After working in desktop support for a year after college, I realized that people just wanted their problem solved and to not feel frustrated. That realization made my job immensely easier because I pivoted from copying a file in 30 seconds and walking away to talking to them a little bit and letting them feel good after we were done. My ticket closing speed slowed down a little but people felt better and I consistently got positive feedback.
Probably an obvious one, but Life is Strange was a pretty emotionally fraught game to play through. Everyone’s probably aware, but it is filled with choices that determine lots of different small outcomes as well as the main ending. So after I finished it, I spent the evening watching streamers react to the ending and sniffling along with them.
Personal story about that, a good friend passed away unexpectedly right before the pandemic, and his wife asked for my help finding some things on his computer. He was a great guy, big burly dude not known for being overly-sentimental but a wonderful imagination/DM. As I was going through stuff she was reminiscing about him. So we opened his Steam library and he had 2 games installed. Fortnite and every chapter of LiS. She had no idea what that game was, but imagining him secretly huddled over his laptop, guiding Max & Chloe along just broke me.
Another game that drew me in instantly was Hellblade: Sennua’s Sacrifice. Seeing the character’s backstory in the first couple of scenes and knowing that this was a story game dealing with mental health and loss was major, and I was immediately motivated to help her get through the healing process.
This happened with my cat often enough that once I went to pet him and saw him wince from my hand 😢
So after that I started doing the same things suggested here Try touching stuff around your house to see what discharges you, but also what I got in the habit of doing was tapping my cat on the back haunch before petting him. That discharged me in a much more manageable place for him and then subsequent skritches were still pleasant and appreciated.
I’ve tried for years to figure out how to lower the static electricity in my house, but keep coming up empty. I think it’s the combination of rubber-soled slippers, carpeting and anti-static mats in the office. So at my desk, I have ran a thin sliver of tinfoil along the edge and grounded that, so when I sit it discharges through there instead of my computer.
You may enjoy “A Call to Arms” by Alan Dean Foster (The Damned Series)
The short of it, humans are an uncontacted race in the path of an alien empire “The Amplitur” that is co-opting all of the galaxy. So the resistance forces, (aka “The Weave”) decide they might as well reach out to us, since having unassimilated allies is now far more important than their first-contact rules.
Foster takes the basic premise that humans are unlike any other animal on earth, and so by that same token unlike any other species in the galaxy. This means our abilities in creativity, adaptation, survival and our predilection for violence (something every other civilized race evolved to avoid at all costs) all become keystones of how The Weave accept us as members of their alliance.
I read the Robot/Foundation series in the order that Asimov recommended after watching the Foundation TV series.
https://more.bibliocommons.com/list/share/1584219139/1735833849
Agree with the other posters here, if you liked what you already read, you’ll probably enjoy the rest. It’s an interesting set of stories that take centuries to complete with completely new characters in each book. My wife’s take is that they’re good in that they were some of the first popular operatic Sci Fi available.