TimesEcho

Heaven’s Vault was fantastic and can be played multiple times to get different versions of the story. It’s also on sale right now. What I thought was especially well done is how they tied the narrative to replaying aspect.

Listening to To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf while I do chores. It’s literature so I have to listen to it since there’s no plot, really, and it’s all thoughts inside people’s heads, so far all on the same day.
Just finished book 2 in the Seraphina series, Shadow Scale, by Rachel Hartman. I almost didn’t finish it because for most of the book the main character didn’t have anything going in her favor and the relentless piling on of bad news made me anxious.
I’ve got to finish the other stories in Stories of Your Life and Others, by Ted Chiang, because I got it to read “Story of Your Life” after reading a thread on Kbin about the movie Arrival (which I had really enjoyed by apparently hadn’t understood fully).

It can be a bit overwhelming, yes. I purposely did enough of the main story line in ToTK so that I could get the Hero’s Path and the Travel Medallions. And now I’m ignoring the main story and just exploring the world bit-by-bit, like I did with Breath of the Wild. I’m still thoroughly exploring Central Hyrule. I’m racking up side quests and adventures, but only doing them if I want a break from exploring or want to better my gear or something. It takes the pressure off for me to do it this slow, relaxing way. The game feels like it has hundreds of hours in it, which is what I tell myself when I get antsy. I have almost literally all the time in the world.

Oh, so auditory hallucinations are not normal, then. Just last night “someone ringing my doorbell” (I don’t have a doorbell, which I didn’t realize until the morning) made me wake in a panic to cautiously look out my windows to see who might be at my door. And, yes, like others, I often “fall” while falling asleep, and wake up when I “land”. “Landing” is usually a full body jerk.

This seriously brought me down the other day when I first read it. I’m glad that BBC is doing this important work, but also, this is so dark my brain just can’t go there.

The Orville is closer in spirit and execution to Roddenberry’s Star Trek. Post-Roddenberry Star Trek is a different type of entertainment that isn’t trying to accomplish the same goals. Applying “good” and “bad” to either is counterproductive and subjective. They serve different purposes and it’s fine to like or dislike either.

Yes, same! I loved primes on Number Munchers so much. I was truly terrible at Oregon Trail, but just kept trying and dying. Also, Odell Lake in which you were a fish.

If you have an -ism (and some would argue that we all have -isms) there is likely a 12-step group for that. What is needed for friendships to develop:

1. Repeated exposure over time. This means being able to count on seeing someone regularly, like once a week at a thing during which you actually talk to each other (so movie nights don’t work).
2. Trust. This comes either from how an event is structured (like the meeting format and principles found in a 12-step group, or the Unitarians have Small Group Connection Circles that function similarly, but without the -isms) OR from spending enough time together that sharing sensitive stuff is accepted and encouraged.
3. Reciprocity. Both people have to put in the same amount of effort. (And share the same level of sensitive stuff. One can’t overshare about their personal life if together they’ve only ever talked about books.) This means you both commit to being the one to ask to meet up if the other one did it last time, or what have you.

I’ve spent a lot of time in my adult life trying to find ways to bring people together and develop friendships. It isn’t easy and most people aren’t willing to commit to one of the three things above, so you’ll have to go to places where they do.

If you want a community without the religion, I suggest trying out the Unitarians. Each congregation is different, but they don’t have any dogma and each person is free to believe what they like. They have all the good social aspects of belonging to church without any of the toxicity in other religions.

When I’m stressed I can have really bad middle-of-night insomnia. A few months ago it was terrible. I came across an article about some guy who said to only go to bed when tired and to get up at the same time every morning no matter what. It was hellish while I did it, but after a week or so it started to work. Then after about two weeks, I set a bedtime schedule for myself while still keeping the same wake-up time. Since then, if I do wake in the middle of the night, I treat it like meditation (with the idea that meditation counts as rest) and just lay there focusing on my breathing. I haven’t had a three-hour awake time since, and usually it’s not more than 20-30 minutes.

OMG Slashdot! I’d totally forgotten about it.