#tedious joys

[vse-kar-vem]

🍏💚🍏💚🍏💚

[kinstein-art]

tricking my brain into thinking anatomy practice is fun by drawing the strawhats

[coldshrugs]

these violence asks are hard!! i'm not as salty as i used to be 🥹 mostly i just want people to enjoy the things they enjoy, and let me enjoy the things i like in the way i enjoy them? without the "wow, you must not be having any fun Like That." i'm having a great time!! mostly because i'm not worried about what other people are doing or how they're having fun. My Fun and Their Fun may not always mesh, but that's alright. when something does bother me, i can have a quick vent, and take one of three options: remove myself from the situation, filter the content, or block about it. then i keep it moving. am i at peace?

[vash-in-the-void]

progress check no.7 on the knit doll project

vash now has a face and hair :3

i gotta add some more hair before i start styling it because right now he has the 16th century monk bald spot

ready to join the monastery ^^

(he also has the coat already however i am reworking it rn because i dont like it, its not flappy enough)

[wildwood-faun]

listening a Lot to this audiobook but unfortunately it's not because I'm hooked it's just because I want to be done with it

[gaytobymeres]

I need a creative hobby because I feel like I’ve managed to lose that part of myself over the past few years so maybe I should get into photography or something

[kaijudyke]

any time i get extremely into something i spend a lot of time thinking very intensely about making a fanvid for it and then i don't bc it's too much work

[hxhhasmysoul]

I've played something like up to mid act 3 of Baldur's Gate 3 now, have opinions on origin characters and companions. SOME MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD. But I'm trying to be as vague as possible.

Maybe I will start with the good because there's less of it but it's what keeps me from crying.

Karlah - best girl, no notes. She's got a very fun personality, her back story is very good and her behaviour tracks really well with that back story. Same goes for the things she approves of an disapproves. She's also very attractive and that's a bonus. She's for a good playthrough mostly but I'm not into evil playthroughs so I don't really care. She's a very reliable party member but barbarian isn't the best class solo, I multiclass her for better efficiency.

Lae'zel - very solid character, she's kinda scary and better than though in the beginning but her skills and efficiency really explain some arrogance. The githyanki are a specific society and she's very into their way of life but as I spent more time with her and did her quests I liked her more and more. It's funny how she's proud of her brainwashing. Her behaviour and approval also makes sense. And damn she's got game. She's a little too skinny looking for me but I think it's because that's how githyanki are, she's still hot.

Wyll - he's interesting because he really wants to be a good person but isn't the best at getting there. His back story is really good and he's personality is interesting. I find myself rooting for him to find himself, to actually be the man he wants to be. His behaviour is consistent and what he approves of and doesn't also makes sense. Hottest among the guys, no contest. The problem is that warlocks aren't the strongest class, another candidate for muliclassing to make him stronger.

Halsin - daddy, Larian let us cuddle the bear and it offsets some of the shitty writing Larian is so so guilty of. Alas it shows that he was put in because of fan pressure, there's not that much story tied to him and that lands him slightly below Wyll. His personality is very pleasant and looks wise he's a fan favourite for a reason. Halsin is a druid that makes him very useful and very strong. I wish Larian'd actually planned to make him a companion from the start.

The sadly disappointing.

Astarion - the biggest disappointment since early access. I used to like him a lot, he's got very good dialogue early on. He also has an interesting back story that initially makes his attitude very understandable. But it feels like the writers had no idea what to do with him. The more I spend time with him the more he annoys me. It's really hard to predict what he will approve or disapprove of. A lot of time he just seems contrarian for no reason. He feels disconnected from the main story, it doesn't feel he grows closer to my character, unlike with Lae'zel for instance where I feel the change of gaining her approval. Looks wise he's average, I'm really not into the pale and white haired.

Could go either way.

Minthara - idk anything about her, I have never and am not planning to side with the Absolute. Her looks are average so no temptation there. Her religious fanatic thing also isn't tempting because I already have Shadowheart and she doesn't ask me to slaughter refugees and animals to grace me with her shitty company.

As to the characters returning from the previous games. I'm very against this move by Larian or the DnD overlords, whoever is culpable. One of those companions had such an extensive quest in BG 2 that honestly it's annoying they're here to have more personal quests. Also this character kinda annoys me when it comes to their personality and affiliation. The other character that's coming back is less aggravating to me personally though they are an acquired taste for some. I wouldn't mind them joining my camp and serving as advisors or even romance options, but them taking up companion slots is really a big minus of the game. Either way I have no intention of ever having them in my party, I'm not interested in them. I'm so mad we couldn't get Alfira, or Barcus, or Isobel, or that guy from the githyanki hatchery as a companion. Those and possibly others I'm forgetting, could have been good companions with interesting potential.

Now we're getting to the bad. And honestly it's not simply bad, it's instantly very bad.

Shadowpout - idk what to say, Her personality is grating, she's pouty, she thinks she's mysterious but she's just a poor liar. She's constantly in self denial that borders on stupidity. I don't respect her goal to become a fanatical enforcer. Her moody dialogues that I guess are meant to be ironic or sarcastic are just annoying, I've told her to shut up several times, like out loud, towards the screen. She's also proud of being brainwashed, like Lae'zel, but her arrogance really isn't backed up by any skill. Gods with her built in specs she's useless in a fight, mele, spells single use or concentration based, healing, you name it she can't do it well. Multiclassing or respecking her is a must above the lowest difficulty if you want to have her in the party - and a well speced cleric/druid in the party extremely useful. Honestly it's easier to run a party without a wizard/sorcerer/warlock than without a cleric/druid - that's why I still take her into the camp and revive her when she dies. Her looks are average but her personality is so off putting that she kinda grosses me out.

Gale - the fucking incel. He's a walking nice guy mansplainer stereotype. He's even worse than a normal mansplainer, he's a wizardsplainer. He will wizardsplain magic to a sorcerer character and the people who wrote it think that's flirting, at least that's how I understand that scene. What the actual fuck. That scene gave me the creeps, together with that scene where he explains his back story of: he had a thing with that one gal, it finished, she broke it off, stopped taking his calls, he couldn't take a no and decided that if he makes a grand romantic gesture she will take him back. Oh, and he still has a spell where he projects an illusion of her face to stare at her. But he's also monogamous, will not allow for the player character to branch out. I kid you fucking not. And he manages to be condescending with almost everything he says, fucking his his tone is at least as annoying as Shadowpout's. Gross, I judge anyone who pursues a romance with him. Because he's like this I actually stopped meeting him since mid early access, there's actually a way to never meet him in the game. And it pains me because his affliction feels like such a nice handicap to have in your gameplay. But he's a wizard so he's replaceable.

The Dark Urge - shitty edgy Larian writing at its fucking worse. The little introduction of the Dark Urge is all about resisting. But there's nothing to this character when you resist. There's only stuff for those who will play to embrace the urge and like what's the point of having a character like that in a Role Playing game which supposedly is about player choice!? It's completely pointless and it's doubly insulting to me as someone who grew up with BG1 and BG2 because that character references that story line the most directly. First of all that's stupid because the point of that story was to reach a conclusion but also that story was all about living with a horrifying legacy and making choices on how to handle it and you could play it as good, bad or neutral as you wanted and it didn't shut you out of most of the content related to your character.

[tecchan]

1.00 masterpieces by Prompto Argentum

[timebanditts]

might kill myself out of boredom today

[raoulgoldenlake]

I am not opposed to AI for any well thought out moral reason but rather because I fear the robot overlords. I don’t even like my computer automatically alphabetizing a list of states. I can do that myself thank you!!!

[sad--tree]

almost definitely gonna actually for-fucking-realsies pass my courses this term and GRADUATE finallyyy ! ! !

[nikkashidashipper]

i am once again considering dropping out of uni

[worst-mithrandir]

💕🤍🩷Complex Fractions💗💛💖

[comicaurora]

Hey, sorry if you’ve been asked this before, but I have ADHD and I’ve been following your comic for years and just now have started to write my own comic (partially because you really inspired me). But I’m really struggling with staying on the project even when it’s boring and getting myself to work on it in the first place. Do you have any tips on how to keep your brain invested or just to make yourself do the work at all?

I have excellent news, I literally just figured out something really important about this.

So when you're an ADHD kiddo or otherwise have difficulty staying on task in a structured environment where Task is the Priority, the main way people try to MAKE you stay on task is by removing your access to anything that is not The Task. No phone, no TV, no doodling, no going outside, etc. In practice, this just makes us miserable because it takes the boredom that's always simmering around a 2 or 3 and cranks it all the way up to 11. In the same way that you would have difficulty staying on task if you were in physical pain, this crushing existential monotony makes it very difficult to work. The work might get done simply because you have no other options, but it will not be done quickly or well, and it will take a while to recover from how much it hurt.

What I realized earlier this week is I caught myself doing this to myself. I had 42 pages of background colors to do, and I thought to myself "this sounds really tedious, but I suppose I have nothing better I can do." And I realized what I'd just thought, and got very alarmed.

Because back when I was an ADHD kiddo imprisoned by school scheduling and a million little factors that keep children immobile and restrained, I couldn't stop thinking about how big and exciting the world was, and how much I wanted to be anywhere but here. When I was feeling really crushed in I'd pick a random spot on the maps on my wall and just imagine being there instead of my bedroom. This was the impetus behind almost all of my creative energy. I've said it before - anything is a prison if you can't leave, and being in a prison makes it easy to imagine how amazing things could be outside of it. Aurora's initial worldbuilding was forged in the crucible of fifth grade misery. My enthusiasm for art and my creative drive are inextricable from my sense of wonder and yearning for excitement in the real world. Not escapism, but appreciation. Wonders unimaginable are out there, and I gain just as much joy seeking them out as I do conjuring them up in my head and sharing them with all of you.

So now that I'm a grown-up with actual freedom in every way I've been able to get, the idea that I was staying on task by making myself believe the world was small and not worth seeing was extremely alarming. It could keep me on task for an afternoon, but at the cost of slowly extinguishing the thing that made me want to make art in the first place - the hunger to experience and draw inspiration from all the myriad complexities in the world.

So what I've been doing is I've been purposefully and intentionally taking excursions whenever I catch myself thinking "I could take a break but it wouldn't be worth it, it's the same outdoors as always, I'll be uncomfy and unproductive and tired." Because that is never true. Every time I've put down the stylus and gone out, I've been renewed in one way or another, and when I come back to comfort fully recharged I get a lot of shit done. Because it is easier to work on anything if you remember why you wanted to make it in the first place, and it is self-defeating misery to just lock yourself in with it and tell yourself you're a bad person if you can't get it done.

I honestly don't know how widely applicable this is. I have worse wanderlust than anyone I know, so for me this has always been modeled as imprisonment vs freedom. I've also been extremely lucky to find myself in a profession that lets me set my own pace on literally everything I do. But I genuinely believe that when it comes to making art with ADHD, you need to give yourself freedom to move laterally, not just in the direction of obvious forward progress. We don't think linearly in any other part of our lives - art is no different.

[harrylights]

💕💕💕💕