kfwyre's recent activity

  1. What’s something you’re personally proud of from this year?

    ~life Ask (survey)
    Tell us something you’re proud of. Celebrate your successes! Pat yourself on the back! Bragging about yourself is not only allowed but encouraged in this topic. If you’re naturally humble and...

    Tell us something you’re proud of.

    Celebrate your successes! Pat yourself on the back!

    Bragging about yourself is not only allowed but encouraged in this topic.

    If you’re naturally humble and don’t know what to say: pretend like this is a job interview and you have to sell everyone here on your strengths and successes.

    18 votes

  2. Comment on Tildes End-of-Year 'Awards' 2024 in ~talk

    kfwyre
    Link Parent
    Okay fine, I’ll change it over to: What are your favorite books in which the sum of the digits in the ISBN isn’t a prime number? 😂 In all seriousness, that’s a genuinely fun fact.

    Okay fine, I’ll change it over to: What are your favorite books in which the sum of the digits in the ISBN isn’t a prime number? 😂

    In all seriousness, that’s a genuinely fun fact.

    4 votes

  3. Comment on Tildes End-of-Year 'Awards' 2024 in ~talk

    kfwyre
    Link Parent
    I’m gonna be a dad! from u/ViridianDream Lots of great advice from other dads. Even though I have no interest in having kids, I loved reading through everyone’s experiences and wisdom.

    I’m gonna be a dad! from u/ViridianDream

    Lots of great advice from other dads. Even though I have no interest in having kids, I loved reading through everyone’s experiences and wisdom.

    6 votes

  4. Comment on Tildes End-of-Year 'Awards' 2024 in ~talk

    kfwyre
    Link Parent
    /u/chocobean You know how AI writing often comes across as cold and soulless? Well, chocobean is the complete diametric opposite of that. I always feel like I’m seeing the human behind her words....

    /u/chocobean

    You know how AI writing often comes across as cold and soulless? Well, chocobean is the complete diametric opposite of that. I always feel like I’m seeing the human behind her words.

    She is a consistently positive presence here, engaging with everyone in good faith and curiosity, always wanting to learn more, and always writing in a way that’s eminently warm and personal.

    I’m nominating her for most helpful because I think she helps to set the tone and temperature of this site at large. Her positive presence helps our entire community.

    5 votes

  5. Comment on Tildes End-of-Year 'Awards' 2024 in ~talk

    kfwyre
    Link Parent
    Tildes Book Club u/boxer_dogs_dance is getting us to read and talk about great books on a regular basis, which is already awesome all on its own! That said, the topics also have good participation...

    Tildes Book Club

    u/boxer_dogs_dance is getting us to read and talk about great books on a regular basis, which is already awesome all on its own!

    That said, the topics also have good participation and momentum, and the Tildes style of long, thoughtful commenting works really well for book discussion. I always appreciate the book more after I read what people here have to say about it.

    11 votes

  6. Comment on Tildes End-of-Year 'Awards' 2024 in ~talk

    kfwyre
    Link Parent
    u/mat’s series on building his bed It is SO cool and SO cozy, and getting to follow the process from start to finish through mat’s excellent explanations and photo documentation is quite a treat.

    u/mat’s series on building his bed

    It is SO cool and SO cozy, and getting to follow the process from start to finish through mat’s excellent explanations and photo documentation is quite a treat.

    6 votes

  7. Comment on Tildes End-of-Year 'Awards' 2024 in ~talk

  8. Comment on Tildes End-of-Year 'Awards' 2024 in ~talk

    kfwyre
    Link
    Most Interesting Self Post

    Most Interesting Self Post

    4 votes

  9. Comment on Why I am pursuing a life, professionally and personally, of Christian Virtue in ~humanities

    kfwyre
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    Colby Martin’s Unclobber is a good, accessible book-length read. It’s part memoir, part Bible study, in which a straight pastor grapples with the prevailing notion that the Bible is anti-gay...
    • Exemplary

    Colby Martin’s Unclobber is a good, accessible book-length read. It’s part memoir, part Bible study, in which a straight pastor grapples with the prevailing notion that the Bible is anti-gay because he feels it conflicts with his other Christian values. (Note: I recommend avoiding the audiobook — the style of the narration unfortunately makes the author’s words sound arrogant, when I think the author is genuinely the opposite.)

    More succinctly speaking, the general arguments that make the most sense to me are:

    One: There has been a lot very sloppy discourse and modern identities projected onto passages — a lot of selectivity and ignoring context. Like, I used to have discussions with people about the story of Sodom, in which the “hero” of the story, Lot, offers his daughters up to be raped by the crowd (Genesis 19:4-8). Not only is this heinous (but never commented on by people using the story of Sodom against gays), but it also doesn’t even make sense that Lot would offer his daughters to the crowd if they were gay men (as we understand them to be today).

    I think because “sodomy” is a modern term, it has colored how people interpret that entire story. Same goes for translations that say “homosexual.” That’s also a modern identity that’s played the game of translation telephone through the ages.

    There’s also the big debate over whether Old Testament law still applies post-Jesus, or whether he superseded that law with his sacrifice. Homosexuality is still mentioned negatively in the New Testament, but it’s less prominent and not nearly as colorful as the stuff in the Old Testament. Leviticus 20:13 says we shall be put to death and is a favorite passage of anti-gay agitators. Of course, three verses earlier it says the same thing for adulterers, but you never hear about whole swaths of a religion rallying against them (despite adultery being more common than homosexuality: an estimated 21 percent versus 7 percent). Another example of modern Bible-based criticism being misleadingly selective rather than honest.

    Furthermore, the Bible has seemingly no concept of female homosexuality, probably because of the way sexuality was viewed at the time (as something a man, or active partner, did to a woman, or passive partner). To say that homosexuality is a sin is a broad mischaracterization on its own simply because the Bible addresses only male homosexuality specifically.

    Side note: the Bible is MUCH more pro-hetero than it is anti-gay, which is a whole separate line of argument on this topic that has a lot more weight behind it given how much the Bible talks about marriage.

    Two: Even if we ignore all of the above and assume that homosexuality is genuinely sinful, it’s, at the very least, not a huge focus. It is mentioned very few times, and often not on its own but in a list of other sins. The aforementioned adultery example is a good one, as well as 1 Corinthians 6:9-11. Jesus himself never made any mention of homosexuality, and in the New Testament the only person to speak at all of it is Paul.

    (Male) Homosexuality gets outsize attention not because of what the Bible says about it but because of pre-existing prejudices that people try to retrofit the Bible into. We can see a clear example of this with the recent decline in religious anti-gay rhetoric and rise in religious anti-trans rhetoric. The Bible says even less about being trans than it does being gay, but the focus of the animus of some shifted quite fluidly from one to the other. If this were based in genuine Biblical scholarship and belief, we would have seen something quite different.

    After all, the whole point of Jesus’s sacrifice was forgiveness, because sin is inevitable and we are unable to escape it ourselves. All of us. Every single one.

    Back when I was Christian, I admired the other Christians I knew who were actively trying to live a good life. Sin was a constant struggle for them, and this made them empathetic to others’ struggles as well. Instead of looking at others in judgment, they understood the weight of sin in their own lives, could see it in others, and that was a source of commiseration. Escaping it was a communal goal. These were the Christians who, after I came out, honored my “struggle” rather than condemning me outright.

    Unfortunately, there were many who did the latter as well. As a Christian I shared many of my sins with others prior to coming out, and those were met with compassion and understanding. After coming out, however, the temperature of my interactions changed. Despite homosexuality being just another type of sin in the broad variety out there, it became SO much more.

    To face that hatred head-on was one thing, but it was especially eye opening because, at the time I came out, I had never actually done anything gay. I was still celibate — I’d never so much as held hands with another guy. Up to that point homosexuality existed for me only as an unshakeable feeling in my head. So to have Christians turn on a dime and treat me as if I had committed the worst, most unforgivable sin merely because of an idea, not an action, was extremely jarring. It helped highlight to me that what I was facing wasn’t a Bible-based worldview, but a world-based one that was using the Bible as a cover story.

    Now, there’s a distortion of my own here that I feel obligated to speak to. A negative response like this was not all nor even most of the Christians I knew. Furthermore, a lot of them remained compassionate, loving, caring. I want to honor that, because I think the vocally hateful pull focus in such a way that they cast the entirety of Christianity in a certain light, and that’s simply not accurate. It’s the same prejudice that gets used against us gays when people characterize all of us only by the worst of us.

    There are two a great books I love on this topic: Still Time to Care by Greg Johnson and Walking the Bridgeless Canyon by Kathy Baldock.

    Greg Johnson is a gay pastor who details his time in the ex-gay movement and shares how the wider Christian expectations of a “saved” testimony coerced him and many others to lie about their identities. It is not an anvilicious book; Johnson isn’t writing it to grind an axe. He is instead reflective, thoughtful, and earnest the whole way through.

    Kathy Baldock, meanwhile, is a straight writer who focuses on the harms done to gay people in the name of the Church. She focuses on accountability, compassion, and restoration.

    Both are excellent reads, and I highly recommend them to anyone interested in the topic. And if you check the reviews for either book, you will see many positive reviews from Christians themselves not just people like me who were pushed out of the church and see their books as vindication.

    There are a lot of loving, compassionate Christians out there. It is the genuine centerpole of their beliefs!

    Unfortunately compassion speaks fundamentally more quietly than hate, so we see a lot less of them (especially in modern media) unless we deliberately look for them.

    12 votes

  10. Comment on Steam Winter Sale 2024: Hidden gems in ~games

    kfwyre
    Link Parent
    Double posting to say I that went ahead and bought Proverbs, Feed the Deep, and Minishoot Adventures (as well as wishlisting many others from your list). Thanks again, vicvision!

    Double posting to say I that went ahead and bought Proverbs, Feed the Deep, and Minishoot Adventures (as well as wishlisting many others from your list). Thanks again, vicvision!

    2 votes

  11. Comment on Tildes End-of-Year 'Awards' 2024 in ~talk

    kfwyre
    Link Parent
    New topic series: What are your favorite books with prime number ISBNs? What are your favorite books with palindromic ISBNs? What are your favorite books in which the sum of the digits in the ISBN...

    New topic series:

    • What are your favorite books with prime number ISBNs?
    • What are your favorite books with palindromic ISBNs?
    • What are your favorite books in which the sum of the digits in the ISBN is a prime number?
    • What are your favorite books in which the sum of the digits in the ISBN is a palindrome?
    • What are your favorite books in which the ISBN number has the same digits and sequence as your credit card number and also what is your billing zip code and full legal name?
    10 votes

  12. Comment on The 2024 Steam Winter Sale is live (runs December 19 - January 2) in ~games

    kfwyre
    Link Parent
    If they're not romance stories, then why do I have to verify that I'm 18 to see them, hmmm? 🤔😂 Also my husband already jokingly asks me "why I'm hiding my shame" when I toggle on Invisible mode on...

    If they're not romance stories, then why do I have to verify that I'm 18 to see them, hmmm? 🤔😂

    Also my husband already jokingly asks me "why I'm hiding my shame" when I toggle on Invisible mode on Steam. It's because I'm trying to get a game running on Linux and don't want to spam my friends with notifications of it starting over and over again, I promise!

    3 votes

  13. Comment on You make friends *HERE*?! in ~tildes

    kfwyre
    Link Parent
    Also unironically my new favorite! It's amazing and I can't believe it hasn't come up before (or maybe it has and I missed it?). Either way, I'm giving the credit to @Crespyl. Great work.

    Also unironically my new favorite!

    It's amazing and I can't believe it hasn't come up before (or maybe it has and I missed it?). Either way, I'm giving the credit to @Crespyl. Great work.

    13 votes

  14. Comment on The 2024 Steam Winter Sale is live (runs December 19 - January 2) in ~games

  15. Comment on Steam Winter Sale 2024: Hidden gems in ~games

    kfwyre
    Link Parent
    This is a great list! I’m probably going to pick up a few of these for myself. Thank you for sharing.

    This is a great list! I’m probably going to pick up a few of these for myself.

    Thank you for sharing.

    3 votes

  16. Comment on The 2024 Steam Winter Sale is live (runs December 19 - January 2) in ~games

    kfwyre
    Link Parent
    I haven't, but at 100% off you're speaking my language! To be honest, they do genuinely seem interesting but I think I've held off on them for three reasons: The labor cost of setting up non-Steam...

    I haven't, but at 100% off you're speaking my language!

    To be honest, they do genuinely seem interesting but I think I've held off on them for three reasons:

    1. The labor cost of setting up non-Steam games on my Steam Deck (pretty much negligible)

    2. The fact that they are romance-heavy (less negligible)

    3. Having to explain to my husband why I'm playing a furry visual novel (significantly less negligible! 😂) For what it's worth: he wouldn't have a problem with it and would find the whole situation funny.

    2 votes

  17. Comment on The 2024 Steam Winter Sale is live (runs December 19 - January 2) in ~games

    kfwyre
    Link Parent
    That is… a LOT of DLC! As far as I know, only the Origins game is getting delisted, so the other versions should be safe. I’m a sucker for “get it in your library before it’s gone in case you ever...

    That is… a LOT of DLC!

    As far as I know, only the Origins game is getting delisted, so the other versions should be safe.

    I’m a sucker for “get it in your library before it’s gone in case you ever do want to play it even though you probably never will” so I pay the FOMO tax for games like that pretty frequently.

    2 votes

  18. Comment on The 2024 Steam Winter Sale is live (runs December 19 - January 2) in ~games

    kfwyre
    Link
    Here’s a link for what I call The 4H Club on IsThereAnyDeal. What is The 4H Club? These are the sales for games that are: Hugely Popular (3,000 or more Steam reviews) Heavily Discounted (75% off...

    Here’s a link for what I call The 4H Club on IsThereAnyDeal.

    What is The 4H Club? These are the sales for games that are:

    1. Hugely Popular (3,000 or more Steam reviews)
    2. Heavily Discounted (75% off or more)
    3. Highly-Rated (85% or higher rating on Steam)
    4. Historical Lows (at or matching its lowest price ever)
    23 votes

  19. Comment on Tildes Book Club 2024 retrospective in ~books

    kfwyre
    Link
    Big thanks for leading our book club, @boxer_dogs_dance! I know a little bit about running events here on Tildes, which means I know how much time it takes behind the scenes to make them happen....

    Big thanks for leading our book club, @boxer_dogs_dance!

    I know a little bit about running events here on Tildes, which means I know how much time it takes behind the scenes to make them happen. In particular, it’s clear you put a ton of thought into the conversation questions for each book. Thanks for all of your efforts!

    I didn’t participate in the book club as much as I would have liked to. I’m trying to cultivate a better personal reading habit, and I’m also in a monthly IRL book club as well, so at any given moment I’m juggling what to read and for whom: friends, Tildes, or myself?

    It’s a good problem to have: in particular because I’d gotten so out of my reading habit over time that having a near-constant pressure to read is actually quite helpful. If left to my own devices, well, I’d be on my Steam Deck all the time and not my ereader. Not because I like gaming more than reading, but because gaming is easier than reading — especially when I had a long day at work and I’m tired and yada yada yada.

    I can always find an excuse to turn my brain off. I like that book club encourages me to not do that.

    With regards to specific titles, I loved Roadside Picnic, Piranesi*, Project Hail Mary, and Kindred. I appreciated but didn’t personally love This Is How You Lose the Time War. I unfortunately didn’t read the others, but almost all of them interested me and will remain on my (far too large) TBR list.

    I do think one of our strengths has been surfacing books I find personally interesting/appealing. Our book club is very much in my lane, whereas my IRL one often has me reading well outside of my comfort zone. I like that I’m exposed to things I wouldn’t otherwise read from that one, and I like that this one tends to give me stuff that aligns more with my interests. It keeps the two clubs from feeling redundant.

    Overall, I’m really happy with how the book club has been going, and I’m excited for what we have coming up. Having the list ahead of time is also nice — I can put things on hold, and also set up price drop notifications just in case any of them go on sale between now and then.

    7 votes

  20. Comment on The 2024 Steam Winter Sale is live (runs December 19 - January 2) in ~games

    kfwyre
    (edited )
    Link
    Are there any good Skyrim-likes out there? I've got a hankering to play Skyrim again, only I don't want to actually play Skyrim (nor Oblivion or Morrowind). The games don't have to follow the...

    Are there any good Skyrim-likes out there? I've got a hankering to play Skyrim again, only I don't want to actually play Skyrim (nor Oblivion or Morrowind). The games don't have to follow the formula exactly, but a big open-ended open-world RPG sounds nice.

    Any recommendations?

    Also, anyone have any recommendations for non-romance visual novels that play well on the Steam Deck? I’m trying to cultivate my reading habit.

    For consideration: I liked 999 and 428 Shibuya Scramble. I’ve tried a few others, but anything that leans heavily on romance bores me. Also, anything with fan-servicey art is a pass. Target audience here: middle-aged gay guy looking for an entertaining or interesting story (yes, I know that’s well outside the norm for this genre).

    I should also mention that I liked the concept of Danganronpa but didn’t like the gamey elements (if I’m in the mood for a VN, I’d rather just read than have to navigate a character around the world and whatnot).

    10 votes