#it's very fulfilling!

[tarczar]

boys will watch Monkeybone (2001) starring Brendan Fraser and immediately start following a tutorial for HTML

[moshaeu]

phainon and heroism

[aroaceleovaldez]

the dynamic of demigods thinking which other demigod is the most powerful is always amusing to me because. like, we know the big 3 kids are all the most powerful. That's just a fact of their universe. And then we know nearly every character views Percy as the strongest demigod, and most people are very rightfully intimidated by him.

and you look at the powers of the Big 3 kids and there's Percy, but then you realize Nico is just kind of objectively more powerful than him but simply chooses to hang out in Percy's shadow like he's Percy's scary dog privileges. Like, the two of them are pretty equally capable of causing multiple different apocalypses. Nico just also has like four different instakill powers and it's not like he doesn't use them. He very much uses them! Not infrequently, even! And they don't seem to take a significant amount of energy from him! And other demigods are pretty intimidated by both of them! But Nico makes a conscious point to keep his cards close to his chest and not let on exactly how dangerous and scary he can be if he wants to. People are already scared enough of him without knowing anything about him and he doesn't like that. Percy doesn't think about that nearly as much, and so usually just goes in guns blazing and that's part of why he's considered a wildcard. And then Nico himself puts Percy on a pedestal, so those who do know more about Nico's abilities then presume Nico knows something they don't about Percy that implies Percy is even stronger than him.

And even on a meta level Nico's narrative role requires him to be functionally more powerful than Percy, because he very often serves the purpose of getting Percy out of situations he can't handle on his own. That's just part of his function as a character! But also narratively he can't overshadow Percy so he just takes a backseat of his own accord and that's very amusing to me.

[shorthaltsjester]

when people think delilah just completely takes over and laudna has no control. when people think jester is just an uwu child who has been manipulated by every man she’s met. when people think vex is an empty husk of daddy issues without her brother by her side. when people think fjord is an arrogant asshole who doesn’t pay attention to the party around him. when people think scanlan saying that vox machina doesn’t care about him is an accurate assessment.

[chronic-frustration-syndrome]

Hi there, fellow disabled person who can only really do computer stuff (but desperately needs to feel fulfilled in life) here;

My hands suck (chronic pain, unstable joints, giving me poor grip & mild dexterity issues, plus severe fatigue, plus semi-recently acquired intermittent temporary paralysis - yes it's weird!) But I recently found I can draw using a stylus on a tablet for (what is for me) a fairly long time, snce the almost complete lack of resistance provided by the slick screen means I can grip the stylus very lightly, & I also don't need to press down on it (I end up with a death grip on regular pens & pencils to stop them twisting out of my shifty fingers).

I also like to write, (which I find easiest to do using analogue tools, but) & find a mix of writing on my tablet (stylus again, but also smaller, lighter movements touching a touchscreen keypad than typing on a manual one) & using text to speech (plus occasionally regular typing) helps me jot my thoughts down most effectively.

My sister & I like to play games together, & the main thing we do is make worlds in sims 3, which is pretty fulfilling because not only do we enjoy the process, but every time we play with the worlds we can go "I made that" "we did a good job on this", etc, & feel proud of ourselves!

With all 3 types of activity, I find them most fulfilling when I share them with others (I have a small account for my art, another for some of my writing, plus I show my family things when I can) since the biggest downside to creating digitally is that no matter how big the file size gets it doesn't always feel like you've done anything, since there's nothing you can touch, but when you show someone else it reminds you "oh yes, I made that. I put in lots of time & effort & got a thing I can share with people".

I also like to engage with creative communities, even if I can't create myself. It doesn't always work - Sometimes I find it depressing as it reminds me I can't make a thing - but often, seeing something grow & take shape, sympathising with the trials & tribulations afforded by the creative process, being able to make suggestions if they ask for help or guidance, etc, gives me a sense of satisfaction that comes close to the satisfaction I get when making something myself - I also like to research skills & techniques I didn't know about before (& history)

Ideas gleaned from other people:

Some people use 3d modelling software instead of drawing in 2d

On top of regular printers (which can also help make digital creations become more tangible) you can also get 'cricut' machines (other brands available) that can cut out various shapes, make stickers, etc, which can help make something tangible, even if you need a hand with final assembly (I've been thinking of getting one myself) - obviously these cost, but people do spend money on their hobbies, so for some people it's a worthwhile investment (for others, it's not - 3d printers, ditto - though apparently you can make a bunch of adaptive tools using a 3d printer - think they're pretty expensive, though)

There are companies that let you make/will make stickers, tote bags, keychains, t-shirts etc, using anything from a snappy slogan made with basic text-creator, to a photograph, to a full-blown artistic masterpiece. There are other places which will let you print & bind books of your art/writing.

Other crafting games (or just games with tiers of achievments) exist - I believe minecraft lets you make all sorts of stuff - sims 3 just happens to be what my sister & I like :)

Photo or video (or gif) editing often involves creating using other people's work, which can make it feel more important than creating for just yourself sometimes does, & more tangible, since you're starting with 'raw materials', rather than just the infinite potential of a blank screen (plus it gives you the chance of a wider audience, making it easier to share with more people, whether it's the original creator whose work you helped edit, or fans of the larger work who you edited a snippet of).

Photography/videography: even though the end product is digital, you're still interacting with someone/thing that isn't. There are also many, many tools for taking photos remotely/hands free, stabilising the camera, etc, since even able-bodied photographers need these things for tricky subjects

Creating collages or fanvids or character playlists, etc, again, things to share with other people (that you also happen to enjoy) can get more fulfilling feedback, since it's easiest for people to connect to something they already know & enjoy

Digital meetups: some people play DnD, & other such games over online videocall, rather than in person, other people have (ir)regularly scheduled meetups about a whole range of topics (there's also things like discord, etc, but having a real-time face to face about a shared is a cut above)

Book/other discussion/study groups: getting together to talk about things face to face is always surprisingly rewarding (humans are social creatures, after all)

Turning silly cooking/crafting games where you 'pilot' another person (they do the making, but you have the recipe/instructions) can work for some people: it not only lets you create together, but can be very amusing, too (how much independant thought/activity they can do, how much of the instructions they know in advance, etc can be varied depending if you want a genuine thing that you made together or just a fun creative mess!)

Learning a skill/language gives you plenty of opportunities to engage & interact with other learners & test & encourage & teach, etc them (my sister met her husband online when they were learning each other's language: they were language buddies, then language, music & gaming buddies, then romantic, now married!)

Oh yes, music! whether it's using a digital music programme to create from scratch, writing tunes/lyrics, singing, remixing existing tunes, etc, there are tons of ways to make music & interact with other musicians online

Hope this gives you some ideas & you find something tangible that works for you :)

I read your post about rewarding activities and it was really interesting! I'm phisically disabled and can only really do computer stuff, and I've always had the intuition that having all of my hobbies in here kinda sucks. But I don't know what tangible hobby I could have when my hands won't let me. Do you have any suggestions for that?

I'm not an expert in any such thing; anyone else who can't use their hands have any advice?

As a side note, computer stuff is less effective than physical stuff, but adequate if that's what you have. People kept sane in quarantine with Zoom. There's a surprisingly high number of cases of suicidal people getting a handle on their depression by playing Dark Souls. I warned about the lesser effectiveness of digital stuff because it's a trap I see a lot of people falling into, assuming that digital work works as well as any other kind of work and having the computer take the entire load and getting distressed when it's not enough, but digital work is still psychologically useful, just less so. If that's the limitation you end up working with, you can work with it.

Rewarding activities don't have to require a lot of physical activity, either; tabletop rpgs are popular, for example, if another player rolls your dice for you. Local poetry clubs or book clubs can also be great fun. But again the advice of other people in your situation is going to be more valuable than whatever random shit I (whose hand mobility is normal) can come up with off the top of my head.

[dennydreadful]

Collection of my fake light novel/webtoon covers

[dykedvonte]

Curly's little blurb on his steam trading card just keeps reminding me he is a much more miserable person than people realize.

We don't get a lot of his thoughts, inner confliction that aren't bogged down by what Jimmy says or does. Even in the The Last One and Then Another, his dialogue is reflective, not the Curly before the crash but the result of everything. Parts of the him he was are there of course, but also disfigured and warped beyond recognition just like he is physically.

Curly really doesn't think much of himself and desires. He clearly chases fleeting moments of happiness. He doesn't really have prospects for himself, assumes in a similar way to Swansea, that if it should make it happy then he is happy. Though, he hasn't reached the point Swansea did to admit it doesn't. He neither sees the glass half full or empty, it's just water, something he needs and he'll take it from any perspective.

He wasn't running from anything but he's never really been going towards something either. He's listless. I've been using the term complacent to describe how he feels about his life and the closest people (really just Jimmy) in it, but now that word feels too neutral, too nice. Happier than Curly really was. There isn't just one word for it, he's unfulfilled, uncertain, uninspired. There are no active problems he faces and that's the issue, why should he be upset?

I believe he really is a person who doesn't know who he is or wants to be. He follows a structure. I don't think he's suicidal, but he clearly doesn't think about what makes him happy. He's numb. I suppose that is a better word than complacent, used to the feeling even if he hates it. It doesn't hurt so why stop it?

[knifearo]

ultimately when it comes to shipping and fandom space treatment of aspec characters i just don't accept "aro/ace people can still date/have sex" as an answer from nonaspecs. like yeah. mhm. okay. now i think we both know that you're not saying that out of real interest in the diversity of aspec experiences. so you can turn in your seventeen-page essay on why and how you plan to examine this character's aspec identity within the context of a romantic or sexual relationship complete with evidence from canon and peer reviews from multiple aspec people within the next week or i'm putting you in the pit from the edgar allen poe story

[itspileofgoodthings]

one of the things that continues to strike me on reread is how much the character of Darcy, and Austen through him, finds Mr. Bennet dead. And how much Elizabeth, in growing and changing and discarding her past blindness, has to move past her way of seeing her father and thus of seeing reality, because the two are connected! Darcy’s letter exposes her father’s flaws to Elizabeth in a way she’d never been able to see before. Most especially the way his laziness and neglect of his own gifts have hurt his family and that ultimately he doesn’t. care. Not enough to change. It literally says that she comes home from Hunsford and tries to laugh at her sisters’ and mother’s folly (the way she used to; the way her father has taught her to by example for her whole life) and she can’t anymore! It sticks in her throat. She is grieved by the failures that she sees in him, all the more so because she IS his favorite and she loves him! And the thing about Mr. Bennet is he never changes. The Lydia/wickham situation exposes to him sharply his own conduct and the consequences and he feels it! Because he is neither stupid nor unfeeling. But he, like everyone, has free will. And he chooses not to change when the opportunity presents itself. He even jokes about how quickly his feeling bad will pass and how soon everything will go back to normal, to his laziness and his selfishness. He is set in his ways and he serves as a contrast to Elizabeth’s personal journey because he embodies a version of a person she could have become and was in danger of becoming if her only goal at all times was to laugh at and judge people from the sidelines.

[bobbinalong]

Teen Lantern sharing her culture for @/dcforgaza on Twitter. You can still donate there until August 18th -- you don't even need a Twitter account -- and receive some art or a fic in exchange.

[beargregor]

wait i'm curious, what makes you say that gregor doesn't like everyone else (if i read that post right)? just curious since i've never seen anyone else say that

i don't necessarily think gregor dislikes everyone else at lcb but i do think that gregor is an incredibly petty person that isn't nearly as close to the rest of the sinners and even outright dislikes some of them cough cough rodya cough cough which a lot of people just Refuse to see because he's as much of a doormat as he is. there's several examples i could get into to try and prove my point however i'll just focus on what i personally think to be the biggest ones.

additionally, this is going to be kind of long, so i'm adding a read more. read more! read it. sorry for being so wordy. i have several diseases.

Pt1. gregor is the type to try and get along at least decently with everyone, especially if he gets a good first impression from them.

this is less a point in favor of gregor's distance w/ the rest of the sinners and more just a contributing factor to it. once again there's several examples i could point to here but i think the most in your face one happened in canto I with yuri, as several people have pointed out. even before gregor comes clean about growing attached to her as quickly as he did because she reminds him of his sister, we get this interaction.

i'll go ahead and make the disclaimer now that i don't necessarily think gregor is the most reliable of narrators, especially when it comes to his feelings and interactions with most people, but from the way he acts when the topic of yuri comes up (and the way we still see him act even all the way up to c7, nearly a whole year after yuri's death) i don't see reason to question his sentiment here. gregor immediately got that aya and yuri were close, potentially even taking note of their traded belts, and went out of his way to get something nice for yuri despite hardly knowing her.

i feel like a lot of people have forgotten as much, especially since it's been so long since c1, but gregor actually spent a good bit of season 1 doing the exact same thing with the other sinners! gregor reads a connection between him and ishmael pretty quickly despite getting off to a rocky start

mostly because gregor can tell that ishmael is pretty sardonic in a very similar way to him. there's been multiple instances where ishmael and gregor have essentially expressed the same sentiment at different moments, most notably gregor's little argument after ishmael got shot with a decay ampule in c4

and ishmael's response to pilot talking about self-sacrifice in c5

i could go ahead and pull up more examples, but in general pm has gone out of their way to show us that gregor and ishmael are pretty similar, so it makes sense for gregor to assume that they're friends, right?

this will be pushpin 1. keep note of this for Later.

ishmael's only the first sinner we see gregor trying to do this with in s1, we also see him try it out with heathcliff, sinclair, and ryoushuu

he's tried to get along with charon, being one of very few sinners that we've seen actually try to establish a connection with her at all

even rodya, despite my insistence that gregor doesn't like her nearly as much as the fandom thinks he does

all of these seem pretty fine and dandy, right? sure it frequently leans towards self-degradation, micromanaging, and commiseration, but gregor can at least be pretty chummy with most of the sinners, can't he?

Pt2. hell's chicken was more than just comic relief guys please

i'm fully aware that this is quite the hot take, but i think hell's chicken deserves a lot more credit for character writing than the fandom gives it. hell's chicken gave us foreshadowing for several events, such as the donqui bloodfiend reveal

heathcliff's distortion in c6 (as well as hong lu's highly speculated distortion at some point in the future)

and ryoushuu and sinclair's continued connection by making him the odd one out on her team

which, hey! that implies something about gregor's odd one out, don quixote, too, doesn't it? yes. yes it does. that's pushpin 2. keep note of that for later.

speaking of pushpins, hey! that's pushpin 1!

splitting into teams is one of the major events in hell's chicken, and most of the sinner's choices are either motivated by very little, backhanded, or motivated primarily by not wanting to be on the opposite leader's side. i didn't include all of the picks, just because i feel like including most of them already gets this across, but i think gregor took one major thing from this: most of the sinners, when push comes to shove, will only side with gregor when they refuse to or can't take his opponent's side.

now, don't get me wrong, i'm fully aware that this is primarily intended to be comedic relief, but when gregor is being described as having his trust broken by ishmael or nearly crying because no one on his team properly sided with him for him, i feel like it's pretty fair to read into this.

something that i think is pretty important to remember in conjunction with this is that we know that gregor is the type to hold a grudge, both from his general attitude towards the G corp soldiers in c1 as well as his continued distaste for vergilius

even beyond the splitting into teams of hell's chicken, the sinners have given gregor plenty of reasons to feel bitter. i feel like this is something people have noticed but haven't really put a finger on, but it's kind of wild just how often the rest of the sinners make gregor the butt of the joke

and sure, we could argue that a fair few of these aren't really made with any ill intent. quite a bit of it could have been meant as harmless teasing, but with gregor being more sensitive than most, it coming from nearly all sides, and as often as it does? yeah, i think he's prone to taking it a bit personally.

Pt3. yes i do still think gregor was the third most important character in canto VII you guys gotta hear me out okay

of course, all of this leads up to the bit of the story i highlighted, doesn't it? c7? i totally get why people haven't really picked up on all the gregor things i did in it, seeing as they were mostly not *directly* said about him or by him.

personally, i think that gregor's distaste for talking about himself on any serious level and thus leading to him getting sort of "sidelined" narratively (which i take issue with that claim, but still. it's effective for getting what i mean across atm) is supposed to lead players to take a deeper look at the times gregor gets held up to other characters and compare and contrast what's being said about them by the matchup. as i showed earlier with his immediate latching onto ishmael, i think this is something gregor himself is at least partially aware of too.

so, that begs the question, who was gregor compared to in canto VII that makes me think it's one of the most critical pieces in understanding his character?

really, i'd like to avoid getting too lost in the analysis of this canto specifically, since i'd like to do a proper post about this later, but i figure i can bury the lede a little before doing it properly.

c7 features several characters being made to perform in sansón's play, acting out the relevant backstory for this segment of the plot. a lot of these characters have rather direct, degrading reasons for playing the roles they do.

outis, a character with an inflated ego who wants her journey to have a purpose, is made to play an aimlessly wandering villager with a single line.

hong lu and ryoushuu, two characters for whom families and the expectations placed upon them are likely going to play a major role, are made to play bloodfiends.

rodya, a character who resents her lot in life and is constantly shown to be eager to leave her destitution behind her and become someone special, is made to play a helpless villager that's too poor to even offer any money to the hero that saves her.

heathcliff, a character that has spent most of his life getting dehumanized by comparing him to beastly animals, is made to play a literal bear whose sole purpose in the plot is to get beat up and then quickly left by the wayside.

sinclair, a character that has two opposed parties essentially treating him as a macguffin to procure for their side, is made to play the character who was arguably the catalyst for this entire canto, not to mention playing a decently major role in ruina.

our star don quixote is made to play her father, the first kindred, but there's someone by their side the entire time, isn't there? don quixote's dear, steadfastly loyal companion. a character which don quixote has tasked themself with getting to come out of their shell?

hello again, pushpin 2.

gregor has been made to play our unreachable star, sancho. someone had to, of course. you can't really tell a story without it's main character, now can you?

now, i should once again give a disclaimer. i am not trying to say that i think adapting what happens to donqui/sancho in c7 to gregor is the road pm is going to take here, not only would that toe a bit past the line of foreshadowing, but it'd also just amount to rehashing that plotline again, which i don't think would make for a particularly exciting story.

what i DO think is that we can take a lot of the things that are said to either directly be the case for sancho and use them to inform how we see gregor.

and god, does playing sancho have some fucking implications for our favorite ossan archetype.

starting off, the earliest moment we get to see of sancho is quite literally her just waiting for death to take her in a pile of ashes.

which, i should remind everyone, is actually pretty damn close to what happens to gregor's literary counterpart at the end of the metamorphosis. gregor samsa experiences one final breaking point that pushes him over the edge and makes him decide to just wait for starvation to take him.

gregor and sancho both consider themselves to no longer be human, something which sancho goes out of her way to highlight repeatedly throughout the canto and gregor is quick to get defensive on her behalf for when outis starts really tearing into her

sancho spends quite a lot of this story denying herself the joys of community and friendship, despite knowing that, even with the rest of the sinners frequently making jokes at her expense and outright insulting her, they were things that she desperately craved.

and, while this is getting into my "outis is a red herring meant to distract us from gregor's eventual betrayal" theorizing, i also think it's worth noting for this discussion that sancho's fellow kindreds, her family, all seem to be under the impression that she dislikes them and ultimately her departure was an act of betrayal

and that, despite gregor being one of LCB's resident mood makers and attempted conflict de-escalators, one of the sinners that's most prone to making appeals to the bonds they've all forged together, only him and faust remained silent during everyone's speech

so yeah, i think there's quite a lot of little details and hints building up to the reveal that gregor's not quite as fond of everyone as he presents himself to be. i do think a lot of this ultimately comes down to gregor getting in the way of his own happiness, similarly to donqui, particularly because he's been frequently portrayed as something of a self fulfilling prophecy, especially by giving him as many christ allegories as they have by way of priest and garden of thorns. gregor is convinced that the rest of the sinners don't like him because he's not convinced anyone could like him, so he convinces himself that he hates them because why should he care if someone that he hates hates him too?

a lot of this ultimately ties back to my personal interpretation of what happens in the metamorphosis as well as my own theories regarding all the times gregor has made weird callbacks and references to lobcorp and ruina, but yeah. i think about this guy and his deeper characterization a fairly normal amount, i think.

to end this off i'll highlight one of my favorite little "gregor is fucking seething and trying so hard to keep it cool" moments, in the credits CG for c7 we see rodya teasing him by drawing a little horse on his window and actively pointing and laughing at it, which gregor really doesn't seem all too pleased about.

i personally think this ties into the other cruel part of sansón forcing gregor to play rocinante, which is the more literal "he's actually just straight up playing rocinante" side of things. gregor was quite literally made to play something less than human, less than even animal really, as he was reduced to nothing more than the shoes don quixote wore as she got to play the leading role. sansón directly makes jokes about gregor being nothing more than shoes in the play twice, which adds to this reading, i think.

this, imo, really plays into the adaptation of the metamorphosis! i've seen a lot of readings for the book that posit that, despite being the protagonist, gregor samsa can't really be considered the main character due to nearly everything he experiences in it being used to further his family's character development at his expense, which i think fits nicely with limbus gregor seemingly having the most said about him through indirect means by holding him up to other characters. also it's rodya carelessly making fun of His Big Major Insecurities™ again like she did in c1 which i always find fun. rodya i love you but god you're the worst.

[avicecaro]

i will literally defend to the death women talking about getting an "ick" about male partners. yeah it’s kind of a dumb term but it serves its purpose. it’s my view that what’s talked about as "getting the ick" is actually looking back, rather than being looked at, often for the first time in a relationship. when you’re not caught up in the performance and charm of your relationship, when you’re a little disengaged, when you’re just looking at the guy. and you start to think … am i attracted to him? have i ever been attracted to him? and so yeah sometimes it’ll be tiny innocuous things. i don’t care if watching her boyfriend order dessert in a restaurant or carry a water bottle or eat messily or cry is the sudden tipping point when she takes a step back, really looks at the guy, and goes "what am i doing? i don’t even like him" like good for her for realizing and getting out. listen to your gut.

[satans-knitwear]

Ooooo I forgot to post this one!! How cruel of me!!

Treat me ~ Tip Me ~ More of me

[tizzymcwizzy]

my final pieces for my humanities project! the topic was on bearing witness to history

this collection covers some of the facets of being a first generation chinese american kid, and for me specifically, being a biracial white asian kid

[lmnburger]

whole lotta shiba !

[starchildghost]