tiring. Make sure to take care of yourself. If your social battery is empty, don’t be social!! As I’ve lived more of my truth, with both my autism and my transition, I’ve naturally fallen in with people that are also very accessible and accommodating. If I need to have a non-verbal night with friends they won’t question that and in fact we all know enough sign language to make that very doable.

    You’ll start meeting people that you mesh with!! It is absolutely tough putting yourself out there, and you’re clearly putting lots of thought and effort into this. Keep going!








  • I’ve been playing the System Shock remake, and it’s been a dream!! It could be a tad more hand holdy, particularly with actually presenting the story, but it’s very true to the style at the time, leaving you to just explore an “abandoned” space ship to figure out what happened. It feels very Bioshock, meets Metroid, meets Marathon, meets Alien Isolation.

    Metro 2033, and I’m fairly confident the 2 sequels, has also been running very smoothly. I plan to do a full play through of all 3 games having played the first 2 zones of metro exodus years ago and falling in love with the world building. Something I realized I was missing in a lot of games was full voice acting. If there are captions/words/subtitles on the screen someone is saying them out loud. I guess in world words like posters and such no, obviously not, but even the “loading screen” are these lovely journal/map moments, reminiscent of travel transitions in old films. They come with a fully voice acted paragraph to make it not feel like a loading screen at all, but a transition in the “film” or chapters of the game. This makes sense being based on books. The story is just given to you so well, while also allowing enough freedom to make it feel like you are an active part.