#I'm actually doing pretty good

[thedepressionoftrees]

Wanna vent?

[rantceratops]

My anxiety is- so far -taken care of. Which is really awesome because it was consuming my life. But now that my anxiety isn’t occupying all my time, my depression is coming back to the forefront. Granted, the meds I’m taking also help with depression, so, I think they are helping with that to a degree. But, I’m still just... feeling so bored of everything. Sometimes I feel like I literally don’t have anything to do. At all. Nothing interests me, or else I know that if I start anything new and interesting I’ll suck at it and get discouraged. I’m already too timid to try things. It’s partly because I know I’ll suck at it and partly because it just can’t hold my damn interest for more than two seconds.

I feel like everything in life is a waste of time? Why should I try clay or keep drawing or find a new video game? Idk. I don’t feel suicidal I just feel bored. Like, extreme levels of bored. I was distracting myself with games real good for a while, but now I’m sick to death of that, and just, sitting in front of my computer all day doing the same thing every day gets old.

Why is it so hard to just... take care of myself or to find joy in things that I should like?

I’m hoping to god I don’t BECOME suicidal because of the meds or otherwise, but so far it’s been about a month and I feel fairly the same as usual about it.

I’m also just... isolating and avoiding so much. I can’t even talk to my friends. I’m so consumed with distracting myself or just can’t muster the energy to engage in conversation because, just like everything else, it doesn’t interest me. And I see how AWFUL that sounds. I love my friends! I don’t mean they’re not interesting, I just... god, I just can’t muster up the energy for anything other than trying to distract myself with games or youtube videos. It’s so isolating.

Nobody or nothing is really stopping me from talking, other than my messed up head. (I hate admitting this because it sounds so bad, but it’s just... I can’t even find the willpower or desire to respond or start a conversation even though in my heart I know I should and DO want to? It’s so weird to explain. But I just want to again say it’s not that... it’s not that my friends aren’t interesting or that I’m insinuating that they are supposed to entertain me, god no. It’s just like... everything that’s not a mind-numbing video game feels so difficult? -sigh- I hope what I’m trying to say is coming across.)

I will try to put this all into better words for my therapist and let her know it’s bothering me.

In some ways, I’m doing way better (the anxiety), but in others I’m... about the same or only slightly better (the depression). I’m not complaining though, I feel way better, even if I still have some bad moments and bad days.

I think I just have to do more to help the medicine and my therapy help me; I can’t just take the medicine and talk to my therapist and expect it to help me manage my mental illness without me changing things and/or acting on things, etc. I have to help it along.

[securemoon]

Heartbroken and tired.

[wolfram-but-art]

drew one of the memes in this person's post again

reblogs > likes

[darqx]

Bought the most expensive Pencil™ of my life to test out drawing on an iPad whilst I was on hols

[canisalbus]

Love your art so much. Will you show us cool nature pics from your country? I'm literally so stoned I forgot where you live sorry.

Sure anon, why not. I'm not a photographer so the quality of these is kind of slushy at best. I like nature and wander around a little bit, but I rarely hike properly, so I don't go to that many scenic places. These are mostly from regular walks. Long post warning.

Summers are short but very green, and since we're at the arctic circle we get sunlight around the clock. Some of these were taken at midnight or early morning small hours. Most of Finland is very sparsely populated and covered in boreal forests.

Finland is a very watery country, lots of lakes in particular.

Sometimes you get intense sunsets

And winters are very cold, snowy and last about six months. In summer we have midnight sun and in winter there's the polar night to counter it. Around late December sun only rises for about two hours per day where I live so it's very dark for many, many weeks on end (which is wonderful if you get seasonal depression like I do). But sometimes the weather and lighting are just right and you get this ethereal pastel effect that I love.

[2boldlyqueer]

Listen, I know we're all exhausted, but we gotta get better about adding image descriptions to disability related stuff. Everyone should be IDing everything anyways, but there's a particularly cruel irony in disability related stuff not being accessible to folks with low/no vision.

[dragondawdles]

did an art sprint challenge thing tonight have a sub-2 hour deku link

[black-and-yellow]

[bonefall]

Hey, what makes a character a 'plot device but not a character'? And how do you not do that? I'm trying to do it on purpose but also I need to still make them interesting because it's on purpose, yknow?

A good skill to pick up is to learn to criticise criticism itself. A "plot device" is simply a thing that moves the plot along, it's a neutral literary analysis term! Usually, when people are angry that "a character has been used as a plot device," it doesn't mean they hate plot devices. It means they're gesturing at something deeper.

Runningwind and Bumble are equally plot devices in their deaths. They are both killed by the antagonist to escalate political tension. Runningwind is rarely "accused" of just being a plot device, and yet, we're talking about Bumble for the same thing.

So, why?

Well, Runningwind is just a background character, but in life, he was a part of the community. He was characterized as impatient but responsible. Yet, he wasn't SO important that he died with a bunch of unresolved plot threads.

He is mostly an extension of the entity of ThunderClan. His killing by Tigerstar, and the fear and paranoia that settles on the group after this, feel like a progression of the story insteas of something forced.

Bumble, on the other hand...

Is hated immediately by Gray Wing, when she's established as Turtle Tail's friend. Bumble's abuse at Tom the Wifebeater's hands invites even MORE investment. The rejection is shocking and upsetting. There's a story there about our main characters being imperfect; jealous, bigoted, and judgemental.

But, she is simply killed off. Everything they set up for this character is gone with little personalized fanfare. It's not a tragedy with a lesson about cruelty, or something anyone regrets.

It's just... plot. Gray Wing whinging that no one will like his shitty brother now that his body count is 2.

More than that, in the discussion of women in particular, "Fridging" was coined to give a name to the way women characters often don't get their stories told at all. There is a CULTURAL trend of female characters facing disproportionate violence, for the sake of advancing male plots.

Bumble has a lot going for her. Petal had a lot going for her. Turtle Tail had a lot going for her. Bright Stream had a lot going for her. When they died, they took their potential with them.

It's not always wrong to kill off a character of high potential, mind you. In Gurren Lagann, Kamina's death is sudden and shocking, leaving a massive hole in the hearts of the cast that never heals. Grappling with that loss, but also letting his memory fuel them, is a major theme of that story.

All that to say... there's no formula for avoiding it. You've gotta identify what the deeper issue is, in your specific narrative.

I can't say for certain what that will look like for your story, but here's some things I keep in mind;

When you make characters who exist to die, make sure they're people before you axe them.

Ask yourself; what about them does the cast miss?

If they just miss them because they were (pre-existing relationship), go back to the drawing board.

Fluttering Bird as an example. Who was she? Dead sister. Why do they miss her? Dead sister. No traits until after her death.

Runningwind was short-tempered and helpful. Kamina was a valuable leader who made people believe in a brighter future. Swiftpaw was fiesty and desperate to prove himself. The better characterized, the more profound the loss usually is.

If this is a female character who is dying just to serve the plot, be aware of cultural bias and tropes. How is the gender ratio looking in your cast? Is this happening disproportionately with your girls?

Note how Quiet Rain's litter had both a boy and a girl, but the girl was chosen to be "weaker" and wither away.

And how most of the time in DOTC, whenever a man had to be upset, a girl would get killed for it.

If you ever feel like the character on the chopping block is NOT a full character, ask yourself why it needs to be a character at all. You don't need to spend narrative time building out someone when a literal object of high value might suffice.

"My sister died when I swore to protect her and I can't face my family" = Old. Tired. Ive seen this.

"I lost my heirloom sword when I swore to protect it and I can't face my family." = Fascinating. Why was the sword so valuable? Will they really not take you back? How did you lose it?

When you do kill off "high value" characters, try to make sure you're not leaving too many plot threads hanging. Or at least make a point of how they will never get closure.

[chalkrub]

art fight is once again drawing near and i will once again be very enthusiastically participating! i love artfight i LOVE ocs and i love drawing other people's ocs - feel free to reblog/reply with your artfights, I always go through and bookmark my followers' characters <:^) above, you can see a small sample of my guys, both old and new, if you wanna draw them! it always makes me more happy than i can say to see my ocs in other peoples styles. tbh. if i'm being honest.

my artfight username is also chalkrub, pr alternatively you can click this funny little link HERE

I’ll be team seafoam, easiest choice of all time even if my idealised version of seafoam does not match up to the reality of the gross beige clumpy froth I see on estuaries sometimes

[b4kuch1n]

same teacher, different lessons

transcript

[hildegardladyofbones]

One of the best things about Disco Elysium by far is that it does not fear ugly women. The world is full of ugly men, but ugly women are so hard to come by.

[attleboy]

Okay I see your dog bone post and raise you. Pomni had stim toys as a kid, and that’s why she tends to bite things often.

i thiiiink i get what you're trying to say?? to which i'm going to say that the pomni bone chewing post is very much inspired by own experience chew stimming... so in my mind pomni probably would've had a stim toy at some point or at least would benefit from one. andddd a doodle.. :) gave the girl something to bite on she [hopefully] won't destroy in 2 seconds

[cup-noodle]

the cruelest thing about the world is that there's so many languages and a girl can't learn all of them

[essektheylyss]

One thing that I feel is really interesting and often forgotten about Essek is that fundamentally, his characterization has been from the start based upon his desperation for external perspectives and connection, which, along with much of his narrative and mechanical positioning, means that he actually has an extraordinary and almost (but not actually, as I'll show) counterintuitive capacity for both growth and trust.

(Buckle in. This is a long one.)

In particular, I would argue, knowing now that many places where the plot touches Ludinus have long been marked for connecting back into the current plot, that he was quite possibly built as a prime candidate for radicalization by the Ruby Vanguard. He felt isolated from his culture, he was desperate for other connection, and he was certainly of the type to believe he was too smart to be drawn into such a thing, given his initial belief that he could control the situation and the fallout. If things had gone any other way, he easily could've been on the other side by now.

As such, he has been hallmarked by being fairly open to suggestion, perhaps for this reason, but the thing about that kind of trait is that it is both how people are radicalized and deradicalized. This is certainly true of Essek, who experienced genuine kindness and quite frankly strangeness from the Nein and was able to move from the isolation the Assembly had engendered to meaningful and genuine connection, largely propelled by his own internal reflection. By the time Nein are aware of his crimes, he's already begun to express regret to an extent and, furthermore, doubt in the Assembly, including explicitly drawing a line against Ludinus, even in a position where he was on his own and probably quite vulnerable.

Similarly, when the Nein reach the Vurmas Outpost some weeks later, he has moved from regret for the position he's ended up carrying a heavy remorse. This makes sense! He's fairly introspective, seems used to spending a lot of time in his own head, and was left with plenty to mull over. It's not some kind of retcon for him to have progressed well past where the Nein left him; it just means he's an active participant in the world who has done his own work in the meantime.

This is another interesting aspect to him. I've talked about this a bit before but I cannot find the post so I'll recap here: antagonists in D&D have significantly more agency than allied NPCs. Antagonists are active forces, against which the party is meant to struggle; allies are meant to support the PCs, which means they tend to be more passive in both their actions and their character growth. Essek was both built as an antagonist, in a position that gives him significant agency, and also was then given significant opportunity to grow specifically to act as a narrative mirror for Caleb's arc. Even when he becomes a more traditional D&D ally, he still retains much of that, though he occupies a supporting role.

I believe that this is especially true because of the nature of Caleb's arc, which I've already written on; the tl;dr of this post is that Caleb is both convinced that he is permanently ruined and also desperate to prove that change is possible. Essek is that proof, because he is simply the character in a position to do so. But this also means that his propensity for introspection and openness is accentuated! He has to do the legwork on his own, for the most part, because that's where he is in the meantime.

But he still ends the campaign necessarily constricted; he is under significant scrutiny, he's at risk from the Assembly, and he goes on the run fairly soon after the story ends. He spends most of the final arc anxious and paranoid, which is valid given the crushing reality of his situation. It would be very easy to extrapolate that seven years into this reality, he would be insular, closed off, and suspicious of strangers, even in spite of the lessons he's learned from the Nein and their long term exposure.

So seeing his openness and lightness now is surprising, but at the same time, given this combination of factors in his position in the narrative over time and his defining traits, it's not by any means unreasonable.

But one thing that I found so delightful is how much trust he exhibits, which is obviously a wild thing to say about Essek in particular, given much of what he learns is both earning and offering trust, which was something he says explicitly in 2x124 that he's never really experienced: "I've never really been trusted and so I did not trust." It makes up much of the progression of his relationship with Caleb, and the trust that he is offered by the Nein in walking off the ship is the impetus he needs to grow.

But I think it's easy to talk about trust when it comes to people who have proven themselves to you or to whom you've ingratiated yourself, and that's really the most we can say about Essek by the time he leaves the Blooming Grove. There is this sense in a lot of discussion of trust (not solely in this fandom) that it is only related to either naivete or love, but there's far more to it. Trust at its best is deliberate—cultivating an openness to the world at large is a great way to combat cynicism and beget connection instead. It allows a person to maintain curiosity and be open to experience, but it can be incredibly difficult to hold onto.

It is clear that the Essek we meet now is a very pointedly and intentionally trusting individual. He trusts Caleb and by extension Caleb's trust in Keyleth, as he shows up and picks up a group of strangers from a foreign military encampment and walks in without issue. He trusts the Hells to follow his lead moving through Zadash and to exhibit enough discretion so as to avoid bringing suspicion upon all of them. He trusts that Astrid will respond well to his entrance, but he also trusts himself and the Hells enough to execute a back-up plan in the case that she doesn't. In the end, he even trusts them enough to give them his name and identity.

He doesn't scan as someone who has spent half a dozen years living like a prey animal, afraid of any shadow he runs across in an alley, withdrawn into himself and an insular family, which would've been an easy route for him to take. He scans as someone who has learned the kind of trust borne of learned confidence and a trained eye for good will and kindness, which are crucial weapons one would need for staving off cynicism in his circumstances—as if he has survived thanks more to connection and kindness than paranoia and isolation. (If we want to be saccharine about it, he scans quite poignantly as a member of the Mighty Nein.)

So it is easy to imagine this trust and openness as a natural progression of his initial search for perspectives external to his own cultural knowledge. Though he makes those first connections with the Assembly to try to vindicate his personal hypotheses, he finds in them exposure to the deepest corruption among Exandrian mortals, which could've—and did, for a time—turned him further down that same dark path.

But it's also this same openness to exposure from the wider world that allows the Nein to influence him for the better, and in spite of the challenges he's certainly faced simply surviving over the past seven years, he seems to have held onto this openness enough to move through the world with self-assurance and a willingness to extend the kinds of trust and good will that he has been shown.

(I would be remiss not to mention that I was reminded about my thoughts on this by this lovely post from sky-scribbles and their use in the tags of 'light' to describe Essek's demeanor this episode, which is really such an apt word for it.)