Been looking around this place properly today. And it's honestly looking pretty good right now with some nice theming options too. And considering that I've also been giving Bluesky a go, it's pretty cool that you can even link that account.

Just one though. Unless I'm dumb and I'm missing something, browsing groups doesn't seem that great at all. Like, unless you know specifically what you want to search for, it looks like your only option is to scroll through posts from groups until you find something that interests or is relevant to you.

I noticed that there's a directory for users, why not one for groups? Is something like this in the pipeline? I appreciate that a platform like this is a lot more feature heavy and complicated than something like Bluesky or even Lemmy. So I'm not making demands or anything. Just an idea that I think would make it Friendica an even more complete replacement for Facebook.

Personally what I'm looking for out of this is a space where I can crap out my own thoughts and post my stolen memes and shit on my own profile, plus have the community discussion too. On that note, it would also be nice if you could load Lemmy communities in the Friendica interface and 'Follow' them in the same manner.

And just for my questions. First, when it comes to your handle or url, what characters exactly are allowed? Because I tried a dash and a dot in my handle and it wouldn't accept it. Are you really just limited to letters and numbers?

Second question. About the language settings. Is it recommended to also have 'Undefined' selected there, in the same way as here? And why do I still see non English posts regardless? (on that note, a translation feature would be nice too)

Edit: Ok as far as languages go, I just found the language filter addon. Somehow missed it on my first round of going through the settings. Will be interesting to see how this works.

Firstly, my obligatory "I hope this kind of post is acceptable here". Now with that out of the way.

For the last few years, I have been finally starting to address a lot of things about myself that I pushed down or away for a long time. Among those things was gender. But I'm also likely ADHD at least, and have been pretty burnt out for years now, so I've become a lot worse at research and looking into things than I used to be.

So only about two years ago, I finally looked up "non-binary" on Wikipedia, and felt like I was reading about myself. And since then it's been quite a journey (all internally because I basically never tell anyone irl what I'm going through). From imposter syndrome or feeling like I might be a fraud, to half assurance that I'm on the right track but still not fully comfortable or satisfied in the answers so far, to feeling or registering dysphoria for the first time and regularly since and thinking I might possibly be transfem. But I've always preferred and got along better with women and am extra angry with men in general these days, which might be playing a big part in me wishing I was afab these days.

And putting together my personal journey over the last few years, with what I've awakened to with regards to both mental health and gender identity, I remembered something about the hidden curriculum. And how it was my history teacher in school (one of the only teachers that 'got' me and who I wasn't constantly fighting with) who brought it up and looking back, he clearly knew that I was different in a number of ways. When he brought up the hidden curriculum, one of the sentences that he specifically used and that I've remembered since, was how it "teaches boys to be boys and girls to be girls" (I was outraged by this and the whole idea of the hidden curriculum btw).

Which brings me to why I am agender. I literally never learnt how to be one gender or the other. And it's not because I wasn't taught, it's because I rejected it every step of the way, or just didn't even notice that it was a lesson. I was raised by my mother and two sisters, who acknowledged me as a 'man', but didn't exactly push me into sportsball and shit. I was very much raised by sisters in particular because my mother means well, but has always been kinda vacant. And in school, I was too busy resisting and fighting every step of the way to learn how to be a 'man' there.

So yeah, that's it. I wrote an essay just to say: I am agender! I finally found the exact label that makes me feel like it's been so obvious all along. And 100% confident in saying that I belong to. I am agender.

Thought I might post this here in case anyone has suggestions or whatever. I am looking for a gender neutral name to use somewhere. I was thinking about how Jane / John Doe is the name for someone unidentified, which is pretty cool. But considering that Jane and John are basically "girl" and "boy" - the names, it's a pity that there isn't a third neutral equivalent of those names.

Digging around I saw a suggestion of "Jay" elsewhere but I'm not sure if that feels right to me. Would that strike you as a gender neutral name if you came across it in the wild? Maybe I've just known too many Johns and Jasons.

Or does anyone maybe have any other cool suggestions if you feel so inclined? The problem I find personally with a lot of "gender neutral names lists" that I come across, is that a lot of the names seem a bit too Gen Z to feel right for me, personally. Names like Kai or River are pretty cool but also sound like names some of my friends might have named their kids.

Anyone know any cool gender neutral names that are maybe a bit more born in the late '80s millennial?

Edit: Just found an interesting one (for me). The Dutch for both Jane and John seems to be Jan, and is listed as a gender neutral name. Definitely a name I've heard for both men and women (although pronounced differently where I'm from).

Edit 2: I think my shortlist is now Jan, Jean and for an attractive outside of the John / Jane thing, I'm kinda liking Alex.

I think I might finally be on the road to getting some sort of diagnosis and learning how to live (although it's still talk right now and who knows if I don't just end up with an appointment 6 months from now). At this point I'm 90% sure it's autism or ADHD or some combination thereof. But I'm also aware of the possible folly of reading into things as far as self diagnosis goes. But I've been lurking and spending time in these sorts of communities for a couple of years now and feel like I've been learning more and more about myself. And I'm pretty sure now that I'm not just stupid and lazy and unreasonably defiant and depressed. I think I just haven't learnt how to function in a world that wasn't made for me.

I'm hoping to ask some advice on if I should do some homework or start making notes about my perceived reasons or symptoms before starting anything official and official. I started out terrible at doing homework and it's got worse as I got older but if there's any important literature that I should read, it would be awesome to know about it and I could push through reading it. And notes, should I start taking notes of things to speak about or bring up?

Thank you in advance. Might only start replying and stuff later became I'm feeling a little scrambled right now and only slept about 4 hours last night.

Watched this again yesterday and I think I liked it even more the second time. Honestly I've got Batman fatigue over all, especially grounded and 'realistic' Batman, but what makes this show particularly enjoyable is that it changes quite a few things up and leans harder into Golden Age Batman stuff than any other adaptation.

Not all episodes are 100% masterpieces but the overall storylines are especially awesome. I absolutely love this version of Harley Quinn and think it might actually be my favourite. And especially listening to the things she says in conversation leading up to her episode was awesome this time, knowing what's coming. A little disappointed that there's going to be a Joker in this universe after all but I hope that at least in this story, they flip it and make him a creation of Harley Quinn and not the other way around.

And the over all story of Harvey Dent of course is top tier. Also with the way it tied in with Jim and Barbara's ideological disagreement that ran throughout. And something that I didn't notice the first time but saw someone else point out, which is fucking cool, was that they flipped the evil and side of Two-Face here as well.

Harvey Dent wasn't really a good guy before the acid attack. He would just do or say whatever it takes to get more votes and get people to like him. He might've been good once but the life of shaking hands and smiling and kissing asses with no results clearly twisted him.So after the acid attack, whenever he's being apologetic and good, he turns and speaks with the side of his face that has been fucked up with acid. That's the personality that has learnt and is remorseful. But the 'evil' side of this Harvey Dent is the old Harvey Dent politician personality that has had it with this shit.

And just a quote that I felt especially hard this time from Batman: "You don't bend with the world when it goes bad. You push back."

Side note / suggestion: something I've always seen pro wrestling subs / communities do that works well, is having a general discussion thread pinned. Something that is still missing here vs Reddit, is a community for each show. It wouldn't make sense here right now because it would just make this place even quieter. But what was nice about them was having a place to post about them off season. I feel like a general discussion thread could work nicely for this kind of post.

I don't know where else to post this. Definitely not casual conversation. Off my chest seems more like a place for when you've got something to say to everyone else. And I'm not really necessarily looking for advice. Pretty personal and about mental health and shit though. So if there's somewhere better, let me know. I just need to dump this shit somewhere.

Just went without weed for around two weeks. One of the longest stretches I've gone without for most of my adult life so far. And this particular time, it has especially made me realise and come to terms with the fact that whenever I've called it "medicine", I've only been half joking.

Because I unravel more and more, then facepalm when I've finally had my medicine and start thinking about how I've been feeling and acting out. When I've gone without for just a couple of days in the past, I've called it an addiction but this time the insomnia and lack of appetite ended in a couple of days but my everything else got worse and worse.

I become completely dysfunctional in the real world, and a feeling that I think I've realised is a constant anxiety. Or bottled rage sometimes. And an inability to even sit for long enough to watch something or play a game. That's when I start learning into the endless scroll of the virtual world hard.

And there I start looking for outlets for all of my rage. Not picking my battles but standing on my hill(s) and calling all challengers. I fight for things that I believe in and not just aimlessly but at the same time, I feel aware that I'm also doing it selfishly, so that I've got something to do with all of the continuous anxiety and unease and general feeling like shit.

And now I'm here. I've had my medicine and now I feel like I've been unhinged (more than usual), howling under a full moon that lasted two weeks. And now I facepalm about it, not for what I've said but for how and why and when. Maybe even who.

I don't have the means to get diagnosed with anything at this present point, but I'm fairly convinced now that one reason it's taken me so long to realise that not everything is ok; is because my continuous weed use has not only been alleviating things for me on a chemical level, it also makes it easier for me to pretend that all systems are running normally or that my specs are the same as everyone I have to meet and talk to. That I don't actually feel like a stranger all the time, even if I've known you for years.

Having just experienced my first comment removals without any sort of notification or explanation, I was suddenly reminded of how things went down on Reddit during the API thing and people's attitude towards it.

Do you know why the API thing failed to cause a mass exodus? Because the moderators were spearheading it. The same people that have been doing things like setting up automod with buzzwords because they're too busy collecting subs to control to actually do their jobs, and silently removing non rule breaking comments without notification or explanation, and being cold unfriendly dickheads whenever you questioned them; suddenly these assholes were asking us to all join them in solidarity and feel sorry for them over their lost modding tools in 3rd party apps. In fact they did a fantastic job of making it all about themselves without giving many good reasons for the end user. And honestly people cheered when Reddit forcibly removed them.

And it made me realise that a good majority of these moderators that spent years on Reddit campaigning for less transparency and helping to turn it into the shit hole it is now, are probably here on Lemmy.

I don't know where exactly I'm going with this other than to say that I'm seeing things here with new eyes now. Just wanted to get these fun facts off my chest and remind everyone about who we're actually dealing with here.

There's no posting to your own profile here on Lemmy, so I hope it's alright that I use this space to just dump some shit that no one cares about.

I was going to migrate to mbin or somewhere with more features than base Lemmy, and I also wanted to be able to see downvotes, but I've decided that in spite of those things, I think I'll stick around for a while.

As far as Lemmy forks go, I think I'm just going to keep an eye on them for a while until they're a little further along in development and have more app support. I'm keeping an eye on PieFed in particular but for now, while I'm still new here, I think I'm going to stick with base Lemmy for at least my first year.

As far as downvotes go, I have realised that I just do not care anymore. And I like not caring.

So I can live with just not seeing downvotes anywhere in exchange for a good local feed that can teach me and keep me sane in these fucked up times ahead. And honestly, I've noticed that I even like the 'All' feed better here than when I was on world.

Thanks for attending my monologue. I might edit this with other random shit that has no place along the way.

I hope that this is the right place for this, please let me know if there's somewhere more appropriate because I'm not sure where it actually fits.

Let me just start this off by saying, I recognise that these are kids movies and I also thank these movies for bringing me back into the franchise and revisiting such a big part of my childhood. In fact what's great is that it's introducing a new generation of kids to it.

Just finished Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and after spending the last 6+ months (re)watching all the animated adaptations and (re)playing the games, I really don't think I enjoyed it as much as the first two movies. And I've realised that Sonic has actually been characterized pretty badly here and completely tamed and watered down. And even more so, I feel like this displays a larger problem in mainstream media right now.

Sonic in the '90s and 2000s:

Back in the '90s when I was a kid, we had two Sonic cartoons running at the same time. In both of them, Sonic was an anti-authoritarian "freedom fighter", trying to topple Robotnik's tyranny. One of them had little PSAs like calls to respect those who are different from you or warnings about scammers and false info. It was woke before woke was a thing. The other one involved Robotnik, the tyrant, stomping out free thinking by turning people into robot slaves. A not so subtle message.

In fact even without the cartoons, from the first game it's a pretty easy assumption to make that the little blue guy with the mohawk / spikes that runs around smashing machines and freeing the animals is supposed to be some sort of rebel. I promise that it wasn't too much for my little 7 or 8 year old brain to handle back then.

Then we get to the Modern era of Sonic, which gave us Sonic Adventure with wall to wall heavy metal and cool guitar solos. And little surprises like weed leaves placed in certain locations. And the defacto animated adaptation of this era was Sonic X, where Sonic blatantly shows no respect or even disrespect to authorities fairly regularly. But always with the message of doing the right thing. At one point, he inspires the 'freedom movement' which sees people quitting their jobs by the masses, dyeing and spiking their hair and just living their lives their way (I'd love to know where they got their income from though).

Sonic the Hedgehog movies:

Which brings me to these movies. I had fun watching all of them but now I am realising just how watered down and wrong a lot of the characterisation is. Instead of being about rebellion, it's about 'family'. Instead of heavy metal and weed leaves, it's top 40 pop and McDonald's references. Apart from an Easter egg thrown in here or there like a bone.

And I realised that the characterisation of Sonic, Knuckles and Robotnik are more like Sonic Boom than any game or other adaptation, except with all the adult references and humour removed. And Sonic Boom isn't known for its faithful representations either but still at least has some edge.

The Declawing of Media:

When I look around at the world today, I think that we need anti-authoritarian icons like Sonic the Hedgehog more than ever. But all of the movie studios and all of the artists are beholden to fucking suits that don't want to take any risks in case their precious money flow gets harmed.

And so we're left with a world where the art that used to inspire kids and teenagers to rage against the machine and keep it real has all become safe and boring and paint by the numbers. And so they're being attracted by douchebag podcasters that give them something to rebel against instead.

I feel like the Sonic the Hedgehog movies so far are a great representation of just how stale and corporate everything has become. I believe they call it enshittification. And I'm thinking that maybe Hollywood and the music industry are just as much to blame for the state of affairs today as social media. And not because of the wOkE agENdA but because no one has a fucking spine anymore and everything is trying to chase numbers on charts that go up and down. Enshittification is more than just social media design IMO.

It was suggested that I post this idea to the community proper. So I'm just copying and pasting the comment that I made, edited to make it clear which post I'm referencing (which is the next most recent post here anyway). I hope I got the link right in order to work with all of this federation mumbo jumbo.

I’m too new to be making these kinds of suggestions and I’m far from the moderator type myself but multiple times throughout this week, I’ve been thinking that it would be pretty cool if there was an AskBlåhaj. Or even just general Ask Lemmy based here, that could be asking for unwanted attention from shitty people on other instances though.

Not even 24 hours after seeing this post, I’ve seen someone else getting the snark and a non answer for a simple question. And also a Blåhaj user.

As much of a public bathroom as it could be, AskReddit was pretty fun for ‘silly’ questions and general chatting. And a nice place for new users to hang around and gain karma and confidence. But with the gatekeeper neckbeardy types around, maybe what it needs on Lemmy is to be in an instance with rules that promote friendliness and good vibes.

Just an idea to throw out there anyway.

I hope this isn't a question that's already been asked to death, in app search for "mbin" isn't all that helpful.

I'm still in the stages of looking for a permanent home here in the fediverse. So far mbin has really caught my eye because it's basically Lemmy+ for all intents and purposes (at least for mine). I'm not all that happy with what looks like the only Android app though.

So I was wondering if there were any plans to add mbin functionality to any existing Lemmy apps? Even if I used a Lemmy app solely for the 'Threads' or Lemmy section of mbin, then used the web page or only mbin app for everything else, I would be fine with that.

I tried to see if I could sign in with the app that I'm currently using (Eternity), with the kbin.earth instance and no luck. So obviously the API is just that much different.

Are any devs here thinking of expanding their apps in future? Or is there one I've missed? I've seen more than one app with the description "For Lemmy and the Fediverse", but what exactly is meant by "and the Fediverse" is unclear.