Its great. You meet treasure hunters who share artifacts with the cultures they're from so that those cultural leaders can decide what to do with them. You help a character come to terms with their gender identity. You encourage people to build community in more than just a "we can win with the power of friendship" kinda way. I'm only on the first half of the game too.

It reviewed kinda mid but honestly these touches have totally sold me. It's actually feels like the writers of this game were a multicultural group of people who put thought into making it inclusive.

Is anyone else playing? Is this the experience others are having? Is all this based-ness why people are review bombing it?

Know that person you saw and you were like damn they are kinda weird but they're owning that so hard they're so cool?

You could be that person if you just go for it. I don't care what it is either. It could be doing some art, or helping at a food bank, or asking your doctor about a new medication, or buying a guitar, or wearing a bowtie, or trying a new recipe, or asking your cool co workers to go grab lunch sometime, or like literally whatever the fuck you want. If it's at all safe and possible for you to do it you should just go for it.

If it's not possible or safe to go for it alone that's fine find people who wanna go for it with you and do it with them. That's what community is. You can be a part of it whatever that looks like for you.

Going for it is how we learn and grow and be better. You're gonna mess up along the way but that's cool learn from it. If you can learn and grow and be better by doing whatever thing speaks to you to go do, then you'll be in a better position to help others do the same.

And then they can do the same for others.

And those people can do the same for even more.

Before you know it the world is just full of cool fucking people being awesome and that's how we build community. This isn't some stupid individualistic nonsense about actualizing yourself and live pray love or whatever. This is you going for it and just getting over whatever is stopping you from being who you genuinely want to be, and being part of communities that do it together with you. Community isn't formed by just sitting around hoping it into existence it's formed by doing the things you want to do and doing it with others, and you can't do that if you haven't taken the first step and just going for it.

Workers do more than just work we live our lives. Go live it. Go for it. It means more than you think.

Anyway what's something you went for this year and how'd it go. What's something you still wanna go for this year, you got lots of time left. Maybe we can work together to inspire each other to be better together. Let's try it.

As a bit though.

I'm not going to either. You can't make me. I can't even imagine what it sounds like and I won't try.

Do it. Why aren't you doing it. You don't even have to say which is which I just wanna see some heckin emoji usage on Hexchat dot chaposite today

DO IT. THIS IS AN AUTHORITARIAN REDFASH TANKIE ORDER YOU MUST COMPLY.

Bottom text.

I love turn based RPGs so what's good, what should I be getting, what's one of those games that's on such a good sale I'd be a fool to pass it up?

Cloud was a very funny marketing buzzword that started with a real meaning and then devolved into "connects to the Internet." Cloud based things didn't even have to do anything with the Internet for marketing wonks to pretend like being connected to the cloud meant something. Great innovation folks just throw a wifi receiver in it and call it "The Cloud" we did it wow such innovation.

AI is rapidly descending into the same thing. There was a time when "AI" was being used to refer to actual machine learning algorithms that were good enough to fool the layperson into thinking they were smart. Nowadays the word AI just means "can compute something." Does it accept an input and make a decision on that input? Call it AI! My calculator is an AI! An ebook is AI enabled because it automatically changes the page based on how long I spent on the last page! My fridge has AI because it tells me when I accidentally left it open! Wow we just put extremely basic algorithms into everything and now it's AI! We did it we revolutionized technology forever!

Anyway now it's time for the prolific posters of Hexbear to flex your Nostradamus muscles. What's the next Big Dumb Tech Marketing Buzzword going to be and why? Lay it on us.

We as leftists should be taking the moral high ground and that means we shouldn't be cursing. We should be using kinder gentler language. Therefore I propose no more shitposting. Instead we call it Buttposting. It gets the same intent across but it won't offend the sensibilities of most church ladies, a demographic I think we really need to try to capture.

Open to other suggestions too what else should we call Buttposting

These dudes think they're the "good guys" from that fantasy land where "good guys with guns stop bad guys with guns" BUT THEY KEEP FUCKING MISSING. How are you, a "good guy", supposed to stop a bad guy if you can't even hit anything.

Absolutely loser mentality from start to finish and these folks are proof.

The shoes of the capital class.

Then they'll trip over their laces.

Then they drop all their capital.

Then we pick it up.

Now we the workers own the capital and Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism can be achieved

Today it's... slightly tired but hopeful?

There's an experimental theater company in my city that does, well, experimental theater. Its very left and very not white and very queer and I really love it. I go often. I wanna tell you about it a little bit and I hope that's okay.

They do a show twice a week which is 30 plays in 60 minutes. If they don't get to all 30 in that 60 mins well, sucks for you, you didn't get to see all of them. The plays are all written and performed by the company themselves, and every week they delete a random number of plays from their list of 30 and write new ones to replace them for next week's show. Those shows are gone forever.

As you could guess, it's chaotic and unpredictable and fun.

Sometimes the plays are funny, sometimes they're not. They might be a throw away gag, or a lengthy story about the writers life, or a short sketch about something topical. You never really know what you'll get. The company promises though that they will never lie to you and that they will only perform things from their own experience. They hope you will be true to yourself too.

One time they threw creamed corn on the audience. Another they walked around the room and whispered their life ambitions to people in the audience and asked about theirs. Yet another they sat on the stage and knitted part of a sock while telling us how they got into knitting.

Sometimes they stick with you. Sometimes they don't. They're not all winners.

One that stuck with me was one I saw over a year ago now, and I think about it a lot. One of the gender fluid cast members rolled an overhead projector out onto the stage and the other cast sat in a semicircle around them with notepads. The writer would shout GENDER? and slap an overhead sheet on the projector. The sheet contained words with a theme. One was seasons. One was colors. One was feelings. One was birds. You get the idea. Between each sheet the cast wrote something down and then the writer would shout GENDER? and replace the sheet with a new one.

When they got to the end each cast member read out their list. One was Green Spring Somber Robin, another was Black Fall Happy Bluejay, etc. They were all different. They were all unique. But they all got to choose for themselves and we all got to be a part of it with them.

The writer then read out theirs, and just ended the play with "It surprised me when I started performing this one that every time I do this, I find myself answering differently." And that was the end of it. I think after that one is when they threw creamed corn on us.

At the time I wasn't really sure what gender meant to me either. Over time though my partner and I would look at each other and go "Gender?" and just say "today I feel like sweaty corn" or "today I feel like a hot pizza" or whatever we felt that day. And others would join in too just saying who they felt like in that moment too. It's become a fun way for us to validate ourselves and each other in who we are in that moment, no matter how serious or silly the answer is.

It was formative for me because some people wouldn't really change their answers, and some people would lean into it and have fun with it and come up with the silliest answer they could, and everything in between too. It became a way for me to identify with others in a way I hadn't really done before. Kinda made me look at gender differently too. Some folks pick one and they keep it forever and it's theirs and they're comfortable in it and that's okay. Others change it like the wind, shifting and ebbing and flowing with each new thing they experience, and that's okay too. Gender is a construct, we can all be whatever we want. Whoever we want. Whenever we want. Our gender is ours, it belongs to us, and that means it's up to us and only us how we choose to define it, and it's up to the rest of us to accept that and love that about both ourselves and each other too, no matter how the individual defines it. It's a part of our identity. It might relate to your biology, or not. It might relate to your pronouns, or not. It might relate to how you present to the world, or not. No matter what though it's part of you and who you are, and I just think that's neat.

So, I'll ask again because many of you probably didn't get it the first time but I hope you do now.

Gender?

A few days ago I broke my helmet again. This time I was going too fast on some gravel and sped across a turn that was sharper than I was expecting. I flew off my bike. I broke my third helmet. Time to get another.

I'm totally fine, nothing broken, no stitches or anything like that but I'm still pretty banged up. Most importantly though my head is fine. No concussion or head injury at all. Fortunately my partner is a first responder so honestly a great person to be around when you're in the middle of nowhere injured and they've been keeping an eye on me but I'm definitely past any sort of concussion danger period. I wasn't that worried anyway.

But that helmet gets to go in the trash and join its friends now. Missed but not forgetten.

I'm an experienced biker...and skater and hiker and kayaker and other stuff too. I've gotten myself out of stickier situations than this but it was very hot out and very sunny and I'd had a beer and a decent lunch and was near the end of my long bike journey and I goofed. It happens. And it's not a big deal because I had my helmet on.

The last time was a skating accident. It was wet and I forgot how slippery skates get when its wet. The previous time I thought it would be fun to ride down stairs. It is and I do it all the time but probably you shouldn't. At least not without a helmet.

I see people out all the time on all sorts of wheeled things without one and I feel so much anxiety for them. I'm not particularly clumsy or anything but if you do something long enough eventually an accident might happen. I wonder if they know the impact it will have on them and their loved ones if the accident happens to them. I wonder if they know how easy it is to prevent it from being as bad as it could be.

All of my accidents were maybe my fault but I know very few bikers who haven't had similar, either because of something they did or something someone else did. They're all okay too because they all wear helmets.

So comrades please just put a helmet on. Your brain is valuable because it contains a lot of who you are, and you're probably more valuable than you think. We all take care of our bodies and minds in so many ways so please don't neglect this way. Helmets are cheap, adjusted properly they can be very comfortable too. The right kinds can be personalized with stickers and messages and really become something special to you. Hopefully you buy one and you have it for life and you never need to replace it. But if you do need to replace it that's good too, because a helmet is so much easier to replace than you are.

Anyway I'm looking forward to buying my next helmet and I hope it lasts me longer than this last one. But if it doesn't I'll be glad to because hopefully it means I'm okay when I otherwise might not have been.

So please if you're going to be doing something that could result in a head injury, no matter how unlikely, just put on a helmet. You're worth it.