#lindira rants

[lindira]

Veilguard endgame spoilers:

I had heard that a Solavellan Inquisitor went into the Fade with Solas, so I went to watch what it was like. And I know the Inquisitor isn’t the protagonist anymore, but I really wish there was some kind of choice you could make.

I wanted to do a playthrough with Paikea as the Inquisitor, and she would want to redeem Solas. But it’s been fucking 8 years since she’s even seen him, let alone had a proper relationship with him. For starters, she would’ve moved on. There’s still affection there, but that’s tempered by time and the gravity of his actions. He killed Varric. He actively manipulated people for his own selfish goals. Pai would still believe there’s good in him, but Solas has red flags all over the place for a partner, much less for one you’d presumably be with for eternity. He AT LEAST needs to be given time to prove he can be trusted again.

If my husband ghosted me then showed up 2 years later and was like, “I still love you but all your people are broken so I’m gonna raze the world and start fresh”, I wouldn’t think “Well, hit me up whenever you feel like not being evil. I’ll wait however long THAT takes.” I love my husband more than almost anything, but I’m not waiting 8 years for him to get his shit together, stop killing my friends, and start listening to me.

Maaaybe if Solas had proven himself to be good and trustworthy again, and maaaybe if Paikea weren’t with someone, she would give him another chance. But that would be after time getting to know each other and building that trust and love back up all over again. Love isn’t just a thing you keep in a box, never changing. It’s work. It’s a seed you plant with another and nurture and foster and protect together. If Solas and Lavellan are to achieve that, they can’t just pick up where they left off. Too much has happened. They have to start small and build back up the relationship that has crumbled over time.

[lindira]

I'm VERY excited about Essek and Astrid making their appearances, but... Can we just have Bells Hells take a little break? You're telling me they just got back from the fucking moon or fought the Spider Queen, lost someone very dear to them, and have barely said three sentences to each other, and they can't take a day to recuperate and mourn? To be thankful for each other's presence? To comfort each other after a very long, very difficult day? They barely got a long rest. Now they're off on some other mission?

This campaign is exciting, but I understand why some people are having a hard time connecting with it. Bells Hells has no downtime to bond and be stupid together. They're just always going from one mission to another, over and over again. Vox Machina had shopping hijinks in Vasselheim and vacations in Dalen's Closet. The Mighty Nein got to decorate the Xhorhaus and troll the Gentleman or Yussa and have Traveler-con. But Bells Hells? They have been bouncing around all the realms at breakneck speed. The time they were supposed to spend bonding in the Fey Realm was basically a spitfire of uncomfortable truths in amongst harrowing situations. They've grown a lot as characters, certainly. But we so rarely get to see them just be people for a little while, instead of would-be heroes.

I want to see them mourn Fresh Cut Grass and really sit in that loss. I want them to have actual talks with Dorian about what he's been through and what they've all been through. I want to see them lift each other up despite their respective broken hearts because they're friends and family. I want to see them address their messy emotions for once. Bells Hells genuinely needed to "nap and talk about [their] feelings" for at least one episode. It's been three episodes since FCG died. We need to address that enormous elephant in the room to give it weight and purpose.

I'm hoping they slow down, if at least for a day. The way they just go from one mission to another doesn't feel as much of a narrative as the previous campaigns did.

[lindira]

I'll be a functional adult tomorrow.

Today I'm crying and napping and yelling obscenities. I'll play video games to escape reality a bit and then go back to napping and obscenities.

I'll be a functional adult tomorrow.

[lindira]

I fucking hate what this country has become. This is such bullshit. I’m angry and upset that people looked at that man who is so OBVIOUSLY the worst of humanity and decided he was fit to lead our country not just once, but twice.

[lindira]

Exactly what did CGI in the original Star Wars “fix”?? The CGI edits took away from the movies. The unedited versions were timeless because of all the practical effects used for the sets and ships and aliens. Now the juxtaposition of CGI bits inserted into 70s cinematography is jarring and dates the movie more than any awkward droid. You can tell the CGI is old and unrefined by today’s standards, too smooth or bulbous to blend in. It calls attention to itself. Who the fuck needed that Jabba scene, especially when it just reiterates what Greedo said five minutes prior? Jabba was FAR more imposing as a sedentary monstrosity of a creature than as a waddling booger giving unnecessary exposition.

I have been ranting about these changes since I was a teenager. The Star Wars edits were SO unnecessary, and it’s a travesty that the original versions aren’t available from a mainstream source.

Marvel movies have completely eliminated the concept of practical effects from the movie-watching public’s consciousness

[lindira]

Sure would be great if I could find a job posting that doesn’t pay peanuts and isn’t a scam.

[lindira]

I used to look at how people knit in cartoons, with the needles like this: \/, and think that was totally how it worked. Yes, you stab the yarn like you’re holding chopsticks in two hands and it miraculously turns into a sweater.

Ever since I learned how to knit, I see people knit in cartoons and it drives me BANANAS. You will drop all your stitches!! Everything will fall apart!! Civilization will crumble!!

[lindira]

I'm going through A Thing right now, and while I feel I'm mentally better off for it, my financial anxiety is through the roof right now.

My sister-in-law was my boss. It worked great for a while (over 2 years) because even though she's an incredibly difficult person and paid me less than I'm worth ($16 an hour, part time), I could work from home and determine my own schedule, which was great for someone like me, who 1) has tons of medical appointments I have to go to on a regular basis, and 2) has kids and can't rely on anyone else to pick them up from school. I could also work around school events, which was also amazing because I want to be present for the things my kids feel are important. Also, she's in California and I'm in Texas, so I didn't have to deal with her very often.

Anyway, SIL found a service where she could hire people from the Philippines for $9.50 an hour. At the same time, she took on patients from another practice that was closing, so she had 2-3 times as many appointments each day. Meaning I started working more hours. At around that time, she asked me to transition from entering her charts to taking phone calls. But it was summer break, my kids were home, and my youngest is loud and demanding. I told her I couldn't because it wouldn't be professional to have my kid yelling for me through the door while talking to her patients. Moreover, at least half of her patients are Spanish-speaking, and I haven't used Spanish at all in the 24 years since I graduated high school. Instead of finding those points reasonable, she kept badgering and badgering me, even trying to go around my "no" by having my brother (her husband) ask my mom to ask me. I still said no.

Summer was ending and she asked when I could start on phones again. I gave her a date that was a week after the kids returned to school, and she agreed. But then she said weird things like, "only work the hours you would be working on the phone" and started training one of the people she found in the Philippines in some of the tasks that I did.

Last Monday, she demanded I start on phones that Wednesday, a whole week and a half earlier than we agreed upon. It was also the last week of summer vacation and there were a ton of things I had to do for the kids. I planned on working around the events I had to attend, but I couldn't start something new and with a specific schedule. I told her I could start on Monday (today) at the earliest, but she came back saying that I should enjoy my days off for the rest of the week until I could start on phones on Monday. She accused me of making her staff and patients "suffer" with my unreasonable availability.

I was livid. She was retaliating by taking away my hours for most of the week. She sure as fuck wasn't paying me for my time off. And my husband and I had suspected that she was giving my duties to the person in the Philippines, but I realized she wanted to limit my hours too by demanding I only work during the few hours I told her I could commit to working the phones. Basically, I started working 25-30 hours a week instead of 12-15 hours, so my SIL gave my job to someone she could pay less than California's minimum wage.

After a full day of being intensely angry, I confronted her about all of it: the badgering, the disrespect of going through my mom to get to me, springing new duties on me a day and a half before she wanted me to start and well before the agreed upon date I was to start, giving away my job so she could pay someone $6.50 less an hour, limiting my hours, and most of all for hurting me and my family by taking away almost a whole week's worth of wages because I wouldn't do what she wanted. If she wanted to hire someone else and didn't want to keep me on, she should have just told me so. At least then I could make an informed decision about what to do next.

She replied by trying to excuse her behavior as just "running her business" and that I was a burden and ruining her business. She said I was costing her $6760 over the course of the year. She didn't say, but I figured out where that very precise number. It was my wages if I worked 20 hours minus the wages of the person in the Philippines if they also worked 20 hours. I wasn't costing her anything. She wanted to save herself that much money, so she sabotaged my job. She only kept me on to stroke her own damn ego and feel like she was "saving" my family from destitution.

So I quit. Who needs enemies when I have "family" whose "help" is toxic and self-serving? I did really good work for her for over 2 years, and this is how she's going to treat me? Fuck that money-hungry bitch and her cheapskate, unethical bullshit. Fuck her for trying to control me by hurting my family in retaliation. She has alienated literally every one of our extended family, and now she's moved on to immediate family. I tried to tolerate her for my brother's sake. Fuck that now. I don't want to see her ever again.

I expected this from her. I'm angry, but it doesn't hurt so bad to cut her out of my life. I feel relieved, actually. But what really hurts is that my brother must have known what was happening and he didn't fight for me. I don't expect him to choose me over his wife, but he could have told me what she was doing. He could have told her it was shitty for her to give my job away to save what is - to them - pocket change. He didn't. We were "almost twins". He credited me for raising him. But he always chooses her over everything and everyone else. I'm not sure I blame him exactly, but I might never trust him again. And I certainly won't be seeing very much of him if she'll be around.

So now I'm scrambling to find a new job. I lost some dead weight, and I'm truly better off without her in my life. But I've been dealing with this for the past week and I'm still so angry. I'm a little angry at myself too. When I took this job, I knew it probably wouldn't end well working for her because of how much of a bitch she is. But it worked for 2 and a half years. It could've worked for longer. But she didn't value me, as an employee or even as a person.

If you've reached this far, thank you for "listening" to my rant. I find writing out my anger helps as much as yelling it. I'm hopeful that I'll find a new job soon, but if you spot a decent remote office work job an over-educated struggling writer could do, please keep me in mind.

[lindira]

I have a handful of chronic illnesses that would be annoying but manageable on their own, but all together are debilitating enough to make me miserable. And they all kinda make each other worse. Because of course they do. The severe eczema makes my depression and anxiety worse. The corticosteroids that would help relieve my eczema? They raise my blood sugar so my diabetes gets worse. Because I have depression and anxiety, I tend to overindulge, which also makes my diabetes worse. My worry over my diabetes makes my anxiety worse. My anxiety makes me depressed. The stress from depression, anxiety, and diabetes make my eczema flare more often. And my allergies make all of it worse.

I’m just so tired of fighting all of them. I’m tired of telling people what’s bothering me at the moment and them belittling it because that one thing isn’t major. But it’s all of it. It’s the fact I have to take 8-12 pills every day and I still feel shitty all the time.

Ugh. I need to go to sleep.

[lindira]

My child was born 6 hours too late to be ready for Kindergarten. Apparently. If his birthday were September 1st, he’d totally be ready for it. His birthday is September 2nd, you say? Oh, he’s far too young. Better hold him back an ENTIRE YEAR.

Fuck Texas and this school district.

[lindira]

My PC died and it’s the only thing I have that could run BG3!! 😭 What am I going to do now?! Go to bed at a reasonable hour??

[lindira]

My mom has been pressuring me to get my youngest son baptized. My husband and I don’t want to, even though we got our eldest son baptized when he was a baby. My husband has never been very religious, but I used to be. But I’m angry about what the Church has become with conservative “values” pervading everything they do now.

As if to prove my point, I read today that Catholic bishops have been outspoken in supporting the whole school voucher thing here in Texas. The bishop of the Diocese even testified in support of it. If my ADHD brain will remember to do it, I intend on reporting the entire fucking Diocese of Fort Worth to the IRS for involving themselves in politics. This is fucking ridiculous.

So… yeah. It’d be hilarious as fuck if I somehow got excommunicated. My mom and mother-in-law will have to lay off about getting their youngest grandson baptized then, right? 🙃

[lindira]

I’m looking for a more stable job right now, and I’m continually appalled with what’s on offer. Still. In this economy. $10-11 an hour? For literally ANY job, much less ones that are stressful, make you deal with customers, and/or have you on your feet all day. It’s ridiculous. Some of the wages I’m seeing are even less than that.

“Nobody wants to work these days”. No, nobody wants to work for these piddling wages on offer these days. Nobody wants to do exhausting work for 8 hours a day and still not be able to buy enough groceries. $12 an hour was a halfway decent wage 20 years ago, not after a bazillion recessions and a global pandemic.

[lindira]

The Horizon Forbidden West DLC is for PS5 only?? Nooooooo…!!

[lindira]

I am perhaps unreasonably angry at my brother and his wife for eating the rest of the Chinese food I bought for my family. Yet, here we are. Like, they didn’t even ask to have it?? And they didn’t even thank me for providing their dinner?? I was hoping to have some leftovers to eat for lunch or a snack tomorrow... *grumbles*

[lindira]

Ugh. So I (wrongly) assumed that if the BG3 mods were internal and supported, then the achievements would act as normal. ...Which is apparently not the case. *headdesk*

I was almost done with my Tactician run when I installed some cosmetic and quality of life mods through Patch 7. I want my achievement! And I want to try Honor Mode also! I'm wondering if I can still get the achievement if I uninstall the mods, reload a save before I installed them, then keep playing that way??? Otherwise I'll have to wait until Patch 7 is supported by the Achievement Enabler mod on Nexus...