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    3. What internet discussion sites remain?

      ~tech Ask
      I'm using the phrase 'internet discussion site' pretty informally, so I hope my meaning will become clearer as you continue reading. I got rid of Snapchat around 4 years ago now. At some point in...

      I'm using the phrase 'internet discussion site' pretty informally, so I hope my meaning will become clearer as you continue reading.

      I got rid of Snapchat around 4 years ago now. At some point in 2023 I noticed a sharp downtick in discussion quality on Twitter, and got rid of it as well. About two years ago, frustrated with the lack of human interaction and the vying for attention, I deleted Instagram. Near the end of 2025, I stopped using Discord. The final nail in the coffin has now arrived, since I'm unfortunately coming to the conclusion that Reddit is no longer worth visiting, leaving me almost entirely cordoned off from internet communication at a time when more humans are using it than ever before.
      I won't bother repeating my personal reasons for this exodus since I feel confident that most people on this website have feelings on the matter that at least approximate my own.
      Realistically this is a sign that it's time to prioritize interaction in the real world, and that's certainly a worthwhile thing to pursue. But bluntly society has restructured around the internet in a pretty substantial way, and I don't think it's an unreasonable ask to find various forms of forums on which more meaningful discussions can take place.
      Here is my personal survey of the current landscape:

      • tildes.net: Basically good. I really enjoy this website and I think in a lot of ways the 'bar/pub/cafe' model for a forum, where you can peer through the window but require permission to gain admission, is the only viable model for future online discussion places as the internet becomes ever more saturated with bots and bad actors.
      • lobste.rs: Also basically good, for the same reasons as tildes. In some aspects, limited by the fact that it has a particular focus. In other ways, that's a really good thing. Maybe in a perfect world there would be a lobste.rs equivalent for every hobby, and we would return to an early internet forum world.
      • Hacker News: Also basically good but perhaps a bit less so than the above two. I think most of the things posted on there are interesting, but a lot of the discussion has lately felt less insightful than it used to. I think a different tildes post noted this as well, but it's very caught up in the AI news cycle, often to an unfortunate degree.
      • Rateyourmusic: The core site is enjoyable, and the forums are usually fun to check in on every now and then. Certainly a worthwhile place to visit if you enjoy music.
      • Stackexchange networks: This is cheating since this is obviously many sites. I'm a mathematics student and I've found MSE and MathOverflow to be really wonderful places to learn and converse, albeit with some very arcane and strict rules for posting. The philosophy SE seems also generally of a high quality, and there are many other SE sites that I occasionally stumble into and am pleasantly surprised by. Unfortunately I expect its time is finite, since the UX has slowly but surely been degrading and the site traffic dropping.
      • Fediverse networks: These sites clearly have potential, but for whatever reason it's still just not there. I drop into lemmy and Mastodon occasionally, but the posts are rarely of high quality. In many ways they just feel like "Reddit/Twitter but with a different name".

      Surely these can't be all, right? It's a little soul-crushing to think how many people are online at any given time and how hard it is to find a place not drowning in noise. Maybe this is just my lament.

      50 votes

    6. When did you realize you were different?

      ~talk Ask (survey)
      "Different" can be interpreted in any way, in any context, for any magnitude. When did you realize you were different? What prompted it? How did you feel about it then? Has the difference changed...

      "Different" can be interpreted in any way, in any context, for any magnitude.

      When did you realize you were different?
      What prompted it?
      How did you feel about it then?
      Has the difference changed over time?
      Have your feelings changed over time?

      48 votes

    9. What do you think of robots in the military?

      ~tech Ask
      Do you think it is ethical? Should robots be remotely controlled at all times or should they be automated? Who do you think should be held responsible if a robot accidentally commits a war crime?...

      Do you think it is ethical?
      Should robots be remotely controlled at all times or should they be automated?
      Who do you think should be held responsible if a robot accidentally commits a war crime?
      Do you think war would be more frequent if there were no humans fighting?
      Also a more general question: what do you think is the future of robots?

      9 votes

    16. May 2026 Backlog Burner: Week 5(ish) Discussion

      ~games Text 755 words
      Only a few days left! Post your current bingo cards. Continue updating us on your games! Quick links: Backlog Bingo Site Week 4 Discussion Week 3 Discussion Week 2 Discussion Week 1 Discussion...

      Only a few days left!

      Post your current bingo cards.
      Continue updating us on your games!

      Quick links:

      Week 4 Recap

      11 participants played 9 bingo cards and moved 43 games out of their backlogs!

      There were three bingo wins. Congratulations to u/CannibalisticApple, u/kfwyre, and u/Wes! 🎉
      There was one ✨⭐️ HONORARY BINGO ⭐️✨ for u/aphoenix.
      There was one betrayal. u/Wes will go on trial following the conclusion of this event

      teamellow

      TEAMOTIVATED

      Y'all are going to have to wait on the game list. I got my allergy shots today and they wreck me, so I don't have the energy to link up everything right now. I'll get to it tomorrow. Sorry!

      Game list:

      Week 3 Recap

      11 participants played 10 bingo cards and moved 37 games out of their backlogs!

      There was one bingo win. Congratulations to u/ShroudedScribe! 🎉

      Team mmmeeeelllllllooooowwwwwww

      Team MO! - TI! - VA! - TED!

      Game list:

      Week 2 Recap

      11 participants played 9 bingo cards and moved 28 games out of their backlogs!

      Team Mellow

      Team Motivated

      All but one are listed above.

      u/Wes

      Is he still Mellow? Or did he join the Motivateds?

      He played three different games, which seems very motivated...

      ...but Mellow is also a state of mind, a pace, a vibe.

      With whom will he stand?

      Game list:

      Week 1 Recap

      Week 1 Recap

      ⚔️🛡️ Battle lines have been drawn. 🛡️⚔️

      Team Mellow

      Calm, easygoing, relaxed (<3 games played this week)

      Team Motivated

      Driven, energized, results-oriented (≥3 games played this week, or, like, only one game played but for a LONG time)

      Who will come out on top? Which team will reign supreme? What metric will we even use to determine what counts as a win? STAY TUNED.

      11 participants played 10 bingo cards and moved 24 games out of their backlogs!

      Game list:

      12 votes

    18. Serious relationship problem, seeking advice

      ~life Ask (advice)
      EDIT Thank you to all who posted. I heard some really good advice, some things that hurt but needed hearing, and some new perspectives to consider. This post is becoming a new thing to be anxious...

      EDIT

      Thank you to all who posted. I heard some really good advice, some things that hurt but needed hearing, and some new perspectives to consider. This post is becoming a new thing to be anxious about so I've removed the main body and will likely delete the whole thread a little later. I'm going to ruminate on all this and come to some decisions very very soon. Thanks again.

      33 votes

    19. CGA-2026-06 🦇🧛‍♀️🔥 INSERT CARTRIDGE 🟢 Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow

      ~games Text 1953 words
      COLOSSAL GAME ADVENTURES PRESENTS: 🦇🧛‍♀️🔥 Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow Yarrr! Now it be me... [ahem] Sorry, we're out of Pirates!. Now it's ACTUALLY my time to post! Let's set the scene. Looking...

      COLOSSAL GAME ADVENTURES PRESENTS: 🦇🧛‍♀️🔥 Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow

      Yarrr! Now it be me... [ahem] Sorry, we're out of Pirates!. Now it's ACTUALLY my time to post! Let's set the scene. Looking for a nice summary last month, I found this one from TCRF:

      Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow is a Castlevania game that, shock, isn't about one of the Belmonts! Instead, we get some white-haired emo kid that happens to have the ability to absorb souls.

      ... Thanks, TCRF. I'll spoiler the writeup for the sake of scrolling through twice.

      Some background: Dracula in your Pocket

      Unfortunately, as a slap in the face to my thirties, the GBA is a decidedly proper "retro" console. That shouldn't really be a surprise, though, as it's a distinctly 16-bit console with many parallels to SNES hardware. Sampled audio, mode 7 graphics... But only a little 240x160 screen. Despite that, a few companies managed to pack in some very robust experiences on the hardware.

      Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow is the third GBA Castlevania entry; before it came Circle of the Moon and Harmony of Dissonance. At the time, these were pretty well-received - Circle was nominated for a few awards and sold ~500k copies. Harmony wasn't quite as universally acclaimed, but sold a respectable 120k in America. It flopped in Japan.

      That said, nowadays the first two titles aren't esteemed quite as well. Circle is a very polarizing title. Some appreciate the mechanics and exploration, while others detest it for some awful control scheme decisions. The GBA display did not suit its dark color palate well, and playing it on original hardware without a backlight is asking for eye strain. Since it was made by a different team than the contemporary Castlevania devs headed by Koji Igarashi, he swept Circle under the rug when it came to establishing a Castlevania timeline. (I have not played it myself yet, though I suspect my wrists are not ready for the impending RSI of a double-tap dpad run command.)

      Where Circle's experimental bits get love, Harmony of Dissonance has really not aged well for many. Igarashi was looking to get a Symphony of the Night experience in a mobile form factor by design, but this meant a pretty conservative approach. He unfortunately left the comparison open - at a time when you can play both games on the same device - to call Harmony "SotN at home". The aesthetics are kind of nutty as well; the team flew in the opposite direction of Circle by making things - especially Juste Belmont - glow with a very garish set of vibrant blues, reds, and greens, on top of purple and sky blue backgrounds. This was to REALLY stand out without a backlight. Boy do they. The soundtrack was also compressed to save room on the cartridge, leading to a reputation as one of the worst Castlevania soundtracks in a pretty musically-storied franchise. (With some proper sampling, I love it! Played back on the little high-pass GBA speaker, though, stuff like this really grates.)

      Igarashi and his team had another shot on the platform. This time, they nailed something special in the coffin.

      Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow

      Aria takes place in the year 2035, quite farther ahead than anything else in the series. Japanese transfer student and fashionista boy band dreamboat Soma Cruz is hanging out with his friend and shrine maiden Mina Hakuba to observe a solar eclipse. In doing so, he finds himself warped to the eclipse itself, where Dracula's Castle has been imprisoned. There, an enigmatic man introduces him to his unknown power - the dominion over monsters' souls to use for himself. Trying to find his way out of the castle, he meets a few other mysterious figures who are there for various reasons and agendas... I'll leave the rest of the plot to you to discover.

      Now, we're not quite at 2035. (I think bell bottoms are back? I don't see the fur coats and flame boots yet.) However, it is 2026 now, and much like the cycle of Dracula's castle, last year's most hyped release was a 2D Metroidvania! Konami just announced the first 2D Metroidvania in a very long time, and they and the Dead Cells dev team will be fighting a forest which they all themselves planted. But looking backwards, despite over two decades of iterative work on this genre, Aria has plenty that stands out - not just against Castlevania's run of six games over about seven or eight years, but arguably still today in a very crowded genre.

      First off, this game is eight megabytes small. It's nipping at its big brother Symphony's heels in scope, despite it being a little over one percent of SotN's CD file size, and some crazies like me still prefer it. The team made damn good use of that space after learning their mistakes from Harmony.

      Despite that little size, it's a memorable adventure! I hope you enjoy it. I find Aria's main strength is setting a pace and size which it meets and rarely over- or under-stays. It's also an aesthetic crown jewel for the GBA platform; the colors still accommodate the hardware, but there's much more mastery of the system. Flowing water, the flickering moon, bats flying off in the distance... It captures the gothic feel of the castle in a more subtle way. And while I'm fond of Harmony's, uh. Dissonance, the sound design is much tighter here. Some little bits of lore and character interactions help color the adventure, and it creates plenty of space for your head to fill in the gaps, too. (Konami! J prequel when??)

      The game has a number of neat secrets that I'll let you discover. So - I'll leave you to it!

      ...Or, if you'd like, I won't! Since Aria isn't the most obscure game, some of you may have played it. With that - or, to kick off some discussion of the game's flaws - I'd like to pivot into a new topic here!

      Mods

      Aria of Sorrow is great, but there are a few rough edges. Notably, the stats are a little fucky - Wit barely influences item or soul drop rate. Int is also a little weak, not influencing your bullet souls much. The colors still acquiesce to the mix of GBA and GBA SP screens, a bit too washed on modern displays. Weapon balance is a bit off, due to one particularly dominating choice.

      Of course, with that 8 MB filesize, numerical problems are just a hex edit away! Bump some values around and you maybe can "solve" these problems. But is that better? Worse? In line with the developers, or a bastardization of their vision? The most powerful tool in the hands of modern video game players? Does it ruin a shared conversation of art, or does it stoke it?

      For what it's worth, I personally fell off Super Metroid about three times until I applied a patch that gave Samus movement closer to the GBA games. Modding sometimes just opens up options or tastes to us - and I think when it comes to pure enjoyment, go buck wild. So I invite people to try it and see what you think!

      As always, I'm a slut for randomizers and Aria rando seems fairly robust. But since I suspect I will eventually play that in Archipelago many times, I think instead I'm going to try a slew of new hacks and throw them together to see what happens. Weapons modifications! Color palate changes! Vegan items? Sure, why not! I'll post what I go with in the end.

      As always, mark ya spoilers as such with the following text block:

      <details>
<summary>Spoilers</summary>

Spoiler text goes here.
</details>

      Game Setup

      A couple years ago, Konami released the Castlevania Advanced Collection with Circle, Harmony, the SNES version of Dracula X, and Aria. This is pretty much the only way to legally obtain Aria nowadays - and if I'm not mistaken, it includes the .gba ROM in case you'd like to play it in a way other than the official emulator. (Someone fact check me on that...)

      The main purpose of this topic is to get people up and running with the game. As such, it's recommended that you:

      • Share which version of the game you're playing
      • Share what hardware you're playing it on
      • Share if there are any tools/mods that you recommend
      • Share anything you think is important for people to know before they start the game
      • Share if you ever cosplay as Soma Cruz
      • Ask questions if you need help

      Another purpose of this topic is to revisit the game and its time period:

      Do you have any memories or associations with this game itself?
What about its system or era?
What aspects of retro gaming were common at the time?
What other games from the same time period are you familiar with?
What are you expecting from this game in particular?
Which Castlevania game has the best Death fight?

      FAQ

      What is CGA?

      Colossal Game Adventure (CGA) is Tildes' retro video game club.

      Each month we will play a different retro game/games, discuss our thoughts, and bask in the glorious digital experiences of yesteryear!

      Colossal Game Adventure is a reference to Colossal Cave Adventure. It's one of the most influential games of all time, one of the first text-based interactive games, and one of the first games to be shared online.

      What do we want to do with this group? Play influential games; interact with each other through text; and share the love for retro games online!

      It also abbreviates to CGA (because we love chunky pixel art), and its name communicates the Colossal amount of fun and excitement that we have with retro video Games in our shared Adventure of playing them together.

      Do I have to sign up?

      No. Participation is open to all.

      There is a Notification List that will get pinged each time a new topic goes up. If you would like to join that list, please PM u/kfwyre.

      Are there restrictions on what/how to play?

      Each month will have a focus game or games that will guide our discussions. Beyond that, there are no restrictions. The philosophy of CGA is to play in a way that works for you!

      This means:

      • Choose whichever version of the game you want.
      • You can use cheats, save states, mods, etc.
      • You can watch a streamer or longplay instead of playing it.

      If you have already played a game and want a different experience:

      • Try a randomizer or challenge run.
      • Play a different version of it.
      • Play a related game (sequel, spiritual successor, something inspired by it, etc.)

      There is no wrong way to participate in CGA, and every different way someone participates will make for more interesting discussions.

      What is the schedule?

      Each month the Insert Cartidge topic will be posted on the 1st, while the Remove Cartridge topic will be posted on the 28th.

      Nomination and voting topics will happen in March and September (every 6 months).

      Schedules are also posted then.

      All CGA topics are available using the colossal game adventure tag.

      What do Insert and Remove Cartridge mean?

      Inserting and removing cartridges are our retro metaphor for starting and stopping a given game or games.

      The Insert Cartridge topic happens at the beginning of the month and is primarily about getting the game up and running.

      The Remove Cartridge topic happens toward the end of the month and is primarily about people reflecting on the game now that they've played it.

      There are no hard restrictions on what has to go in either topic, and each can be used to discuss the game, post updates, ask questions, etc.

      11 votes

    21. May 2026 Backlog Burner: Conclusion and Recap

      ~games Text 1327 words
      The May 2026 Backlog Burner event is officially over! Over the month of May, 14 participants moved 176 games out of their backlogs. Congratulations to the following Bingo winners: u/aphoenix...

      The May 2026 Backlog Burner event is officially over!

      Over the month of May, 14 participants moved 176 games out of their backlogs.

      Congratulations to the following Bingo winners:

      Special congratulations:

      • u/1338 playing a total of 39 games (including many that you can't even buy anymore)
      • u/aphoenix for masterfully executing a thematically relevant plan for participating
      • u/BailerAppleby for playing so many games from the Tildes Game Giveaways
      • u/dannydotcafe for a truly mellow win
      • u/Durinthal for finishing a game from the 2024 Backlog Burner
      • u/J-Chiptunator for prioritizing their health
      • u/JCPhoenix for posting awesome Let's Plays
      • u/Wes for his many thoughtful comments

      To everyone who played games, shared their thoughts, or even just read through the comments for the event:

      This event is amazing because y'all all make it amazing. Thank you for playing.

      Use this topic to post your final bingo cards, give recaps of your games, and share any thoughts you have on the event itself.

      Who won?

      The question on everyone's mind.

      The feud between the Motivateds and the Mellows was a (possibly one-sided?) rivalry for the ages.

      Who came out on top?

      Well, I'm happy to report that the final numbers are in, and the Grand Winners are:

      Winner

      🎉 Team Mellowtivated 🎉

      We are all one team! There's no actual rivalry. We've actually been gaming together as one wonderful little group this whole time! (Now everybody saw "AWWWWWW" and get all sappy)

      Also, the jury has returned a verdict in u/Wes's trial:

      Verdict

      He has been found guilty of being awesome. His sentence is that he is required to feel immensely proud of his community service in making the amazing Backlog Bingo site and responding thoughtfully to everyone all month long.

      Statistics

      • We averaged 12.6 games per person and 40.0 games per week.
      • There were 424 comments posted across 5 topics.
      • Games starting with the letter S accounted for a full 12% of what we played.
      • Shortest game title: 3 characters (Hue)
      • Longest game title: 54 characters (Bubsy 3D: Bubsy Visits the James Turrell Retrospective) (a 1700% increase)

      Game Lists

      Full Game List (alphabetical)

      0-9

      A

      B

      C

      D

      E

      F

      G

      H

      I

      J

      K

      L

      M

      N

      O

      P

      Q

      R

      S

      T

      U

      V

      W

      X

      Y

      Z

      Full Game List (by week)

      Week 1

      Week 2

      Week 3

      Week 4

      Week 5(ish)

      20 votes

    23. Save Point: A game deal roundup for the week of May 31

      ~games Text 93 words
      Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week! Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle...

      Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

      Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

      Rules:

      • No grey market sales
      • No affiliate links

      If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

      All previous Save Point topics

      If you don’t want to see threads in this series, add save point to your personal tag filters.

      6 votes

    25. Humble Choice - June 2026

      ~games Text 119 words
      June 2026's Humble Choice is now available with the following eight Steam games. Steam Page OpenCritic Steam Recent/All Operating Systems Steam Deck ProtonDB OCTOPATH TRAVELER II 85 85 / 93 Win ✅...

      June 2026's Humble Choice is now available with the following eight Steam games.

      Steam Page OpenCritic Steam Recent/All Operating Systems Steam Deck ProtonDB
      OCTOPATH TRAVELER II 85 85 / 93 Win ✅ Verified 🎖️ Platinum
      The Riftbreaker 80 90 / 90 Win 🟨 Playable 🟨 Gold
      Life is Strange: Double Exposure 71 74 / 67 Win 🟨 Playable 🎖️ Platinum
      INDIKA 79 88 / 89 Win ✅ Verified 🟨 Gold
      Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector 87 86 / 91 Win 🟨 Playable 🎖️ Platinum
      Construction Simulator 72 75 / 80 Win ✅ Verified 🎖️ Platinum
      Hell Clock 82 93 / 84 Win 🟨 Playable 🎖️ Platinum
      Overlooting -- 85 / 81 Win 🟨 Playable 🎖️ Platinum

      Does anyone have experience with any of the games and, if so, would you recommend them? Is there anything in here that you're particularly excited to play?

      12 votes

    29. What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga)

      ~anime Ask (survey)
      What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was...

      What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

      If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

      3 votes

    35. Midweek Movie Free Talk

      ~movies Ask
      Warning: this post may contain spoilers

      Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

      Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

      6 votes

    37. Rich Markdown Editor Userscript for Tildes

      ~tildes Text 279 words
      Some of the discussion in another thread inspired me to try making a user-script that would inject some rich text editor into the tildes desktop site. I have only tried it on Firefox, but figured...

      Some of the discussion in another thread inspired me to try making a user-script that would inject some rich text editor into the tildes desktop site. I have only tried it on Firefox, but figured it might be worth sharing in case anyone finds it useful or has suggestions for improvements.

      Install Tampermonkey extension. (Chrome, Firefox).

      With the extension installed, this link should be detected as an installable userscript.

      https://gist.github.com/allemangD/faf9bb796aad686593404a76b0e372c6/raw/073ca80d9dddc231e3f41c24c1989e8a40b7c243/tildes-easymde.user.js

      @ some people who directly said they want a better editor in that thread.

      @Eji1700 @arctanh @smoontjes

      It injects EasyMDE with some extra css to make it match the Tildes theme. EasyMDE uses FontAwesome for its toolbar icons, but Tildes's content policy seems to make it impossible to use this. Instead, I add some CSS to put plain text in the toolbar buttons. Some nice features

      • Full-screen and side-by-side editors.
      • Spell checker.
      • Auto-save. (Based on the URL and element ID, so each comment reply is saved separately.)
      • Keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl+B, Ctrl+K, etc.
      • Conveniences like "enter" on a list adds an item to the list, or in a quote adds a line to the quote.

      It is not perfect, however. It bugs out if you pick the built-in "preview" tab (the editor is still visible but does not update the preview), and it does not understand username mentions or group mentions.

      I used it to write this, and the auto-save behavior seems to be fine, but I'm not sure how much I trust it not to lose my work.

      Screenshots!

      21 votes

    41. Midweek-ish Movie Free Talk

      ~movies Ask
      Warning: this post may contain spoilers

      Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

      Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

      8 votes

    43. Movie fatigue

      ~movies Ask (recommendations)
      Warning: this post may contain spoilers

      Hello Tildes.

      I feel like i have movie fatigue, i don’t feel like i manage to get hyped for new movies.
      Do anyone of you have any recommendations for older movies, lets say 2010 and older. It can be any genre.
      Can go really old as well, i really enjoyed 12 Angry Men.

      Thank you very much in advance!

      40 votes

    44. How has inflation changed your quality of life?

      ~finance Ask (survey)
      About every six weeks, I go on a "stock the pantry" shopping trip to buy long-keeping items and non-perishables in quantity - cat food and litter, Costco, etc. After two hours of shopping...

      About every six weeks, I go on a "stock the pantry" shopping trip to buy long-keeping items and non-perishables in quantity - cat food and litter, Costco, etc. After two hours of shopping yesterday, I was a little shocked to realize I'd spent half of my take-home pay on a trip that previously was about 25% less expensive. No one item had drastically increased in price - everything had just gone up that much.

      [I'm also smarting because my primary care physician announced she was switching to a concierge care model, and I just made the first quarterly payment. U.S. healthcare sucks so badly that I can't take a chance on the two-year waitlists for in-network primary care M.D.s who provide 10-minute "annual exam" visits in my area.]

      I'm dropping subscription services, buying cheaper conventional food instead of organic, getting generic personal care products instead of brand names and using less of them, cooking even more at home, thinking about making my own cat food, skipping buying pretty flowers for outdoors this year... and still feeling like the budget isn't going to keep stretching.

      I know a great many aspects of Western lifestyles aren't sustainable, and I've tried to do my part to minimize material consumption. But there are so many expectations that you'll pay for perhaps excessive shelter (we didn't need a house the size we have, but it was what was available and affordable), have a car for work, be able to pay for services for things you don't have time, skill, or physical capacity to do yourself, and other monetary drains. I'm losing some sleep.

      What are you doing to cope with exorbitant rents/mortgages, skyrocketing utility and grocery bills, extravagant medical costs, unaffordable childcare and services?

      Do you feel like your quality of life has declined, due to missing luxuries, anxiety, fewer opportunities to connect with friends and family, or anything else?

      Open rant here.

      54 votes