axont

Hi everyone!

Basically I want to change my legal name to something way more non-binary, including my middle names. I already know there's a state application process and I'll have to get my passport changed and all that.

Are there any more hurdles I'm not considering? I don't even know what I want to change my names to yet, but I know at least one of my middle names won't be "normal" so I'm a little worried about how that might work legally? Maybe I'm worried about nothing. I live in Texas if that makes anything different.

If anyone has advice or had any experiences they hadn't considered at first, please let me know. I'm kinda excited about this.

Oh, and I still haven't decided on any names, so feel free to suggest any lol. I'm looking for mainly like neutral to femme stuff and also naturey sciencey words that aren't typical names. I kinda have a punk vibe too.

Thank you everyone and I love my trans comrades!

A bunch of restaurants around me shut down recently and everyone blames the greedy servers for demanding more tips and wages. They're blaming shoplifting too, claiming petty crime simply isn't punished enough. Someone I know claims shoplifting is legal in California.

Americans can't conceive of real estate capitalists squeezing other, smaller capitalists. It's always gotta be taxes or baristas asking for higher wages.

Every restaurant that shuts down around here is 100% the fault of landlords. No restaurant has ever folded because the servers got paid $10 per hour instead of $8 per hour

I never got into it and I feel like I'm missing a huge social part of my life. I've tried alcohol and it just tastes bad. Maybe if I had enough to get inebriated I'd feel different, but so far nothing about the experience of drinking has been good. Also I grew up around Baptists who don't have drinking in the culture, so maybe that's part of it? My parents never had alcohol in the house and there was never beer/wine at family gatherings. I never even saw a full glass of beer in person until I was like 23.

Bars are too loud and there's too much expectation to drink, parties have the same problem, drinking at home alone sounds sad. I go to concerts and I'm the only person without a huge glass of beer. People hand me drinks and I'm like "nah" and they get mega confused.

What do I do

Is this the opposite of a problem?

I learned I naturally do goofy stance

It looks a little different than it did a few years ago? There's been radio silence since Paradox started over with the new devs. This game has had a really troubled production, I think Paradox has been trying to get it off the ground since 2015. Now it's being done by The Chinese Room, most known for Dear Esther and Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs.

Bloodlines is one of my favorite games of all time, so I'm trying to stay optimistic that the devs also hold it in high regard and will try to make a worthwhile sequel. The gameplay from this new trailer looks a little clunky and weird, but maybe that's ok. VTMB never had great combat in the first place. The dialogue, writing, and vibes are where it's at. Looks like there will be gliding around and parkour stuff? Might be cool.

Anyone looking forward to this game? There's even a release window, Fall of 2024, but this game was supposed to originally release in March of 2020, so don't hold your breath.

I suppose it makes sense. I have no close friends and I completely avoid social situations unless I have to be in them. It would explain why I always feel like the center of (negative) attention in any given room, or why I always feel like I'm annoying people or that I sound smug.

The doctor told me people with AVPD often have trouble understanding who they are as a person, and can't latch onto specific identities, but I haven't thought about that much. The pamphlet and stuff I'm reading online also seems to suggest AVPD has such overlap with social/general anxiety they're almost the same thing.

Anyone else have experience with this?

It's literally like this:

Materialists/Physicalists: "The thoughts in your head come from your conditions and are ultimately the result of your organs and nervous system. Your consciousness is linked to your brain activity and other parts of your body interacting with the physical real world."

Dualists: "Ok but what if there were an imaginary zombie that has the same organs and molecular structure as a living person but somehow isn't alive on some metaphysical level. If this zombie is conceivable, that means it must be metaphysically true somehow."

Materialists: "That's circular and imaginary, isn't it?"

Other dualists: "Ok but what if I were in a swamp and lightning strikes a tree and magically creates a copy of me but it's not actually me because it doesn't have my soul."

Am I reading this stuff wrong or are these actually the best arguments for mind-body dualism