I see why you’d say they’re still experimenting - and they are within the confines of the souls formula. They definitely aren’t making carbon copies of past games. But, compared to the crazy variety and wild mechanics in their back catalog, the souls formula is pretty narrow. They’ve got a card battler, an adventure game series, a co-op puzzle platformer, and more in their portfolio. Demon’s Souls itself was a huge experiment: souls, messages, and invasions into a mostly single player experience were completely novel and even weird. Let’s not forget about world tendency, (even if we want to).

FromSoft was always like that: a bunch of totally random ideas you’d never seen before with enough good, bad, and weird to go around. The changes they make today are comparatively tame. Imagine if the next soulslike game did away with the entire magic system and instead you craft your own spells from elements (Eternal Ring). Or if they did away with respawns and overhauled the entire leveling system in Bloodborne like they did when trying to give Shadow Tower its own identity separate from King’s Field. They were wild, but that’s what gave the world soulslikes in the first place.

I understand why they play it safe. Honestly, they don’t have a choice. It comes with the budget. So I really don’t begrudge them the lack of experimentation too much. But I do find it sad because it’s our loss. They could do better, and who knows what other stuff they might have come up with if they were truly free to experiment the way they used to. What I really wish is for them and other devs to just make smaller games with smaller budgets. Still make the AAA games, just set aside a small amount to experiment with and try new things too. That way we keep learning, discovering, and innovating. We’d all have better games for it.

Skill issue on FromSoft’s part, and I say that as someone who has been a fan of their games longer than most people in this thread - more than a decade before even Demon’s Souls. Their original talent was always in detailed, immersive world design. Their gameplay was unpolished and experimental, but that’s something I liked about them. They got a smash hit with Demon’s and Dark Souls and made a hard pivot towards iterating on that formula. They still embrace their roots as a studio focused on detailed world building, but they’re trying to move more towards action and encounter design to cater to Souls fans. Where once they were highly experimental, now they seem afraid to try anything different.

A better studio could find a way for players to share that struggle and triumph while still allowing players of different skill levels to enjoy everything the game has to offer. That studio would be Supergiant with Hades’ God Mode option, which slowly gives more damage resistance each time you die so the player still struggles and gets better until the handicap and their improving skill meet in the middle. In the context of Souls, this could be separate for each boss. Or another entirely different approach could be taken. The point is merely that there are ways for players of different skill levels to still share in the same struggles, FromSoft is just unwilling or incapable of finding them.

So as a longtime FromSoft fan, I think they’re the ones who need to git gud.

In some states, saving her life would have been illegal. Many women rightfully fear living in such states even if they are not currently pregnant because it’s a dystopian nightmare. It’s literal body horror. Imagine being raped, getting pregnant, being forced to carry the baby, then one day the pain is unbearable and the bleeding won’t stop but the doctors just sit there and watch you die. Some might risk giving you a painkiller, others fear even that could put them at risk.

It’s not that it’s illegal to move to another state. But it might be a death sentence.

This is an important message and a positive one. Thank you.

Sounds similar to my journey in some ways. I’ll share a bit on the off chance that some of my experiences might be useful.

I always had headaches and mental health struggles. Hopefully you don’t. I sought help for both. My mental health issues were misdiagnosed (I’m AuDHD, the other stuff mostly stems from that) and for the headaches I was just told to lose weight. Easier said than done, and the headaches got worse while I tried. I used pain meds and developed chest pain that got diagnosed as heartburn. Prescription omeprazole (prilosec) keeps it in check.

I finally lost enough weight for them to take the headaches seriously and get referred to a neurologist. We can’t be sure of the exact cause, but a good bet is anxiety - a very sensitive/overactive nervous system as a result of C-PTSD and autism. I take topiramate to calm it a little, edibles 1-2 times a week, quarterly injections, and I do a somatic meditation. This is a great exercise for pain without a physical source, caused by things like my overactive nervous system.

If your pain is made worse by anxiety, it may help to get in the habit of practicing a quick somatic meditation focusing on the pain whenever you experience it. Otherwise, just keep advocating for yourself until you find a doctor that will help. I hope you find something that works for you soon.

Also, on brain meds: they’re all multi-function, so if it’s anti-anxiety that’s more of a happy accident. They wouldn’t give you a nerve blocker just for anxiety. Side effects tend to lessen the longer you take the drug, but not always, and the time scale is a bit different for each. At 2 weeks it should be starting to get better, at a month if it’s not better it’s probably not going to get much better. Hang in there!

Damn, got it in one

Yup, it was the first thing we checked when I actually got treatment. I’m sure that didn’t help, but compared to the pain of the migraines it was negligible. Having to refrain from pain meds for a while to make sure was a hell of a ride though. I lasted about three months. The doctor was satisfied with 1-2 but I wanted to be damn sure.

I give people the same warning nowadays. Don’t take that stuff more than once a week.

I’m kinda in this meme. I went through one of those big bottles roughly every 1-2 months for 20 years. Sometimes 12 pills in one day, with 4-8 acetaminophen on top (they do giant double packs of those too). Chronic migraines, but every doctor I asked for help just told me to lose weight so it went untreated and got worse and worse. Our health care suuuucks.

I did lose the weight. It didn’t magically fix my migraines, or affect them at all. Insurance dicked me around for another year and a half while my neurologist tried to help every way she could, but we finally got it down to only one migraine a week. I’m truly glad for that, but I still think about the years of unnecessary suffering, and how much better it might be now if I’d been treated sooner.

Look up DoctorRamani on YouTube. Her videos were informative and validating when I was trying to escape my abusive narcissist ex. I also found journaling to help. I put all my thoughts and feelings about the relationship down in a journaling app, which helped clarify my thoughts, work through the emotions, and it served as a record against her attempts at gaslighting. I could also go back and refresh my memory, and I was surprised how deeply unhappy I was all the time. I knew there were problems and that I was struggling while trying to get her to be better, but I had this general sense that things were kind of okay. They were not, and it was really clear when I read it back.

Best of luck to you getting and maintaining as much distance as you can. It’s hard now, but you will heal. Once the effect of the abuse starts to wear off, it’ll get a lot easier.

This is really sad. While it’s valid and understandable to not always be able to hold space for that kind of a conversation or story, at a minimum there are far kinder ways to communicate that than for your partner to just say you’re trauma dumping and leave you feeling like this is stuff you should never talk about. A good partner cares enough to listen to those things, and when they ask you not to share, it’s more of a, “not right now, let’s talk about this later.”

I’m not trying to draw any conclusions because there’s no way I’d have enough information anyway, but survivors of abusive upbringings are more likely to end up in abusive relationships because so much of that has been normalized (among other reasons). If your partner really accuses you of trauma dumping, that’s a bit of a red flag to me and it might not be a terrible idea to talk to friends, family, or a therapist as a sanity check to see if it’s nothing or if it’s a pattern of how you are treated. If you don’t want to do that, journaling can also help a lot with organizing your thoughts and feelings, plus it gives you a record of things in case you forget, downplay them, or are told otherwise and start to doubt yourself.

I really just hope everything is okay though. Stay safe out there, stranger.

wtf, meds by the day and weekly piss tests? Damn that’s brutal. Is it because of where you live or do they know about your drug history and just treat you like shit because of that?

That’s what really gets me: they’ll vilify someone using a harmless medicine in moderation for treatment purposes, but completely overlook people who get totally fucked up on alcohol on the regular. It’s so backwards. I avoided weed for decades until it was prescribed to me because “drugs are bad” and it didn’t take long after trying it to figure out what a ridiculous lie that is. Not all drugs are equal, and alcohol is worse than at least a few.

Lots of not accepting new patients and places that never end up calling me back even after multiple tries. Websites which specifically said they had availability were not accepting new patients when called. It’s exhausting.

If you are also in the US, I suspect the reason why is the looming threat from the DEA. Even if you are not a telemedicine patient, if your doctor’s office offers it as an option then they’re probably applying a blanket policy to everybody regardless. I hope they don’t treat you as badly as they did me. Depending on the doctor, they could still elect to allow your marijuana use. It just means if they get audited, they have to justify why they’re prescribing stimulants to a marijuana user. There is no reason not to and you have a long history of benefitting from the medication, so it should be clear cut. But the doctor may still decide it’s not worth the hassle or risk, like mine did.

Had I known ahead of time it might be a problem, I would have abstained as long as possible before the test (preferably over two weeks) and looked into detox drinks and other fast detox tricks. Worst that happens is I fail anyway and wind up right where I am now: needing to find a new doctor. But it could have saved me the trouble of needing to switch so soon. Maybe it can buy you some time.

I have a friend that helps me with some basic stuff, but in recent years they’ve gotten busier and more stressed, and I’m always going to have them put themselves first. They still help a lot, but it has gotten harder when they can’t help and I don’t get my own shit together. I’m embarrassed to admit how long it takes me to find a new doctor or therapist. I’ve never looked into an advocate, though. I don’t think I’d qualify, but I’ll definitely take a look, thanks!

I don’t think it’s a medical reason. If my cardiovascular health were at risk, stimulants alone would be a bad idea. I’m healthy enough and my usage is minimal. He tossed out some BS about working memory, but if I go down that rabbit hole this comment will get 5x as long.

The benefit of the doubt here is he’s covering his own ass. The DEA has been threatening to crack down on stimulant prescribers for a while, especially over telemedicine (which this was). If he gets audited and has to justify why he’s prescribing stimulants to a drug user, he could lose his medical license - or he may just not want to deal with the research and extra work needed to write up that justification.

To that end, it fucking sucks, but I can’t really blame him. I just wish he had been more honest and up front with me like I was with him. We could have waited a month to take the drug test and I’d have passed it, then this whole thing could have been avoided. Instead he looks down on me and repeatedly hasn’t truly listened to what I’ve told him. I won’t pass judgment on him the same way he did to me, but I will say his style is incompatible with me as a patient. I’m an active participant in my own care and I need a doctor who will form a collaborative relationship with me, not dictate treatment decisions.

Thankfully it’s not my GP, but yeah it’s time to find another provider and start all over again. I went looking for a psychiatrist to manage my meds for a different reason a month or two ago and struck out half a dozen times before running out of steam, so it’s a little easier said than done. I’ll get there eventually, just … it’s weirdly difficult to get help and executive dysfunction can be a real bitch. I won’t miss this provider though, so that’s some motivation!

Yes, I brought up that we already discussed the edibles. Given how long after use you can still test positive I told him the results probably wouldn’t change, and he straight up said that if I don’t stop using it entirely then he doesn’t want me as a patient. It felt so judgmental, and that part of it really upsets me too. I promise I’m not that exciting lol

Sorry about your medication mix up. Every time they have me update my info it has a list of all the meds I’m taking and I’m supposed to correct any dosages that have changed or cross them out if I no longer take them. Every time I cross out the same ones and re-correct the dosages again. My file has a totally different picture from reality - it’s kinda scary.

Live content has lots of downtime and dull gameplay moments. It can’t compete with polished, edited videos - except in the one area it shines: human interaction. That works better when you can see the person. So most streams feature a person or at least an avatar, while edited videos often place a higher emphasis on gameplay. Each format is simply playing to its strengths. The ones that don’t you rarely see because they’re buried at the bottom of page 726 with four views.

I try to minimize what I buy off Amazon, but I allow myself one bag of Frugra per month because I can’t get it any other way.

This is the quintessential McDonald’s experience. Every time I give in to that random pang of nostalgia, I know I’m in for some kind of disappointment. It might be a broken ice cream machine, an item that’s just out that day or been removed from the menu permanently, or something as mundane as having my order screwed up. In that, ironically, it rarely disappoints.

That’ll be $28.73 at the second window.