u/grachi

Hi, I’m a newer photographer that lives in Pittsburgh, and I have started a project where I am trying to capture life in smaller towns outside of Pittsburgh. I think people dismiss smaller towns a lot and find them to be less important that bigger towns and especially cities. So I wanted to try to capture the good of small towns; people, places, the uniqueness to them.

The reason for the post though is while I am motivated to show this good side of small towns, I also am not THAT motivated to go as far as to venture into somewhere unsafe. And sometimes that is the case with areas that have seen better days many years ago. So I was wondering, would I have any issues showing up as a solo photographer to try to take pictures there? I tried to google crime statistics for Freedom but I didn’t find any results, or at least not any current ones. Basically wondering if anyone is going to try to mug me for my camera, which… isn’t a cheap camera.

Hey everybody. So I’m 40, almost 41, and like I’m sure many of you in here, have been playing games for decades at this point. The past 2 weeks or so I’ve really struggled playing FPS games. I can’t play for more than 15 minutes before my head starts to feel really strange, I guess the closest thing I can think of is it’s like a headache but feels just more like disorientation, if that can be a feeling. By 45 minutes or an hour, I start to feel waves of nausea , which I can only assume is motion sickness. I went to the dr and he said it does sound like that, said I could try taking Dramamine but he wouldn’t recommend it for every day use, and said ginger could work as it works for some people. Overall he said I’ll most likely just have to play less or not at all.

So I looked up all the strategies to mitigate it online and what the dr said, tried those out, but I can only play for maybe 20 or 30 minutes longer using them. So I thought to myself, well, it’s been a good 30 year run and even though I still felt like I “had it” in terms of my fps skill, one day I’d slow down and not be able to keep up with the younger kids anyway. I was legitimately depressed for about 2 days but kinda accepted that you can’t do most hobbies forever, and I still had tons of other types of games I could play even though fps was my favorite genre.

Well, last night I was playing Celeste and the same feelings happened after about 40 minutes. I really couldn’t believe it, just not as intensive a game as an FPS game really, yet I still felt the same way. I’ll be honest with you, I closed the game down and went to just go play some chess on my computer instead but for the first time in a long time I felt tears welling up in my eyes as I was playing. I had accepted retiring from FPS games, but I didn’t really expect or prepare myself with the possibility of not being to be able to play other types of games either.

I dunno sorry to word dump , I guess I just needed to get out what I was feeling and hoping maybe someone in here could relate so I wouldn’t feel so alone and bad about this. I know there are many people that can’t play FPS or certain motion games, but I feel like it’s worse when you spent so long being able to, then one day it just suddenly changes, versus just not being able to from the start. Sucks to feel like I’m losing a passion hobby that I’ve had for so long, and because of something that just seems out of my control.

I feel like FPS has been in a rough spot lately when it comes to new games. Either they are DOA or they are bandwagon genre-specific like REDSEC and Marathon with the extraction shooter trend that unfortunately won’t die.

Anyone have any good titles that have come out recently or will be coming out soon? I’ve played all the staples (TF2, CS2, Siege, Apex, OW) into the ground by now over years and years. I’m tired of those games’ metas and running the same maps.

I tried asking in the book suggestion subreddits but it was radio silence over there, so I thought I’d try asking in the reverse:

Any readers in here that know of any good sci fi books or book series that have a lot of similarities to this game , or the game’s lore/universe in general?

Edit: these are wonderful , thank you to all that have given suggestions so far.

Hi, my last post got deleted by auto mod for the link to the books that feel like this subreddit, so I’m resubmitting.

Synopsis of Marathon: In the far far future, roughly 99 years after the Marathon spaceship arrived and contact was lost at the planet Tau Ceti IV, multiple factions (ranging from rebel groups to multi-trillion dollar conglomerates) hire mercenary Runners (bio-synthetic "shells" with uploaded consciousness in them) to delve into the mysteries of the colony and the ship that orbits the planet. The mercenaries sent by the different factions are usually hostile to each other, but can sometimes group together if they find it in their benefit to do so.

The labs, offices, and living quarters the Runners come across have text and audio logs that talk about scientists trying to learn about Tau Ceti IV, only for something terrible to happen that caused everyone to die and/or disappear. There are also distress messages sometimes found painted around the buildings Runners find, and disturbing cryptic drawings as well. What seemed to just be missions to recover valuables for the factions that suffered large financial losses by having invested in Tau Ceti IV colonies, turns out to be a much more dangerous and sinister situation than anticipated involving Rogue AI and alien beings that intercepted the Marathon and presumably, invaded Tau Ceti IV.