#so deeply unhappy

[lizbethborden]

Oh man. Thinking so much about one of the people I worked for at the hellhole. She would get wound up and go off at me in a completely vicious way. I am not really a person who yells or gets angry in those situations, my goal is always to deescalate, so I would yes her to death rather than respond meaningfully--and the one time I did try to push back on her on something she was pissed about, she overrode me repeatedly and started accusing me of "defending" the person she was mad at (I wasn't, I agreed with her criticism, I just was a decent human being with empathy for others' situations). What I really should have done was either yelled back or walked away, but I always defaulted to yes'ing her, especially because she would wait until we were in my small, enclosed office to do it and I would have no way of getting away from her. I found out that she HATED that I would always go "Okay" and "I understand," because I would just do it and do it until she stopped, and she said it "makes people feel criticized." If you don't want to feel criticized, don't behave that way...? Between her and the owners, I got yelled at more in like 10 months of working than I did in 3 years at Starbucks.

[oxygen-stealer]

Grab the bull by the horns

[christakisbang]

[phoenixcatch7]

It's always funny to me when in an lu fic the chain is offered bananas and don't accept them. Like, you're offering these high energy adventures free food?? Fruit they'll have never even heard of before??? A ridiculously expensive imported good at best?? AND it boosts your attack?

Not ONE of these idiots would ever turn down something new and interesting to eat at least once. They'd be all over those bananas and immediately get dubbed yiga and I'm honestly surprised no one has used it in a fic yet 🤭

[chalkrub]

vega my best friend vega

[finchmarie]

Dropping a late night can't sleep doodle and fleeing into the void.

[iiscpr]

too late, it's too late

[nodadraws]

It's been a while, but here's my piece for @opshankszine from last year! You can still grab the zine and other goodies in the aftersales! ♡

couple progress shots under the cut:

i had a very specific image of the composition and angle in mind and knew i'd be sitting there for hours if i had to the perspective by hand. luckily the 3d setup in csp is truly a godsend for stuff like this + used this ship model from sketchup for placement.

cleaned up the entire piece and only then realized i'd accidentally made every single red haired pirate left-handed -- did some frantic research and luckily only yasopp is definitely right-handed, but i really didn't want to redo large parts of the image to place him elsewhere so i had to compromise and just lose his gun.

rendering rendering. kept tuning the values and colors until the end and i'm still not happy with them. this is actually what inspired me to do my 10 min film studies earlier this year to focus on more decisive value/color work earlier on into painting!!

[sparring-spirals]

I was initially clipping this to capture the overwhelmingly accurate, absolutely devastating hilarity of "you went for realistic, and sadly, you nailed it". And then just kept recording because I really fucking love the discussion about how to balance the line between like:

You are trying to tell a story that feels good and gives you the kind of lift you might be looking for in an explicitly fantasy story,

vs

How to ensure it still feels grounded and rewarding in a way where you can "bring this good feeling back to earth" at the end.

Like they're talking about TTRPG's but they clearly make parallels to other forms of storytelling/worldbuilding mediums, like movies, and. like. Yeah. Yeah.

Like the framing of "you really recreated the feeling of powerlessness..." and wanting the fantasy element to manifest in there being the clearer, straightforward ways to solve complex issues, vs trying to ensure that you can have a victory and it feels feasible and substantial and applicable in some way, and has something you can take out of the fantasy world and hold with you back on "terra firma".

Its tricky! Its a tricky thing to balance, and I don't think there's a single "right" answer nor should there be because it depends. It depends on the story, and the intent, and the setting, and the medium, and etc. Big fan of this framework to explain it.

[taylorrepdetective]

I know she had era tour but I don’t think I can do it w a broken heart is actually eras tour

I thought of this too. Maybe sometime down under? No way to know, but I did think the line she threw in at the end “Try and come for my job” might have hinted at something. I can read it both ways. As always, we’ll never know for sure. But I think it’s fair to say she has felt this way many times. It reminded me of Katy having to go on stage immediately after having her husband tell her he was filing for divorce. And it’s relatable. We’ve all had to put on a happy face at work and pretend things are fine at home.

[tricoufamily]

a current day nils and a 90s college student nils who's way too intense about his internship walk into a bar

[clerichs-xi]

taps mic. is anyonw still here. hello. this is my bg3 tav dante he likes playing with/manipulating people as well as proving hes better and smarter than them. hobbies: chasing after that pale elf vampire ass, thinking abt battle tactics and general scheming and planning. and also being a vampire caprisun btw

[zishuge]

Have you had lunch? What time is it? Of course I have. ...What about snacks? I've had those too. Story of Kunning Palace (2023) | Ep. 14

[astralleywright]

when considering Ashton's reasoning about Imogen continuing to give in to Predathos, that her being lost is inevitable and that it would be better if it happened now as opposed to later, it feels very important to remember what they said to Laudna when they first landed in Issylra, when she was terrified Imogen had become a moon-worshiping zombie in their separation: If she got blasted into space, we'll go to space. If she got vaporized, it's not like we didn't fucking find you. There is nothing else until this is dealt with. This is what we do, is we bring everybody back. Not only is nobody getting left behind very much Ashton's thing, but he specifically does not see Imogen being lost to Predathos as her being lost for good. (and tbh I agree, given how heavily the story since the start of the campaign has been leaning on her to confront this.) And even if it did, they'd still go through hell trying to get her back.

But it also makes me think of what Imogen told Ashton, after the shard; maybe this was destiny, like they thought it was. Maybe what they needed was to shatter into pieces and come back together. That same idea, of controlled burning, needing to confront something to overcome it, fuck yeah, jump into that lava and find yourself, to hurt is to heal - Ashton, we watched you break into a thousand tiny pieces. If she got vaporized, it's not like we didn't fucking bring you back.

[communistkenobi]

sometimes I think oh actually being completely estranged from both of my parents is getting less painful now and then I see a tiktok about a guy showing off a beautiful present his daughter made for him and i have to stop watching the video so I don’t cry

[snakestry]

We all knew it was only a matter of time, right?