BougieBirdie

Well of course the victim is going to play the victim. That’s just good marketing - and what is marketing if not propaganda?

Your comment reads as though the invading state’s actions aren’t propaganda. This is the whole reason why I came here to warn people to be skeptical of what they read online.

In an ironic twist, here’s an online source about the Russian disinformation campaign telling citizens that if you play Stalker 2 you’ll be drafted to fight in Ukraine against Russia.

Again, you should be skeptical of what you read online. In a vacuum, I’m inclined to believe the victim of invasion. In reality, I know that the situation is more nuanced - although the credibility of the aggressor is extremely suspect.

For what it’s worth, my impression on the game is that it’s yet another over-hyped game that couldn’t possibly live up to its expectations. The developers are financially incentivized to deflect that criticism through any means available to them. But that doesn’t mean I don’t acknowledge that malicious actors are also trying to discredit the game.

There’s lots of schools of thought on how you should write your diary, but imo the most important thing to keep in mind is that diary is for you.

I primarily use my diary as a coping mechanism to deal with stress and to reframe my outlook. This means I don’t think very hard about what I’m writing, I’m just putting my feelings onto a page. Then once those thoughts are on paper they become easier to deconstruct.

My primary diary pulls double duty, and I use it to plan out the following day. When I reflect on how today went, it’s easier to make a plan for tomorrow. And at least in my experience it’s easier to make a plan the day before than to wait and see how I feel the next day.

Some people like a themed diary. I keep a separate gratitude journal where the only rule is to write things in it that made me happy. This is helpful on bad days when I can’t think of anything good going on in my life

If you’re into mental health and self improvement, there’s loads of literature on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) online. CBT is the gold standard of psychiatric care currently, and is primarily self directed through journaling exercises. Searching for these exercises could give you a framework if you’d like to follow something a bit more rigid

I haven’t played Stalker 2 so I don’t really have a dog in this fight, but it’s very politically charged and has Russian state sponsored disinformation campaigns running against it. I’m not sure that you can get a truly accurate read of it online.

The developers are Ukrainian, and development had to be paused because their office literally turned into a warzone. The fact that the game came out at all is extremely based, and that certainly adds to the mythology around the game. But again, I haven’t played it, and gameplay-wise that doesn’t actually indicate anything about the game.

I want the game to succeed because of the developers’ existential struggle. The people causing that existential struggle want the game to fail. Neither of us have actually played the game, so again, there’s all this bias around it and we haven’t even looked at gameplay yet.

Be skeptical of anything you read online

I’ve been reading reports of mothers being turned away from post-natal and miscarriage care lately

So no, it doesn’t seem to be safe right now. And that’s just for mom, never mind the world you’re bringing a child into

Pepe has been sensationalized for a while now in the media as being a hate symbol. I think it’s because you see it largely on 4chan which traditional media demonizes.

I’m not on 4chan, but it seems like it has similar problems to Steam: a large userbase and poor content moderation gives insufferable people a platform to spread hate from. These problems aren’t unique to either platform, but the news likes to latch on to them.

I hate that some people consider Pepe to be a hate symbol. He’s just an expressive frog, dang it