#brain problems

[asexualcorvidae]

I finished Wanderstop yesterday. I really liked it. A solid game.

The way the story interwove with the mechanics was very overt, but also very good. There's obvious friction in the mechanics, which is intentional; when you do the same task over and over again, you notice the small inefficiencies, like how long something takes or that your garbage can is right in front of your fridge so it turns on when you open the fridge (true story). But that's all part of it! Was it the most innovative game I've ever played? No. Did I get tired of some of those inefficiencies by the end? Yeah. But that's pretty typical!

The story is the real standout here. A lot of posts I see say that Wanderstop is about burnout, which is like saying Celeste is about overcoming difficulty. It's not... wrong. But it's not telling the full picture.

[Full game spoilers ahead!]

Wanderstop is about hating yourself. It's about hating something you have done or someone you have been so much that you wish you were a different person. This is much more obvious by the end of the game, and I suspect most of those reviews saying the game is about burnout had not reached this point. Still, that is what this game is about. Alta doesn't burn out solely because she worked too hard. She is deeply lethargic because she carries around the burden of being a failure and a monster.

There's so much that Wanderstop gets right about this experience that it makes me glad. Way back in the day, I used to talk about how much I loved empathetic portrayals of downright unpleasant and especially violently mentally ill people. Alta is never redeemed for her violence. The game does not ask you to overlook what she did or move past it. But the narrative gives space for Alta to comprehend her own actions, that she (not some spirit possessing her) did try to kill someone who was just trying to help, and says, "You still carry in you the capacity for good. Whether you do good is up to you." Not to sound like a therapy enjoyer, but there's space for both of these things - just like there's space for the synthesis of both Altas.

On that note - I loved the concept of the forest creating "space" between the two fragments of Alta (and doing the same later with Monster), because that is exactly what it was like for me. I used to fight with myself all the time, and that's what those conversations with myself were like - like two different people, with two completely different mindsets and perspectives, existing just a few centimeters apart from one another. It also represents the way that people overcome (violent) impulses - by creating just a small space to pause and think. That space starts so incredibly small, but just a tiny wedge allows you to slowly wedge in more time until you can really take a good 30 seconds to think before you chunk your phone across the room. (True story.) (I'm very lucky that I never broke a phone doing that.) (This happened many times.)

I wonder what a story like this would have meant to me shortly after making peace with myself - or even moreso, before then. I don't know if I would have liked this game as much! I might have even liked it more, but also sobbed like a baby during it. It's definitely a very emotional story, even by the end, and I quite liked it. There's a lot you can unpack from that game. I definitely recommend it.

[variablejabberwocky]

learning that a adhd brain might seek out ragebait to get easier access to dopamine is changing so many of my habits right now

just remembering this any time i get worked up and going "okay, lets stop this for a while and go do/think of something really cool and engaging and see if the rage is still there"

and just...so much of it was just dopamine hunting

this is just about the least stressed i've been in...ages

@thebibliosphere thank you for sharing your medical woes and wins, its saving years of my goddamn lifespan right now

[kogiopsis]

My ADHD evaluation four years ago: Do you struggle to finish the last steps of an almost-completed task?

Me, clueless: Uhhh... I don't think so?

Me today: Oh. I actually finished the entire base game of Inquisition with Faina nine years ago and have only DLCs to do before her playthrough is complete.

um.

[esseastri]

Me: yeah, once it gets warmer, I really want to make taking a Stupid Mental Health Walk a priority.

My therapist: Today is warmer.

Me: I…suppose so….

My therapist: You know when is a GREAT time to take a Stupid Mental Health Walk?

Me: …now?

My therapist: Well, in 8 minutes when we get off this call, but yes.

[goblin-enjoyer]

Brain I know you want to integrate homestuck lingo/terms/quotes etc into my vocabulary and I will eventually come to terms with the fact that trying to stop this is like trying to stop a fish from swimming, but if you are going to be doing this can you at least remember other stuff Terezi has said instead of just going “H3Y COOL K1D!” in a Terezi voice and just stopping from there? Like it’s awkward for both me not knowing where to go from here and for anyone around me not knowing where the bits going. Please just learn more dialogue so we’re not stuck saying the same thing over and over.

[lin-squiggly]

Executive dysfunction ruins my life on a near daily basis and I really wanna know how to fix it >.>

Like, if I could even just do things I wanna do 50% more often than I can currently, I'd get so much fucking done.

[sluttyquarantinetheory]

me: needs to be up for work in 4 hours

My brain: THE CHARACTER. THE NARRATIVE. MUST CONTEMPLATE. MUST LAMENT. IDEAS. FUCK YOUR SLEEP.

[intosnarkness]

okay i think i have realized why posting an unfinished story is a fun experiment that I will never do again:

the expectations are eating my brain

the comments about how they're so excited for the next part, or to see how x or y transpires

me too. how do you think i'm going to do that? cause I haven't yet. and I don't know. and the pressure is just... immense. it's making it so fucking hard to write.

lesson learned: after this we will always, always finish before posting. this way does not work for me.

edit to add: this is nothing against the readers and commenters who i love and will fight in the pit for. just, trying something out and realizing why i'm not cut out for the post-as-you-go model

[paindevil]

read too much weird fic and i'm no longer interested in sex or conventional relationships just shedding blood for my sworn liege

[moratheexplorer]

How do I train my dash to not show me any pictures of the actors or BTS stuff please??

Like, I love this show but for me seeing pictures of the actors out of character, or scenes with the cameras/scripts, stuff from BTS breaks my immersion so much, I hate it. It's like I immediately remember they are actors, they are doing a script, it's a show, none of this is real, then what's the point of watching. Then I have to make a great effort to suspend my disbelief next time I want to watch an episode.

Am I the only one who has this problem in general?

[asexualcorvidae]

I am having a hard time today. PT is going poorly. My body has reacted to very gentle exercising by having my pain flare up again. I’m doing so little and it’s still too much and I think PT doesn’t know what to do with me if it continues this way.

So. If you have a moment. I’d appreciate some kindness, in whatever form it takes. Thanks.

[variablejabberwocky]

woke up the closest thing to manic i have ever experienced in my life

now i'm having upset tummy time from the adrenaline drop and The Anxiety creeping back in

fun times

[caesarsaladinn]

ok I’m sorry to ask this again but on account of the Problems I would really appreciate if you would share any words of encouragement you have. it’s been a shit ass and very lonely day

[jonsnow]

had a sort of crushing epiphany that on a fundamental level i deep down believe that to live is to suffer and also to cause harm, and that both in varying measures will ultimately outweigh any meaning or joy or compassion that anyone is able to find in this mortal coil.

and in addition i believe that the world is a bad place and will inevitably continue to get much, much worse with every passing year for the rest of my lifetime and very likely the rest of human existence.

which, all together, means that i feel in my soul that to bring a human being into life is an act of immeasurable cruelty to them & a contribution to the casual, pointless evil of existence.

and it's not that i didn't know i believed these things before, but what i didn't quite consciously connect that to is that the *opposite* of my beliefs doesn't require an abiding love for humanity, it merely requires one to *not* feel that it is a *bad* thing to exist as a person and/or for people to exist.

this is a big breakthrough for me in my quest to understand why i get so pissed off whenever i hear about someone having a baby. because to me it seems like thoughtless cruelty and selfishness, even from people i otherwise like and respect & think would be good parents.

mostly i do try hard to keep these feelings under wraps, because other people have different ethics, so i should try to be tolerant like my vegan friends are towards me, but occasionally i'd try to voice my concerns, and i'd be met with what to me sounds like an unsatisfying & ill-considered denial of reality - some vague platitude about also fearing for the future of the world, but wanting/needing to have some small hope. and internally i'm feeling, what the fuck gives you the right to foist *your* desire for hope onto a child?

but it suddenly clicked for me when i considered whether i would want to be a biological parent in a world where i thought that it was basically neutral or good to be alive, and i realized that wow, yes, i probably would be like "i like children and people, isn't it a wild thing that i could grow a new one and just see how they turn out? and yes it would be excruciatingly difficult physical and logistical ordeal and possibly kill me, and that's not even to get into the gender stuff, and maybe their life will be very difficult and/or take resources from others, but it's a worthwhile thing to attempt, because *people* are worthwhile and neither my own existence nor that of my hypothetical children is a waste."

and for a moment i could so clearly feel what it might be like to be that version of me, to the point where i thought that if at that second an exact duplicate of me was created, i would happily let either the other me or myself choose that path, while the other one of us kept on the dim path of realism. but i can't be two people. so i don't think i can be that person. but now a part of me wishes that i could be, in a way that i didn't so much before. and i'm not sure whether that's going to increase or decrease my resentment, the next time i'm expected to be congratulatory about someone's stupid baby

[littlest-void]

The rats I have in place of a brain: what if you rotated the characters for 8 full hours instead of working

[fishthegenderwitch]

The light covers in our townhouse are boring ASF. Like, look at this nonsense.

They all look like this. All the same, sad round light covers.

That being said, I can't do much about them barring making another, snazzier light cover, so I've been searching for a good crochet lampshade pattern. (I'm looking at covering the one in my own bedroom right now.)

The main problem is that the best ones I'm finding are being shown in a 2 minute YouTube video that's like "CROCHET LAMPSHADE PATTERN!" and you find out they saved bad super pixel-corrupted jpegs to show as a slideshow and no actual pattern. -seethes-

Anyway, I've found a few patterns that I'm going to power my way through til I want to set them on fire (I hope it doesn't get to that point).

Just as an example, THESE are what I'm talking about, because I can't seem to find anything super pretty in a written pattern.

And this next image, like this is awesome, but finding the pattern? Lolno.

If I can find a sweet enough cuff or lacy border pattern, I can sew them together to make a longer piece to hang down from the light cover itself.

LIKE THIS! I know it's a skirt, but it looks awesome! Also unfortunately it's in a language I don't know. Two, actually.

One of those is "image crochet pattern". I do not know this language. Where do you start?? What's the code here?? I have the crochet legend for these, I just need to get into the nitty gritty of where to start, what direction to follow.

I think I'm going to try the first one, and also poke at cobbling together a round doily pattern with other shapes of decorative crochet. Stay tuned, but not too hard; I'm slow at stuff.