My old accounts never got banned (I think I have three still usable ones). I have one that was newer that was shadowbanned, but I never really posted anything (it was shadowbanned right out the gate from what I could tell because I used a VPN and a temp e-mail - remember the time you didn’t need an e-mail?!).

I came here simply because I want a better alternative (and to get away from fascist shitheads). Unfortunately, there’s really no engagement for most things here I used reddit for, but where there is, it’s mostly a nicer community (because it’s much smaller on here, plus less power tripping reddit mods).

Also, I can’t use new reddit. It’s awful. I tried again yesterday, and it sucked. The death of old reddit was always going to force me to jump ship. Although I mostly used it for lurking these days with my shadowbanned account, or through websearches for very specific things (old TV episode discussions for instance). Very rarely I log in to an unbanned account and answer a question in a niche sub of mine.

Yep. I really wished anything I used on there actually existed on Lemmyverse, or anywhere else decent, lol. I loathe Discord, but at least one sub has a decent server so I can follow deals on it.

Very sad that they’re destroying years of information, good and bad. It’s not like I wouldn’t have jumped ship before if there was an alternative, but for most things, there really isn’t.

I can’t do New reddit either. I remember when it came out I said I would never use the site again once they inevitably did this. Tried New reddit out of curiosity, and it was so much worse than I remember.

For now, old accounts work for old reddit. I have a shadowbanned (presumably, posts never showed up) account that I use to monitor subs for deals. But at this point, it’s a matter of months, if not weeks. The timing of this, I suspect, is not coincidental either.

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I had the exact same issue when I read it (which was a while ago). The last 1/3 was the best part of the book, at least imo.

As a former MMO player, I absolutely hated anything that required playing with a group. I mostly played solo (although back in my LotRO days I had an awesome guild to occasionally play with). I remember this being one of the reasons I liked ESO (I haven’t played an MMO in ages so I don’t know if anything changed or my memory of that is bad).

If something required a lot of group play, I was likely to stop playing it and find something else. It really depended on how easily I could ignore the group content.

I’ve suspected some cover art I’ve seen for books has been AI (but I can’t always reliably tell). Kind of gross that some of it probably is.

Sadly, as much as I see people against gen AI online, people in real life aren’t (at least where I’m at). They’re gobbling up the slop.

I don’t even want to imagine what things will look like in twenty years, when the kids who grew up with this thinks this is the new normal.

Going forward, either you embrace gen AI, or you stick to media produced roughly before 2022 (or before 2019 to virtually avoid it totally). For writing, I’m not sure how the future will look for those who care. At least you can go see live performances of music, for instance, or even watch someone paint something.

For now, maybe writers will ban together and create trusted groups of human made stuff. If we’re lucky, maybe AI slop for the most part will be contained to corporations. Indie publishers could become the place for human made stuff. Assuming the corporations don’t find a way to drown out the indie publishers. But even if indie publishers take off in this direction, for how long will the people actually interested in art/writing free of gen AI care?

Curious to see Nintendo’s numbers in comparison.

And yeah, those prices are insane. At a certain point, just pay for a PC and have access to whatever you want. Plus, you don’t have to pay an additional fee for online features. It doesn’t have to be the best gaming rig ever, especially for most people. And recoup the money spent on a gaming rig by escaping the closed eco system. Wait for good sales on PC games or turn to the high seas.

And honestly, outside of Nintendo, I haven’t seen a console exclusive game on Xbox or PS5 that I’ve wanted to play in years.

Those prices though. People can still game without consoles, and with the way they’re destroying the economy, it seems people are realizing they can ditch the consoles for other options.

This. It’s the poor kids who this targets the most in the first place. Equal access to uncensored media is absolutely essential for any society that isn’t a fascist paradise.

It’s not just libraries either. People need to reject censorship across the board. Why the hell is George Carlin’s ‘Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television’ still relevant to this day?

Endless Blue Beneath - Shannon K. English

It was not good, unfortunately. Some cool mermaid vibes, but holy hell that ending. Imagine someone committing genocide telling someone who hadn’t done anything wrong to ‘be better.’ Not to mention, it’s mostly just miserable the entire time, the main character is insufferable and repeats her thoughts about her brother all the time, and then the love interest was a choice. For what little time was dedicated to her in the first place.

Not sure what I’ll read next.

This.

Because generative AI has been built off the backs of everyone, whether they consented or not. Because AI companies (Nvidia, Facebook, pick a company) have pirated enough material to keep any individual in jail for life, and yet they have no consequences and can profit off everything.

If generative AI can not be used for commercial purposes, it also cripples the ability to replace artists, writers, etc., with an AI that stole all their work in the first place and is regurgitating it. Generative AI isn’t the issue, and it won’t go away (I wish it would, but the world doesn’t work that way). It’s the way it’s being used. Take the profit out of it, and we can all (to some degree) benefit from it. Take the profit out of it, and stop them from hoarding and destroying books/knowledge, destroying the environment, destroying your economy.

I’m sure people more well-read into generative AI can give a better example than a layman who is tired of billionaires and trillionaires doing whatever they like with no consequence, destroying our environment, our jobs, our economy, and now our souls along the way.

2026 is so depressing, lol. I’ve noticed this with some (non-gaming) Korean media, where the writing feels very AI (and I’m kind of suspecting a lot of it is considering East Asia’s quick embrasure of it).

All of this is easy to legislate (not necessarily fix because people will just lie and face no consequence if they’re rich). Ban generative AI for commercial purposes.

Anything with art, being that games, illustration, even writing feels tainted these days. Those of us who don’t want gen AI are going to have to find ways to form our own communities (and hope we can trust the majority of people in them).

On the bright side, I’m suddenly feeling okay with not getting to play a lot of the Switch 2 games.

Outside of one community I use to track sales for a niche hobby, my main use of reddit is looking up old threads. There’s nothing new on there that’s helpful anymore. I like looking up old episode discussion threads for TV shows that I’m watching for the first time, for instance.

I wish Lemmy was a good alternative. But without enough people using it, it can’t really come close to a replacement. All my interests are more niche too, and I hate Discord, so it leaves me out here touching grass.

Reddit’s always been toxic, it’s just worse the more MAGA and AI came to prominence (also a lot of what appears to be Russian astrotufing, but that might just be the subs I used).

Unfortunately, Lemmy’s not always better. I’ve been trying to figure out which instances to avoid, because I am really tired of certain people harping on about certain things.

Congratulations on getting a regular exercise routine down! Took me longer than it should have myself.

On PC, yes. That’s basically what an expansion pack was. But Sims 2 DLC was absolutely ridiculous in comparison. I realize I put ‘Sims’ in my original post, but I had been talking about Sims 2. It’s actually mild compared to some games now.

Gamecube was the best. I wasted so many hours playing Super Smash Bros Melee and Mario Kart Double Dash. I had only gotten to play Ocarina of Time on a friend’s N64, so I finally got to play that one too. I went through a ton of games. X-Men Legends, Super Mario Sunshine, Luigi’s Mansion, there’s too many to name. One of my favorite consoles of all time.

Of course it didn’t. I don’t think some people understand how completely irrelevant the individual is when it comes to corporate decision making. They don’t care if you’re upset. They’re either going to do something extreme, then dial it back (on purpose) to something worse but not as bad, or they’re going to ignore you. If they keep at it long enough, newer generations just grow up thinking this is all normal.

Look at DLC. Younger people on here probably think that’s normal or good. But older people can remember a time where when a game was released, it was expected to run out the box or you’d immediately refund it because they sold you a broken product. And the game was whole, not locked behind paywalls. Even when PC games got DLC, The Sims still looked absolutely crazy for the sheer cost of all those expansions. To probably well over half of the users here, though, this is the new normal.

My best advice is to support and enjoy indie games that do things right (and can probably run on your PC without costing you a fortune), or start learning to enjoy older games (there’s tons of great ones out there!), most of which can be found easily and played on just about any modern computer. SNES, Sega Genesis, Gamecube, PS2, 3DS, etc. There’s so many good games out there.

And of course, don’t be afraid to find other hobbies. If you really want to make a difference, stop giving any money to these corporations. Video games aren’t a necessity. You can choose not to support Sony gaming, simple as that. Not temporarily, but until their business practices change whennever.

Recently finished Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle. I felt called out by the main character, especially what tips her decision in the climax. I felt like there was something missing in the book, but I did really enjoy its message and found it solidly enjoyable. It was never boring, although I would have preferred more outlandish deaths.

Recently started the final Marvel What If? book series (the DOOM one). It’s been okay. It’s been a minute, but compared to the previous book (at least in my memory), this version of Kitty Pryde feels like it’s pulling from Evolution instead of the comics. I’m also incredibly dissatisfied with a certain happening fairly early into the book, and hoping that won’t be the permanent state of affairs, but as is usual when it comes to these superhero things, it probably will be.

Also, just from a writing perspective. I feel like writing Doom has to be a blast for the author. I know I’d be having fun with it.

These are mostly binary trans women recommendations, and most of these are by trans authors. If for some reason you want comic book or manga recommendations, I’ve got those too if you need them. There was also an LGBT spreadsheet in one of the reddit subs for books (either bookrecommendations or maybe fantasy) with a massive list of books, though no indication of their quality.

From the more comprehensive list below, I would recommend:

General Literary Pick: Disappoint Me - Nicola Dinan
General Romance: Chef’s Choice - TJ Alexander

Solo Books

Disappoint Me - Nicola Dinan
Great story, often humorous in my opinion. Deals with many aspects of being trans that I think most cis people with little experience with trans people would think about.

Light from Uncommon Stars - Ryka Aoki
This one’s pretty well loved. A woman who made a deal with the devil romancing an alien while training an up and coming trans woman who wants to become a famous musician.

A Lady for a Duke - Alexis Hall
Victorian Romance. Does glaze over some of the practicalities of being trans in that era, but I don’t think that’s an issue. It’s okay to allow for a little suspension of disbelief. The romance is pretty great imo.

Pack of Her Own - Elena Abbott
Werewolf. If you like supernatural romance, just read this. Trust me. Sapphic.

Chef’s Choice - TJ Alexander
T4T romance with a binary trans man and woman. One of my favorite trans romances I’ve read. Also, unlike the others on this list, you get a trans man’s perspective too. Plus, it’s trans experiences from those who are more and less privileged, changing the way they interact with the world.

Orlando - Virgina Woolf
But you probably already know about this one. I’m sure someone will probably get angry at me for including this as trans, but that is what Orlando functionally is in the story, regardless of whether that’s how it’s meant to be read. It’s certainly an exploration of gender of the time, at the very least.

Young Adult (YA) - Fawn’s Blood - Hal Schrieve
Vampires. Certainly playing on the idea of a twisted version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. If you all enjoy YA and supernatural stuff, give it a read. It has various trans characters as part of its cast.

Solo books with trans main characters but don’t heavily focus on the trans part

YA - This Delicious Death - Kayla Cottingham
Zombies/Ghouls. People who eat human flesh, basically. Sapphic.

Two Book Series

YA - Dreadnaught Duology - April Daniels
Trans woman superhero main character. Various rep, plus it’s Sapphic.

Stealing Thunder Duology - Alina Boyden
First book is very rough and stereotypical imo. The second book is actually pretty fun though.

Trilogies

Her Majesty’s Royal Coven - Juno Dawson
One of the main characters is trans, though you won’t get her perspective until the second book. I wouldn’t recommend reading this specifically for the trans aspect. Also chock full of pop culture references (not necessarily in a good way) even I didn’t always pick up on, which is saying something. Overall enjoyable though.

Solo books with trans protagonists that I would not recommend

People Collide - Isle McElroy
Either I didn’t get it, or I didn’t like it. Some reviews seem to insist this book is great. I personally hated it.

Podcast

This Queer Book Saved My Life - Tons of queer book recommendations.

Hard to read when they ban the books you’re interested in and cut library services.

I would debate streaming services having that significant of an impact. It’s likely the same impact that traditional TV used to have, especially when VCRs entered the mainstream (into DVDs, Blurays, and around the same time, Streaming).

I think mobile gaming and social media would be more likely to blame. Not to mention algorithms. Maybe it’s only me, but most algorithms rarely pick out things I was interested in (it was very easy to tell that they were just ads). And as the younger generation depends on algorithms, not hard to imagine that they slowly become disenfranchised with what they’re reading if it’s not something they really want to read.

But the real reason behind this is the education system. High schools were effectively turned into diploma mills. There’s also a lot of bullying for teenage boys that like reading in the school system, and many boys do not have a high literacy rate in public schools. Repeated Republican governments in America have decimated the education system as well.