General chat thread

[SuperPulp2789]

I figured out how to use the Grid Method to draw backgrounds with perspective

Problem for me now is that's a LOT to draw

Okay, this question is probably rather common but still:

Authors, what do you do to get in the right headspace for writing? Like, any specific rituals or habits you've cultivated, so that your brain doesn't make farting noises at you when you stare at the document?

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Not really advice for writing, but for drawing

At most I get some binary aural beats on YouTube to get rid of my Brain Fog

Eventually, I just draw something, anything

Once you start, don't stop till you feel like you made something even if it sounds shitty af

 

[Rakdos92]

Okay, this question is probably rather common but still:

Authors, what do you do to get in the right headspace for writing? Like, any specific rituals or habits you've cultivated, so that your brain doesn't make farting noises at you when you stare at the document?

Click to shrink...

I try to sit down and write at least one sentence. Maybe two if I'm feeling daring today. If you do it often enough, you get in the flow of things.

 

[Arc-on-Fire]

NSFW materials
Images or videos containing graphic violence and gore.

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>tfw some guy could make a gore thread in the future like on /b/ or /gif/
I don't know if I'm gonna be honest. Could you actually post shit like that?

 

[TheMidnightRook]

>tfw some guy could make a gore thread in the future like on /b/ or /gif/
I don't know if I'm gonna be honest. Could you actually post shit like that?

Click to shrink...

There is a guro thread in NSFW General and a ryona thread in the NSFW CW Index...

 

[MadGreenSon]

So I got into a shelter and am working on getting out of this situation but it's hard.
Found out real fast that you practically can't do much without a cell phone and then someone out of nowhere just paid my phone bill for me.
That broke me. I didn't expect that kind of help out of nowhere. I freaked out. I ugly cried in public.
I spent Friday night out in the middle of nowhere wrestling with my own disbelief and self loathing nearly decided to throw myself off a bridge before I got myself back together.

It's looking like an uphill climb and I'm not sure I'm going to be physically capable of it.

Also, showering in a big shower room with no real barriers with a bunch of strangers isn't as much fun as it sounds. The beds in the shelter are decent though so that's an upside.

I still have my car, so that's something at least.

Gotta keep it fueled and insured though which is less thrilling.

A lot of the people at the shelter have just been screwed by life. Plenty of amputees and neurodivergent people, a lot fewer addicts and alcoholics than talking heads would have you think.

I'm not ashamed to admit it; I'm scared, all the time now.

There is literally nothing I can do on Sunday so I'm going to go try to take my mind off of things for a little while.

 

[CanYouMeme]

You know what really grinds my gears?

The fact that apparently every single Android and IPhone photo viewing app is incapable of properly organizing numbered photos.

WinRAR has no problem with this whatsoever - singles, tens, twenties, it knows something we learned in preschool. Any app that's not a photo viewing app seems to understand how this shit works.

Yet JPG/PNG and so forth apps don't do this. It's 1, 10, 11, 12...2, 20, 21...

Is there an easy naming / numbering scheme I can use for renaming the photos that exploits whatever idiot programming went into this?

So I got into a shelter and am working on getting out of this situation but it's hard.

Found out real fast that you practically can't do much without a cell phone and then someone out of nowhere just paid my phone bill for me.

That broke me. I didn't expect that kind of help out of nowhere. I freaked out. I ugly cried in public.

I spent Friday night out in the middle of nowhere wrestling with my own disbelief and self loathing nearly decided to throw myself off a bridge before I got myself back together.

It's looking like an uphill climb and I'm not sure I'm going to be physically capable of it.

Also, showering in a big shower room with no real barriers with a bunch of strangers isn't as much fun as it sounds. The beds in the shelter are decent though so that's an upside.

I still have my car, so that's something at least.

Gotta keep it fueled and insured though which is less thrilling.

A lot of the people at the shelter have just been screwed by life. Plenty of amputees and neurodivergent people, a lot fewer addicts and alcoholics than talking heads would have you think.

I'm not ashamed to admit it; I'm scared, all the time now.

There is literally nothing I can do on Sunday so I'm going to go try to take my mind off of things for a little while.

Click to shrink...

Would it be helpful if I offered some advice from experience?

 

[chrnno]

You know what really grinds my gears?

The fact that apparently every single Android and IPhone photo viewing app is incapable of properly organizing numbered photos.

WinRAR has no problem with this whatsoever - singles, tens, twenties, it knows something we learned in preschool. Any app that's not a photo viewing app seems to understand how this shit works.

Yet JPG/PNG and so forth apps don't do this. It's 1, 10, 11, 12...2, 20, 21...

Is there an easy naming / numbering scheme I can use for renaming the photos that exploits whatever idiot programming went into this?

Click to shrink...

01, 001, 0001, or such depending on how many photos you have.

 

[Scygnus]

A lot of the people at the shelter have just been screwed by life. Plenty of amputees and neurodivergent people, a lot fewer addicts and alcoholics than talking heads would have you think.

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Be careful and don't assume this is the case at every shelter. In cities especially you get ones that are safe and ones that aren't, and that tends to change as the predators follow the prey, shifting from day to day. One of the reasons a lot of them won't go to a shelter.

 

[CanYouMeme]

01, 001, 0001, or such depending on how many photos you have.

Click to shrink...

113, in this case. Trying to organize a couple years worth of family photos for mailing.

How would this scheme work in that case? 01, 02, 03...001, 002, 003?

 

[MadGreenSon]

Would it be helpful if I offered some advice from experience?

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Sure. Couldn't hurt.

 

[CanYouMeme]

Sure. Couldn't hurt.

Click to shrink...

At the end of this I'm going to give you a Shock Mnemonic. This is not an insult to you or anyone else, but from experience it's really hard to remember advice and instructions when you are having a moment. So that Shock Mnemonic is an air horn you can use to help break yourself out of an episode.

‐---------------

First off, charity is real, it does exist, and if you're feeling ashamed for taking it then the correct answer is to redouble your efforts to Improvise Adapt Overcome until you've recovered and don't need it.

They aren't giving you charity because of who you are. They are giving it to you for who you can be.

You are human. A proud member of the species that mastered fire, harnessed wind and lightning, and currently practices the art of strapping mountain-immolating explosives to their assholes so they can ride a super spicy shit into the void.

"Better than this, more than nature, greater than the sum" is in your blood. Getting there is going to be rough and sometimes counter-intuitive, but it's within reach.

------

Concerning the car, most states have an option for "I'm poor as fuck, and I can't afford insurance". I forget what it's called, but last I checked a couple years ago it's 500 bucks per year to get a piece of paper you can stick in the glove compartment, then hand it to cops saying "I don't have insurance and don't need it, here's why".

Expensive, but less so than 12 monthly payments.

Note that this is not full protection, and you'll still have to argue over it if something happens. It may also be rejected for certain purposes, so keep your head on a swivel.

But if you're strapped for cash and need to dump insurance, this is your fallback.

-------------

When you go to sleep, wrap your phone and wallet in some cloth or paper towels, and slide it between your buttcheeks.

It's going to be uncomfortable, probably sweaty, you'll need to clean anal weepage off it every now and then, and you might need to stop if you start getting a rash. But it's safer than most options.

I recommend canvas or thin microfibre if you can find/afford it.

----------------

Now here's where the advice starts getting counter-intuitive, because this is where my ability to tailor advice to you specifically based on what you've given me ends.

Find a Christian church, find out their service hours, and when they aren't having services that's where you go if you're breaking down and need some silence.

Why not a library? Or a cafe? Why not anything but a church? Because most of them aren't quiet, want you to buy something, have anti-loitering policies, etc. Not somewhere you can park your butt for the potential hours of silence you might need to put yourself back together.

People generally don't go there when services aren't happening, the benches tend to be tolerably comfortable for napping, and bible thumpers usually have a tradition of quiet contemplation. So if you go there and look at least slightly better than someone who just crawled out of a dumpster would, you can catch some Z's in a relatively safe place where people aren't likely to bother you. If you have a large backpack or something, you can rest that on your lap, lean forward onto it, and sleep that way if you prop yourself against the end of one of those benches. Just make sure you don't snore too loudly.

If you don't need Z's but do need some rest, it's still a decent place to relax.

Now, some churches have off hour prayer services, and some just have jackasses because they're still people. So you may have to investigate and experiment for a while to find one you can go to for silence.

If someone's bothering you, tell 'em that this is the only place you can find that's silent. That's usually enough to make them go away.

Also, do not bring outside business into the church. The point here is to get away from that. And if jackasses who cause trouble start following you in, then they're going to start removing people for safety's sake. And they probably wouldn't be wrong to do so, if ir's becoming a real problem.

------------

Some assholes might exploit the existence of charity to screw with you.

In general, if it comes in the form of;

food or drink you did not watch come off of a store shelf or out of a professional charity,

A contract or an invite to a location you don't know,

An exchange of favors,

Or asking you to "meet a friend" or some variation thereof,

Be extremely cautious.

----------------

Now this is where the Shock Mnemonic comes in, because I can't help you manage your state of mind over the internet so I need to start at the absolute bottom and stop there.

One of the useful little secrets of the human brain is that strong emotional spikes never last long. It can seem like they do because emotional bleeding triggers an adrenaline spike which ruins your sense of Time, but your brain simply can't sustain the energy investment needed to stay, for example, capital-A Angry for long periods of time. No longer than a couple minutes before it burns out and you're tired and drained.

If you are objectively having an emotional "spike" longer than that, one of two things is happening; you're either rubber-banding as you go into a peak then a valley then a peak again,

or you're having a pleasure infection where the peak is so high it breaks the glass ceiling and breaches into the pleasure centers of the brain and you're getting a dopamine shower. And yes, I use the word Infection here deliberately - because any sufficiently strong emotion can breach the ceiling and start giving you a shit shower.

The "constant fear" you mention probably isn't actual fear - it's a short bout of fear followed by exhaustion and residue.

Both of these are bad, and need management to stop.

Saying and doing things in an emotional peak is an extremely dangerous thing. A good ol' ugly cry every now and then is no trouble and nothing to be ashamed of, but making a habit out of indulging in it or other outbursts whenever you hit a peak is a good way to put people off and make it harder for you to fund a job, home, whatever.

Worse, there are plenty of predators who have learned how to exploit emotional peaks to their advantage.

Some people like to say "Breath In, Hold, Breath Out" or "Stop and Count to 10" or some other thing. These are good and objectively better in the long term for your personal management than the mnemonic I am about to give you, but they are deficient in the short term because they are [SKILLS] and skills require practice to perform under stress. You are to practice Breathing and Counting regularly - daily if you can - but until you have developed those Skills to a stress worthy point, thich is where the Shock Mnemonic comes in;

Shut The Fuck Up.

Whatever you're doing, wherever you are, regardless of circumstance, stop talking. Stop emoting.

Quite possibly the single most important lesson you can use to beat your subconscious into a more functional mess is to firmly establish that emotion does not necessitate action. When you are angry, when you are sad, do not immediately say the first thing that comes to mind, do not do the first thing you think of.

When you can consistently stop knee-jerk emoting under stress, then you can call the tutorial complete and start on Level 1 - Breathing and Counting.

Until then, Shock Mnemonic.

Good luck, and remember -

Better is in your blood.

 

[chrnno]

113, in this case. Trying to organize a couple years worth of family photos for mailing.

How would this scheme work in that case? 01, 02, 03...001, 002, 003?

Click to shrink...

With 113 it is 001, 002, 003, and so on forth .The number of digits has to match.

 

[CanYouMeme]

With 113 it is 001, 002, 003, and so on forth .The number of digits has to match.

Click to shrink...

Ah, ok. Thanks much.

EDIT - Yeah, that worked perfectly, do that then sort by Name Ascending. Thanks again.

 

[R.A.G.]

Posting this here mostly so I don't forget it. Snippets of thought that connected while I was Old Man Bitching about how math is currently taught in my state/the US as well as increasingly muddled understandings of morality.

From a moral perspective, religion is The Standard Algorithm (like in math). It's taught from an early age, and, while it can vary heavily depending on where/what/how it was taught, overall it is a robust shorthand for ethical calculation. It skips past the messiest parts of doing things manually to deliver you to the right answer as broadly-efficiently as possible.

Manually feeling-out your own system of calculation is significantly more difficult. Not impossible, but, compared to the thoughtless ease of working with a system plugged into someone during early development, it is more of a struggle. Enough that many people don't get nearly as far as they would with a standard system. And, perhaps ironically, the easiest way to develop a personal system is from having a standard system as a base to work off of.

For both math and morality it feels like people are being forced to reinvent the wheel and ending up in weird directions because of it.

 

[Amazon Climber]

With 113 it is 001, 002, 003, and so on forth .The number of digits has to match.

Click to shrink...

I personally give it an extra digit just in case I want to add on to it later. It's no harder to go 0001 to 0113 than 001 to 0113, and the one time you'll need it you'll be glad you did.

 

[Shaper47]

Does, uh, anyone know how @WrandmWaffles got banned from SV and Spacebattles?

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https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/silly-shenanigans-on-spacebattles.8689/post-9756424

 

[Ananasmagos]

Would it be considered rude here to ask people to DM me?

 

[MIR2077]

Do you all consider Haki a real power system? Batman can sense danger, too. Nothing special going on there. Not superpower at least. Armament is basically toughen up your body and pretty sure every shounen MC are already durable by default, so... and Conqueror is like giving it all with everything you've got.

 

[Hyp3rB14d3]

Do you all consider Haki a real power system? Batman can sense danger, too. Nothing special going on there. Not superpower at least. Armament is basically toughen up your body and pretty sure every shounen MC are already durable by default, so... and Conqueror is like giving it all with everything you've got.

Click to shrink...

…You don't consider spider-sense or strength and durability amplification superpowers?

 

[MIR2077]

Its probably because I worded it wrong, but what I meant is, to me, Haki isn't a proper power system like Chakra. Its just human being next fucking level human. Batman sensing danger is not really a big deal, lots of human fighters in DC have the sixth sense. And hysterical strength exist, even in real life. It just seem to me like Oda is naming "ordinary" thing a human can do. I'm not criticizing it, I merely asking if all of you consider Haki a power system like Ki, Nen and Chakra.

 

[coldpyr0]

Anyone else get "call the locksmith!" vibes from posts asking mods to remove old polls in threads? Makes me chuckle every time I see it.

 

[Guardian Box]

Had a fun dream today.

Spoiler

Started with me trying to hit on a nazi chick (and I mean a genuine crazy-hot nazi party member in an SS uniform, so you know, the best kind of crazy-hot to hit on). Things didn't work out between us, sadly, had to fight elite SS soldiers in hand to hand, until a nazi fighter plane crash landed nearby and I managed to highjack it and flew away. Of course, I had to contest and use the plane's laser cannon's to fight against some flying nazi jetpack soldiers on combat exercise nearby (as one does in these kinds of circumstances), until I managed to finally lose them in the city after some fancy flying in between the buildings. Found soem resistance members in fact, but decided to just go home and live the rest of my life in peace instead.

No such luck. Turns out local gangs were fighting over the local area, and they had paid the cops since the pigs were refusing to respond to my calls of gang violence in the shared basement tunnel of my commieblock. Worst of all, they have cut me away from the place where I kept all of my archived manga kept in perfect preserved climate conditions in their very own cellar, so, seeing no other alternative, I grabbed a magical railgun rifle and started blasting.

Wrong choice.

Turns out my bullets ricocheted and there was a secret SCP containment facility in the cellar. So now instead of just dead gangsters I now had a lot of anomalies on my hand to contest with. My magical railgun was fine with keeping them either dead or woundeed enough I could flee in good order. Apart from SCP-173, of course, who kept hounding and shadowing me whenever I wasn't looking at the thing. It was quite creepy to be honest.

When I got out it was pandemonium, people running around in panic as unholy abominations ran amok, and the fucking Peanut was still on my tail. Deciding to exploit its most obvious weakness of it being rendered harmless by the simple act of observing it (and with the dream starting to collapse due to too much logic and consistency shown so far), I thought spawning some Overlords would to the trick to keep the thing in check. Sadly, I randomed Protoss instead of Zerg, and woke up before I could build up my base and tech up into Observers.

Still, it was quite fun flying around and shooting lasers at jetpack nazis while it lasted nonetheless.

 

[CanYouMeme]

Its probably because I worded it wrong, but what I meant is, to me, Haki isn't a proper power system like Chakra. Its just human being next fucking level human. Batman sensing danger is not really a big deal, lots of human fighters in DC have the sixth sense. And hysterical strength exist, even in real life. It just seem to me like Oda is naming "ordinary" thing a human can do. I'm not criticizing it, I merely asking if all of you consider Haki a power system like Ki, Nen and Chakra.

Click to shrink...

As with many things, what makes it a superpower is the scaling.

Punch a brick wall and break it in a bout of hysteria? Sure, that's human, and potentially replicable w/o hysteria through nothing but an assload of very carefully managed training.

Punch a man made out of literal magma, or electricity hard enough that your fist trumps their intangibility? And, since Haki is explained as willpower sourced, doing it through what is effectively nothing more than the power of "I fucking said so, and you're too much of a pansy to tell me no"?

Detect somebody trying to stab you in the back? Anybody can train for that with enough time. Detect somebody shooting lasers fast enough to counterattack before they even finish making the shot?

Even in Naruto, and Hunter x Hunter, and so forth, those kinds of achievements are a fair bit beyond "human". So yeah, Haki is a proper superpower. Just a very simple one.

 

[MadGreenSon]

This is no joke; I called the suicide hotline three times and no one answered.
These weren't short calls either, I sat on the line waiting for ten minutes or so and nothing.

Three times.

 

[Rakdos92]

This is no joke; I called the suicide hotline three times and no one answered.
These weren't short calls either, I sat on the line waiting for ten minutes or so and nothing.

Three times.

Click to shrink...

Jesus. Either they are understaffed or demand is that high. Neither is a good sign. More importantly, did you get through? Are you okay?

 

[MadGreenSon]

Jesus. Either they are understaffed or demand is that high. Neither is a good sign. More importantly, did you get through? Are you okay?

Click to shrink...

Never did. And no, I'm not okay everything went even further to shit.

Went to the hospital will probably end up committed under what we call the Baker Act in Florida.

 

[ALoyalFriend]

Alrighty, so. I've lurked and read a lot of Celestial Forge and Grimoire stories, and want to do one, but don't know whether I should. So I decided to look around for a Celestial Document to do and decided that if I did one I'd do the Celestial Mutation or Celestial Forge V3, but I don't know a good way to do the rolls.

Any advice on 1) If I should and 2) How I should do my rolls?

 

[evildice]

I really want to see a Celestial Forge / Grimoire story where the MC gets no benefit from either introspection or power description, and all "word count" progress requires dialog with other characters.

Maybe also action in a scene if that can be separated out and counted, but definitely dialog since that's easy to count separately.

 

[MadGreenSon]

Okay, got discharged from the hospital despite still feeling very suicidal so my last move to combat my profound loneliness is to try and reach my brothers house.

Not a short trip, I may not have the gas for it. If anyone wants to kick some gas money my way: http://paypal.me/madgreenson

 

[MadGreenSon]

Okay, got discharged from the hospital despite still feeling very suicidal so my last move to combat my profound loneliness is to try and reach my brothers house.

Not a short trip, I may not have the gas for it. If anyone wants to kick some gas money my way: http://paypal.me/madgreenson

Click to shrink...

On my way now no turning back, FUCK PENSACOLA. Never going back, I have nothing tying me to the place anymore.

My father's grave isn't even there.

Special shoutout to whoever "box" is, who kicked a little gas money my way. It really does help.