Get a little sketch book or tablet. Every time an ad comes on, draw an object (or dog! Or person!) in the room with you. Try to do the whole sketch over a single ad break, focusing on the biggest, most important shapes first. You'll learn to draw very quickly.
If you already know how to draw, draw. Use it or lose it!
Disclaimer: am artist, possibly biased. Doing art for its own sake is fun for me, so it doesn't need to have a 'point.'
My roommate is obsessed with Halloween and does one of those little model villages every year with tiny spooky buildings that light up and stuff. I sometimes sculpt or 3D print parts and props for it. It's fun to see how much joy he gets out of it, and how it grows a little each year.
Has nobody ever talked dirty to you? Words can be very powerful, even recorded ones.
I went to my boss to ask for some time off and she reminded me that I had already requested the same days off weeks ago, been approved, talked about plans, then forgotten all of it.
I think I may be an outlier here. I really don't want to die in a sudden 'didn't-see-it-coming' kind of way, like getting hit by a semi or a freak accident with heavy machinery kind of way. The idea of going from living, thinking, feeling, person to chunk(s) of meat in an instant terrifies the shit out of me. Especially if it's caught on video and people watch it for laughs or whatever possesses them to watch that kind of thing.
Don't get me wrong, I don't want to die in some slow, painful way either, but something I had some agency in would be worlds better. Like taking a bullet to save a loved one, or punching my own ticket after getting a terminal diagnosis, or even just taking a deliberate, calculated risk.
Absolutely not. Discomfort isn't a thing to be avoided, and contentment too easily becomes complacency. Everything I've ever done that materially improved my life was motivated by not being content with the status quo. Each positive change was (physically or emotionally) difficult, unpleasant, or even painful to make, but it always made life better afterward. Pain is a fantastic teacher. I would rather struggle than sleep, and I don't want rich assholes doing my thinking for me.
I learned that the lump I'd had biopsied on my neck was a pair of thyroid tumors that were suspicious for cancer, and that the whole organ would need to be removed. After pathology, it turned out not to be malignant, which is lucky, but that was a pretty unpleasant few months and now I have to take thyroid replacement hormones for the rest of my life. The doc still hasn't got my dose quite right, so I just kind of low-key feel like shit all the time. It takes a couple months before we know if a new dosage is working better or worse. Hopefully they'll have it figured out by my next birthday...
I like "we'll burn that bridge when we come to it"
I don't think anybody really sees themselves as a simple 'A' or 'B' in this way. Maybe I'm wrong. It just seems impossible to simplify an entire life and experience of the world as either 'blessed' or 'cursed'.
Which isn't to say I think models of human capability can't be fun.
I like to imagine it more like ability scores in D&D. Someone might have low Wisdom, but training and proficiency can still make them extremely perceptive. And in some cases, you can find ways to leverage an unusual ability when you're trying to do something, like making an intimidation check using Strength instead of Charisma. What is a weakness in one scenario can be a strength in the next.
This model is still simple enough to visualize easily, but has enough moving parts to allow for lots of different ways of being without any one way being 'good' or 'bad'. Neurodivergence might be part of the stats you roll up, but your circumstances and your choices combine to build a life experience around them that can be completely different from another person who rolled the same numbers. Likewise, different rolled stats can affect how well you handle certain situations and adventures, but this is neither a curse nor a superpower, and is true for everyone.
Models only get you so far, but humans are a social species. We need each other by our very nature. Teamwork is in our DNA. And, like DNA, teams are more adaptable when they are diverse. Everyone has something to bring to the table, neurodivergent or otherwise.
Two approaches. Mixed success with both.
Choose games that don't make you feel bad. This can mean playing more cooperative games, or it can mean offering to referee or sit out games you know will just piss you off. For me, the chance of winning isn't appealing enough to outweigh the chance of ruining the game for someone else. It helps to identify what exactly it is about losing that makes you so sour. I have a hard time with games like Cards Against Humanity because the card combinations that are funny to me usually aren't funny to anyone else because they didn't go on the ADHD field trip with me to make those connections. It starts to feel like a popularity contest that I'm losing because my brain is wired wrong, and it's hard not to take that personally.
Set different goals in the games you're playing, and define 'winning' for yourself based on those goals. I used to get annoyed every time my friends pulled out settlers of Catan. I would do what made sense to me each turn, but I'd always lose anyway either to random chance or just not having enough RAM in my brain. Even on the rare occasions I won I often wouldn't have fun with it because I spent so much of the game being frustrated. So I decided the only thing I cared about in the game was getting one of the bonus goals, usually 'longest road'. That was much easier to focus on, and it took all the pressure off me to win. After a while it became kind of a running joke.
It's not perfect, and it doesn't happen in a vacuum either. Sore losers often have anger issues they're not dealing with (I know I did!) and figuring that stuff out will help in more areas of your life than just board games.
Your mileage may vary.
Good luck!
Oh, that's why I like "dipshit" so much. Now I understand myself better, thanks!
I get that OC can mean lots of things, but I think most people in this thread are willfully misunderstanding you because of preconceived biases about original characters being 'childish.'
I will instead attempt to engage in good faith. Here is an original character I conceived for a Star Control D&D game I ran.
Archivist Ryll (pictured at right) is an Yllk who joined the crew after they performed a mission to help him study an anomalous neutron star. He is pragmatic and cheerful, and always game to help out, but dislikes authority figures. He lost his rear legs in an accident involving IDF (interdimensional fatigue). He is shown here in the epilogue of the campaign in his capacity as archivist, assisting with the official documents as the Alliance of Free Stars signs a formal cease-fire with the VUX Admiralty after the Battle of the Sa-Matra and subsequent dissolution of the Ur-Quan Hierarchy of Battle Thralls.
I think that varies wildly from one person to another. For me, housework is emotionally exhausting. So is making decisions that affect other people, like where to go for dinner. These are examples where it feels like a bad kind of exhausting. On the other hand, running a D&D game is a thing that's emotionally exhausting but that I still enjoy doing.
If you liked this game, you might be interested to learn that Pistol Shrimp games, an independent game dev company started by Paul Rieche III and Fred Ford (the original creators of Star Control and Star Control 2), are making a sequel, with story written by Paul Rieche III.
The re-release on steam is partly to get the word out about it. Join our discord to learn more!
People usually see doctors when something has gone very wrong with their life. It's scary when your body backs you into a corner, and fear makes people act stupid and angry. I would hope they could be given a little bit of slack.
Even if you didn't like their coffee, they sell like candy and sandwiches and mugs and stuff? That's not a useless gift card and I'm sorry you lost it!
"Gotta go read The Hobbit" after my dad claimed he could do it in one 'sitting'.
The sound of Agatha Trunchbull's angry grunt as she throws the shot put in her office to intimidate Ms. Honey in Matilda (1996).
Or really, any of the noises she makes throughout that entire movie.
Disgusting things, children. Glad I never was one.
My strategy for these days is to let myself off the hook for finishing anything. "Just put three dishes in the dishwasher, then you can go back to the project your brain will let you think about." Sometimes that's enough to break the spell and load the whole dishwasher.
Altered Beast for the Sega Genesis.
"WISE FWOM YOUW GWAVE!"
"WELL-COME TO-YOUR-DOOM!"
Never got past like the 3rd level.
'Normal' isn't the most useful word for describing human interactions. It's always going to be biased by your culture, upbringing and life experience.
A lot of people here are saying that people become more attractive as you get close to them, and I'm sure that's true--for them. Just to offer an alternative perspective, I find people less physically attractive the better I know them. I still love them and enjoy their company, and I wouldn't trade them for anything, but I just don't really want to be physically intimate with them past a certain point. I'm very independent and probably just not cut out for that kind of long-term relationship, but I'm also very open about it when talking to potential romantic partners. I don't want them putting all their eggs in one basket, especially when that basket is full of holes.
Looking back, I understand it. At the time, it was devastating. I was depressed, had lost my job, and hadn't learned to enjoy my own company yet, so I hung around constantly needing his attention. He didn't sign up to be a therapist. He was as gentle as he could be about it, but it still hurt to be abandoned at my lowest point. I needed the wake up call though. I'm doing much better now.
What game? They're not playing a game in the image?
Assuming you are genuinely asking, "ugly" is entirely subjective. Someone might be unattractive to you for any number complex reasons, including the possibility that you are simply not who they are trying to appeal to (or they don't make appealing to other people a priority at all, for political reasons, personal reasons, or just convenience), but there is no objective standard of ugliness, despite what mainstream media and beauty standards may want you to think. Everyone is beautiful to someone.
This post has a weird energy. I can't decide if it reads more phobia or more fetish. Maybe both XD
There is a shocking lack of Star Control 2 in here. Easily the best game I have ever played, period. It frequently gets name dropped in lists of game developers' favorite games of all time. Later space epics like Mass Effect stood on Star Control 2's shoulders to reach the heights they did.
Good news! The devs released it to the open source community under the name The Ur-Quan Masters. You can play it now for free! And they're developing a sequel as we speak over at Pistol Shrimp Games
The best horror film for Halloween isn't a horror film, exactly. It's a cartoon miniseries called Over the Garden Wall. We put it on for the Halloween party every year.
This isn't stupid, it is righteous
10, if that's as high as it goes. I'm judging 'perversion' to be a combination of 'conceptual distance from normative sex' and 'the degree to which the average person would be horrified by it.' I don't get banned from places because I'm not a jerk, but there aren't any 'communities' for what I'm into anyway. I don't think my thing even has a name, really. For that matter, it might not actually fit on a scale like this where the assumption seems to be 'sex plus some stuff.' My therapist thinks I should write a book about it.
It's kind of lonely, and it's a pain in the ass to find porn (I usually have to just make my own) but I did get lucky in that none of it involves kids or animals or anyone incapable of consent.
Is that not what the post office is for? Were pony express riders stopping at every individual farm and cabin?
I recognize and sympathize with the energy of this comment. I have also had a medical setback recently that is making it really hard for me to exercise. I had a tumor removed and they took my thyroid out with it, and something is not right with the replacement meds. It is tough to make people understand just how awful it can be to feel exhausted and irritable and confused every single day. What happened to you sucks, and it isn't fair, and it's okay to not be okay with it. For what it's worth, I hope your bone does grow back.
Free Stars: The Ur-Quan Masters has an excellent story and wordbuilding, and you can talk to all kinds of weird aliens. If you don't like the ship combat, you can set up the game's AI to fight for you.
Centaurworld is a pretty good example of characters being aware of their own animation style as one character slowly transforms between the two.
A psychopath wouldn't be worried about whether they're a psychopath.
My partial degree in Game Art and Design finally pays off, lol
I think there are different kinds of violent fantasies. I imagine all kinds of violent stuff in an unrealistic action movie kind of way, with exploding heads and disembowelment and all that (I run D&D games lol). I got worried that I might be dangerous. Then, one time I tried to vividly imagine the actual real world consequences of hurting a real person that I knew, and I couldn't get any further than imagining the pained, betrayed look on their face before I had to hit the eject button. That brief exercise fucked me up for weeks afterward, but it was pretty reassuring. In the long run. I think I'm the schmuck in the horror movie that chokes when it comes down to actually firing a gun at someone and gets killed for hesitating, and honestly I think I'm okay with that.
Disgusting things, children. Glad I never was one!
This also happened to me. I dropped out of game art & design school. Now I'm doing art and animation for a game dev company. I took the scenic route, but I got here eventually!
I hate sleeping under any circumstances.
I seem to recall Maverick(1994) having a good card game as a central plot element, which takes place on a river boat casino. It's also just a really fun movie about three competing con artists (played by James Garner, Mel Gibson, and Jodie Foster).
It's been a few years since I've seen it, and it's set in the old west, so sorry if it has any racisms I forgot about!