Not remotely. If you feel like you’ve seen everything, it might be time to consider a (literal) change of scenery. There are too many places to go, different people to meet and try to understand, books to read, flavors to taste. Seeing it online isn’t the same as seeing it in person with your own eyes. You could go a day’s walk in any direction and likely find something you haven’t seen before. You just have to be looking for it.
This is how assholes test your boundaries to see how far they can push you. It wasn’t a joke until you pushed back.
This was my favorite game as a kid. Doing fan-art and a D&D campaign about it for years got me hired on as an artist for the new one! It’s gonna be wild.
I’m glad she lived!
Mine isn’t this bad, but I can relate to the first-day-on-Adderall thing. It was wild when I walked into my messy bathroom an hour after that first dose and my brain just went: “It is possible, even reasonable for you to clean this bathroom, in a finite amount of time, without every moment filling you with dread. This task will not consume your whole life day.” My brain had simply never done that before. I could just choose to do something and–perhaps more importantly–to stop doing something. I remember I was hyperfixating working on a hobby project at 11 PM on a work night and my brain went: “If you stop working now, brush your teeth and go to bed, this fun project will still be here for you to work on tomorrow. You don’t have to keep at it until 6 AM and then go to work without sleeping.” That seemed like such a foreign concept at the time. It was weird to hear that from my own brain, not in a “you’re being bad” way, but in a “it’s going to be okay” way. There was a lot of happy crying those first few weeks.
Just wish I’d been diagnosed in college instead of in my mid-30s. I might have graduated.
People like to throw around the word ‘lazy’ but it’s more like I can’t turn it on OR off unless I’m medicated. Once I’m in the zone I will work until I grow a beard, then wither away, then my crumbling skeleton grows a beard. It would be a powerful thing if I could aim it.
This way of thinking only serves to punish yourself and does nothing to actually help your dog. Dogs get into stuff they shouldn’t. The thing you were supposed to do is exactly what you did, get them to the vet when you realize they are sick. You have no way of knowing what life your dog would have had without you. Some people get dogs and deliberately abuse them. Some neglect them and leave them to starve, chained up in the yard. Some let them wander off-leash and get hit by cars. Some take perfect care of them, and the dog still gets sick from congenital issues or simple freak accident.
You cannot undo the past. You can only do your best to be there for your dog now. Let the vets do their work, and trust that they want her to get through this just as much as you do. And I hope she does get through it. It’s out of your hands now.
What you can do is assume she will come through it and plan out how to give her an even better future. If a particular part of keeping house is difficult, ask a trusted friend or relative to come over and hang out while you work on it, and remind you what you’re supposed to be doing if you get distracted or lose steam. If something would be easier to do with a specific tool, buy that tool. If you can keep the mess localized in one part of the house, buy a toddler gate to restrict your dog’s access. Get a set of clothes that are your ‘cleaning suit.’ Wear it when you clean. If you need to clean, put it on. Wash one dish. Pick up one piece of litter. That first step is the hard one. Make it easier on yourself.
You can’t rewire the human brain, but you can plan around it. Make an effort to try and do a little better, and forgive yourself when you fall short. Piling negativity and blame onto yourself may feel perversely correct, even righteous, but it doesn’t actually solve the problem. Be pragmatic in the extreme. Meet yourself where you’re at, not where you think you ought to be.
I believe in you.
Please remember that your DM is a person. They are also playing the game and deserve to have fun, and for their boundaries to be respected. They are not just a physics engine for your shenanigans.
That being said, some DMs in specific groups might be totally fine with this. Just don’t spring it on someone without prior discussion and consent. That is (among other things) what session zero is for.
If I’m not the farmer?
I would follow a pre-scripted path depending on the day of the week and season, and refuse to accept more than two gifts. I would be a romance option, but the annoying kind that stays inside most of the time so it’s hard to build rapport.
For extra credit, I would post ads inexplicably asking for someone to bring me a topaz to rub on my sore knees.
I mean, anything? That’s got to be close enough to 100% to make no difference. Rocks in space hit planets, pieces break off at escape velocity, they become the space rocks that hit other planets. I doubt there’s a solid body in the inner solar system that doesn’t have at least a little bit of Mars on it.
I think you’d be surprised just how many people don’t. I didn’t until I was in my 30s, mostly because my parents never taught me how and it seemed like an ‘extra’ step. I tried a couple times but couldn’t make a habit of it.
Weirdly, It finally clicked for me when a dentist patiently explained that you don’t brush your teeth, you clean your teeth.
Brushing and flossing are not two different tasks. That would be like sweeping the floor and then just leaving the pile of dirt on the floor instead of sweeping it into the dustpan. It’s not done if you only do half of it. She also suggested tools I could use to make it less painful (I have TMJ). I have only missed a single day since, and that was because I was unconscious for a surgical procedure.
I love monty python’s flying circus, but they had multiple sketches across several different episodes where the punchline was a gay person getting murdered. Kinda hard to watch some of them now.
Followup, are they usually stacked one atop the other in places that write using Kanji?
Husbando is the only word I have ever heard used for this (other than just throwing gender to the wind and calling male characters waifu as well)
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.
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.’
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!
My partial degree in Game Art and Design finally pays off, lol
If you can’t hash out the idea then so you have a right to even try and make a game?
This is the most important thing I see here, because the answer is always ‘yes’. Of course you have the right. Start where you’re at and figure out what you need as you go along. Your first attempt might not work, but what you learn from it will be invaluable.
As far as art goes, you can either find someone who is excited to work on it with you in their spare time (difficult to find), or pay an artist whose style you like to create art for you (possibly expensive). If you do the latter, it’s best to wait until you have a clear idea of what you’ll need so you don’t end up paying for assets you won’t use.
One thing you can do right now is create a design document. This is basically just a long, detailed description of what you would like your game to be: specific mechanics and systems you want to include, what the gameplay loop will be, the audiovisual style, everything. Include images mood-board style for your future artist(s). This document will give you an idea of the assets you’ll need, as well as what you’ll need to learn as far as coding. It doesn’t have to be followed to the letter, but it’s a good place to start.
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 didn’t get to come out. My mom’s piece of shit boyfriend invaded my privacy, went through my bedroom and computer, then showed my mom my private journal and browser history. She then outed me to everyone in my family and at her church as a way to get sympathy for herself. She pulled me out of the school where I had just been elected student body VP and switched me to one closer to home so she could have more control over where I went. She took away my computer, pawned it and kept the money for herself. She did her best to cut me off from everyone supportive in my life, though the courts forced her to let me see my dad. She told me I was possessed by the devil. I was basically imprisoned in my own home, only allowed to go to church and to shitty Christian “therapy” until I turned 18 and moved out.