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General chat thread

Reader mode
TanaNari said:
Hoo boy. So, my life's... well, I need to vent. Probably since the first time since I was a teenager, I'm in a situation where I don't feel like I'm in control and at least know what my next course of action is.

And, may as well cast this out there if only just to de-frazzle some nerves. Because I really don't have people to talk to, I've never needed people to talk to.

Also: don't worry about the whole 'wellwishing' thing. That's always felt hollow to me, I'm just here to ramble a bit.


So, as some percentage of you know, I've been looking after my grandmother for the last, oh, let's say about eighteen years now. At the time, I really was the only one who could. While my uncle or a couple of my cousins might have been able to move her into their homes, I was the only one really in a position to move in with her. All I had to do was move out of an apartment. In the same town, even.

The years went by, this became a pretty happy normal. Save money, do all the man stuff around the place like mow a damn acre that's more swamp than land. Be a failed writer.

All very comfortable, all very normal. I was happy, and more than that, I was content.

Hey, I found what I love, and am still willing to let it kill me.


And then this week happened. Grandma gets sick, we take her to the hospital. Not the first time. Not the first time this summer. Looked like UTI infection #20-ish at this point.

Listeria. Fucking. Listeria. Which I find out about when the health department calls me up to play 200 questions. Because why would the hospital tell me anything? I'm only the one who's spent the last couple decades looking after her.

Side note: there's been a listeria outbreak in the USA since July. And somehow I didn't hear a thing about it.

As much as I bitched at her for not watching her diet, not doing her exercises to keep up her strength, not taking care of her kidney issues, and later skipping her dialysis treatments... this is what's probably going to kill her. Something she had absolutely no power to prevent.

Of course, I ate all the same stuff she did. But apparently my immune system proves its demigod status yet again and I'm perfectly unharmed.

They had to do a surgery to put a port in her heart to supply the antibiotic directly because her circulatory system isn't strong enough. There's a very real chance she dies tonight, since the surgery weakened her already frail condition.

If not- an eight week long antibiotic regimen. She'll need her dialysis done almost every day rather than three times a week. And if that happens, it's likely she's going to refuse treatment and go on hospice.

I wouldn't even blame her.

Fucking lysteria.

And I have no idea what I'm going to do. I'll probably get this property. The swamp. That I don't want. In a neighborhood where I'm the only resident under the age of seventy. Full of houses that are at least fifty years older than the residents. Made of such illustrious building materials as lead paints, asbestos, and creosote-soaked railroad ties that someone probably stole.

I've spent functionally my entire adult life looking after this one person. Wake up, make sure Grandma's okay, set up something for lunch. Go to work. Come home. Check on grandma. Cook dinner. Make sure Grandma took her meds.

Called profanities and told to go to hell because I won't let her slop a solid inch of condiments on a burger. Or when I would throw away the bags of candy she'd get. I never figured out who kept giving them to her.

I made a point of doing so while she was watching, you know.

Because I am almost as stubborn as she is, and significantly more ambulatory. Why, yes, there are people more stubborn than me. I'm related to quite a few of them.

All that effort into trying to get her to take better care of herself, all her effort in resisting... and none of it mattered.

Because listeria. Spread because some produce company screwed something up, probably halfway across the country.

And I'm sitting here asking "now what do I do with my life?" Because even if she gets through this, it's taken most of what's left off the inevitable countdown to the end.

And on that day, one of the parts of my life I'd just taken for granted will be gone.


Guess this is what empty nesters feel like. Except if I get woken up at 3AM to her needing to crash on the couch, I'm calling a priest.
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Just reading this made my jaw drop simply because of how relatable it is to me.

Much like you I spent more than half my life caring for my parent, in this case, my adoptive dad. He had a slew of health problems due to his advanced age, and I was to care for him through both the (very few) good times and (very, very many) bad times because the rest of my family couldn't be bothered. As time went on I saw him change. Watching dementia and parkinson's disease slowly and viciously erase what was once him was soul crushing for me. Eventually, he needed to be entered into a nursing home because his condition was way beyond what I, at the time a 21-year-old C student with no ambition could treat. He passed away from an aortic anyurism 8 months later. That was 10 years ago, and a lot has changed for me since that time.

Just wanted to share this to let you know you're not alone. If you ever want to talk about it, feel free to hit me up in DMs.
 
It's interesting how I have a bit of arachnophobia but I don't seem to have any problem with tarantulas.

I hate seeing spiders and I hate touching webs. When it comes to fictional giant spiders my view is burn them with fire but whether or not I feel any sense of fear depends on how they look but even then I'm not terrified. Hogwarts Legacy had an arachnophobia mode since a lot of people got freaked out by the giant spiders but I never felt the need to use it. Of course if I ever saw a real giant spider I probably would have a heart attack.

But tarantulas are just meh to me and I even think some of the colors and patterns they can have are interesting. I've seen a handful out in the wild and I've seen some in exhibits or live shows. I've even had one or two crawl on be as part of a demonstration. And for some reason they just don't trigger my arachnophobia. Maybe because they're hairy?
 
Drak4806 said:
It's interesting how I have a bit of arachnophobia but I don't seem to have any problem with tarantulas.

I hate seeing spiders and I hate touching webs. When it comes to fictional giant spiders my view is burn them with fire but whether or not I feel any sense of fear depends on how they look but even then I'm not terrified. Hogwarts Legacy had an arachnophobia mode since a lot of people got freaked out by the giant spiders but I never felt the need to use it. Of course if I ever saw a real giant spider I probably would have a heart attack.

But tarantulas are just meh to me and I even think some of the colors and patterns they can have are interesting. I've seen a handful out in the wild and I've seen some in exhibits or live shows. I've even had one or two crawl on be as part of a demonstration. And for some reason they just don't trigger my arachnophobia. Maybe because they're hairy?
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Maybe you're like me? The scariest part of spiders and snakes is the idea of getting bitten once and dying with nothing I can do about it, or at least experiencing a lot of pain. Tarantulas, Wolf Spiders, and Goliath Spiders are huge for spiders, but not very venomous to humans and that size means they can't sneak up on you as easy. I wouldn't enjoy being attacked by one, but it's not the same terror as something like a brown recluse or something.
 
Treble said:
I hate how sterilized and repressive the Internet has become. You can't even jokingly threaten bad writers anymore.

We have reached the point where it's easier to make edgy jokes in front of your colleagues than on the net.
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*Raise eyebrow*

Because most people trying it are really bad at conveying tone, Treble. Or fuck it up enough they look like they are actually threatening. Then there are those that actually means it, because things like Shipping Wars are serious business to them.

This is hardly something we can let fly, for what I hope are obvious reasons.
 
BrokenAscendent said:
Now give kitty pictures.
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eILRm2.jpg
 
I want some help

Know a site where I can easily mass download lots of posing pictures

Preferably martial arts ones

I don't always have internet, so I mass download references

Thing is, most of my references are drawings, when I should be drawing from real images
 
SuperPulp2789 said:
I want some help

Know a site where I can easily mass download lots of posing pictures

Preferably martial arts ones

I don't always have internet, so I mass download references

Thing is, most of my references are drawings, when I should be drawing from real images
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Well, from what I remember proko has a huge library of human poses, most of them require a subscription to access, but they have a pretty nice free set too.
Most of them are nudes or near nudes as well. (Just underwear.)

You can also get some relatively anatomically accurate 3d models and just pose them in blender, Then you can rotate to any angle you want, Which can be a nice tool. Ideally you want to be able to rotate all the forms in your head or with your pencil, but actually having something you can rotate like that can give some cool ideas for more dramatic compositions and such that usually would be difficult to do as photo.

You could also just get an instructional book on martial arts and copy some of the demonstrated moves/stances from the book. Maybe even try rotating some of them to get a more visually interesting look with like foreshortening or something.
Kicks or punches where the fist or foot are extending out towards the viewpoint in perspective and part of the figure recedes back to at least some degree tend to look good.
Or poses that are mostly horizontal but show just a tad bit of the foot or fist also can look pretty good.

You could also join a martial arts gym and take pictures and/or videos.

Another option is to take martial arts movies you like and then take individual frames of cool moves or poses. (Or maybe a couple nearby frames merged together.) When it comes to storytelling, lighting, etc. Movies. (Particularly black and white ones.) are often really high quality references, closer to studio references, but arranged to tell a particular story, So there is less to simplify, but you still have to simplify, and it already has a considered and ideally good looking composition.

Not sure of any good websites specifically for getting movie/film frames, but if you have a pausable streaming service, other site, etc. Or one that you can take a brief screen recording to extract stills from a particular scene, that isn't crazy hard to do on your own.

It's a lot easier to find landscape references than posing ones free, Although there are sites for that.

I remember finding a couple free ones a few weeks ago when searching but I don't remember which.
 
Kinda random does anyone know how the recent reader feature on thread works precisely? I had just posted a Pic and refreshed my page and it dropped by like a thousand. I got depressed as hell but idk if that was just the website mechanics.
 
I don't know if this political or not, but there is an ongoing demonstration happening in Indonesia this week. And I found it funny that there are a lot of Weeb joining, I understand that they're unsatisfied with the govt, but why are they bringing up the fact that they're Weeb while demonstrating? Here some pictures

'we Weeb are also anxious'
jogja-memanggil-2_43.jpeg


Left 'I'm a Weeb need to join demonstration meaning the country in danger'
Right & middle 'why do you join the demonstration? Because Himmel the hero would do the same!'
images
 
I'm not supporting or against, just fascinated by the fact. We are really have come a long way as a society wkwkwk
 
UwU_MasterRace said:
but why are they bringing up the fact that they're Weeb while demonstrating?
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Maybe it's something like "Even the anti-social nerds who don't want to care about politics are annoyed at this point about <.....>"

A more cynical guess would be that it's just to get more attention, and it worked on you.
 
There has to be something illegal about how the German Shepard, one of the most dangerous dog breeds in the world, is such a goofy nutjob when "off duty".

Darknessthere said:
Given how things likely would have gone for an unprepared Britain if they'd started the war in '38?
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Better than it would for an unprepared Germany facing both France and Britain, while barely able to take Czechoslovakia.

TanaNari said:
While we also did the same.

Difference being: we're better at it.
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We can all see that. Your entire society got deconstructed by Soviet agents, your greatest weapons were stolen under your noses, your armies got humbled by enemies that never managed to so much as win(or even draw) a single battle, and we all nearly died just because you two had a flashpoint over some bloody holiday island in the Caribbean.

And spare me the boasting. You people always have an overwhelming advantage, but you still end up squandering it. Which is exactly the topic we a
 
Treble said:
We can all see that. Your entire society got deconstructed by Soviet agents, your greatest weapons were stolen under your noses, your armies got humbled by enemies that never managed to so much as win(or even draw) a single battle, and we all nearly died just because you two had a flashpoint over some bloody holiday island in the Caribbean.

And spare me the boasting. You people always have an overwhelming advantage, but you still end up squandering it. Which is exactly the topic we a
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So I guess this…
Treble said:
Shifting the discussion now.
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…was a lie?
 
Treble said:
the German Shepard, one of the most dangerous dog breeds in the world,
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I think you're mixing up the GS with the Pitbull, mate.
I've never seen any trouble with GSD's, in public or private, other than their tendency to shed fur excessively and hip problems.
In fact, working dogs are notorious for their relatively even temperament, as are certain hunting breeds, particularly pointers.
 
UwU_MasterRace said:
I don't know if this political or not, but there is an ongoing demonstration happening in Indonesia this week. And I found it funny that there are a lot of Weeb joining, I understand that they're unsatisfied with the govt, but why are they bringing up the fact that they're Weeb while demonstrating? Here some pictures

'we Weeb are also anxious'
jogja-memanggil-2_43.jpeg


Left 'I'm a Weeb need to join demonstration meaning the country in danger'
Right & middle 'why do you join the demonstration? Because Himmel the hero would do the same!'
images
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I think at times, the Japanese whilst starting to censor ahead of time for "global standards" they forget everybody outside the West and actually most of the people inside the West itself, TBH

Well, when most of your contacts are a bunch of corpos in California, you get tunnel vision
 
I'd like to ask if anyone here has written a story yet of a universe you hated and then wrote yourself or by proxy of bashing it.
 
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