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svartalfhild · 7 months

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Regarding the other anon: idk if lore says anything specific on how drow mature. One could assume they've stripped away most of the rites of passage and the "coming of age" at 100 because they don't experience trance and their past lives like other elves. I mean Drizzt was like 40 when he left underdark and was a very experienced warrior at that point already, so everything the lore has to say about drow and how they mature is like.... hmmm... it's not really specified anywhere. Thank you for the post on elves though, the takes some people have regarding elves and their age/how they age is wild.

There's a 3rd Edition book, Drow of the Underdark, which has some information about dark elf physiology, culture, and society. Anything found in there should probably be taken with a grain of salt, as it could be considered outdated or irrelevant, but I've double checked and even that book doesn't have specific info on drow aging and cultural concepts of maturity beyond some stuff about child rearing. I can only assume that we're meant to understand that the dark elves operate similarly to other elves in that regard. I do know that dark elves do trance like other elves. The communing with the ancestors thing is new lore that I would categorize it as experimental and not FR specific, as it is associated with the multiverse stuff, so who the fuck knows what that means for the drow.

Oh, and while we're on the subject of trance, the wording in the source books implies that elves can sleep naturally, but they generally prefer to go into trance. I interpret that to mean that trance is a cultural practice and something elves train themselves to do, not something they have to do, especially since it's described as a form of meditation that one can become more practiced at. I want to fight Larian about this, because the Angelic Slumber potion description contradicts the source books and it's giving people weird ideas about what elven trance is.

Anyway, I think it's also worth noting that dark elves are not necessarily so completely removed from their shared history with other elves that they wouldn't share certain traits and practices, at least in FR. For example, Drow are apparently usually able to speak standard surface Elvish in addition to their own dialect/language (I have my theories about why that is, but that's a whole post in its own right). It stands to reason that 100 years would still be a reasonable benchmark to them of sufficient knowledge and experience to be considered emotionally mature, if perhaps less through the lens of "all your shorter lived friends are dead now" and more through a lens of "you've managed to survive 100 years; congrats, welcome to the big kids' table" over time.

Ranting aside, thank you for the support! I was just getting so Bothered by all the shit takes about the BG3 elves, Astarion especially, that I had to set the record straight. I'm very passionate about FR lore and elves and I cannot abide all that nonsense.

#ask #Drow #Forgotten Realms #thank you anon #unfortunately I will infodump at any given opportunity

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butchniqabi · 1 year

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what songs/artists would you pick to come on if yo gabba gabba came back. like if they hired you to schedule performances what artists are you introducing the youth for the baby version of colorsxstudios

full disclosure i was never a yo gabba gabba kid so idk the Vibes of the artists they chose but in MY ideal world i would introduce the children to:

-follow by android lust, i think children should be introduced to some dark electric music (shikhee doesnt like being categorized as cybergoth, though technically her music can be classified as such 😳)

-plastic 100°c by sampha, this should play while they watch videos of outerspace

-home with you by fka twigs, we need children to learn about yearning. pining. homesickness. lets get some existentialism going. the live version sounds like a lullabye too so win-win

-nicholas britell, he can talk about composition and the basics of music and play a jaunty version of the succession theme or make children feel indescribable emotions by playing the middle of the world

-pirate song (ft howe gelb) by nive and the deer children, its already a fun lil song that kids would enjoy! plus shes a mom im sure she'd have a good time hehe :)

-rina sawayama, i think itd be fun

-rob halford, we need, now more than ever, for children to know music outside of the top 40 and about metal's gay uncle. he can teach them how to scream properly wouldnt that be cute

-janelle monae!!!! she was on sesame street and they did so well and had a lot of fun. i think their musical style and general sweet energy AND cool style would make a really cute episode hehe

-shameika or ladies by fiona apple, agency! control! self worth! fun phrases! kids these days dont know anything about fiona apple smh

-efrim menuck, radicalize the youth via experimental music

hope you see my vision. nickelodeon CALL ME

#asks

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definitelynotplanetfall · 2 years

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Played a bit of cdda v0.F after youtube reminded me vormithrax exists. Insufferable.

I could kind of understand the change to make crafting require your hands free. You need a safe spot to make things and if you get ambushed you should spend a turn equipping your weapon. Okay! What really sucks is that every e on a piece of furniture with items asks me to confirm whether I want to start crafting or just get the items. And newly crafted things go into your hands, not your inventory, so crafting a bunch of things in sequence requires way more keystrokes than it should. But it’s something you can get acclimated to.

The new hunger is so dumb. Some things are not interesting to model. The reason there is hunger in games is not “there is hunger in real life, and realism is categorically good, so your hunger meter should lie to you and if you eat literally every time it says you’re hungry your character will get fat.” That’s a fundamental misunderstanding of why games have hunger mechanics (or for that matter, what a hunger meter is.) The game is already giving you more information than the senses of your character, unless you’re somehow under the impression that humans have a 360 degree line of sight - the idea that a hunger meter should represent “does my character subjectively feel hungry” and not “will my character game-mechanically benefit from eating food right now” is just. What!!

But those were both in 0.E. Calling it new hunger is disingenuous on my part. The real kicker is the fucking containers.

How it used to work: you have a maximum held volume (by default it is 0, worn clothing and items held in your hands do not count towards it) and clothing with pockets increases it. There is also a maximum weight determined by your strength stat, which is not a hard cap but you take penalties for exceeding it.

It was in fact silly that you could put on two pairs of cargo pants and then hold a spare tire somehow distributed between the pockets, but what are you going to do? Track how many pockets of what size exist and assign items to one or another in particular? Sure, let’s also model having to carry food in plastic bags or it goes bad faster. Extra keystrokes to do that, of course. Are you MAD? Why would we implement this? How does this do anything but make the game worse to play? It’s like a parody of simulationist game design! Let’s also make a system where picking up items puts them in the first available pocket but the player has to periodically reorganize their pockets with a wholly inadequate interface.

Ha ha ha ha ha.

Feeling very smug that I more or less called the clumsy-fiddly-ification back in 0.D when these so-called features were variously experimental to pipe dreams. I called it to myself, to be clear. 0.D really is the best version of the game lel. idk if you can even still download it

#cataclysm dark days ahead

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ilikethesickness · 3 years

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I really wanna get into Led Zeppelin but I don't know where to start tbh so I was wondering what are 10 Led Zeppelin songs you'd recommend to me as a newbie :)

aaa I’m so excited for you!!

so those nine songs are some of my favorites and some of what I think gives an accurate example of their sound, and of course the masterpiece stairway to heaven.

idk exactly what kinda stuff you like, but if you’re looking for specifics:

Their first album (led zeppelin) mostly blues. A respectable mix of covers and originals. Their second album (led zeppelin II) some covers still. Amazingly dirty riffs for their originals (whole Lotta love, heartbreaker) Third album (led zeppelin III) we’re sensing a trend in their fantastic ability to name their albums with impressive creativity it’s a bunch of acoustic country stuff, but I promise it slaps. Also some more blues. Their fourth album (led zeppelin IV) arguably the best rock album ever created. This and led zep 2 are what people generally recognize as their authentic sound. Fifth album (houses of the holy) a bunch of experimentation with different sounds. It’s a lot of variety. Can’t really categorize it. 6th album (physical graffiti) idk how to classify this. Pretty cool tho. Awesome name. My understanding is that the rest of their albums are significantly less popular, and I don’t rlly know enough about them to be classifying them.

If u decide u like their blues stuff or whatever more than the rest I can give you more specific recs, I just wanted u to have a variety.

#ask #thank you so much #love you #i hope you enjoy #if u have questions or want more recs i got u #sry this is long as hell #i have an obsession #as u can see

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damienthepious · 4 years

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idk idk idk i’m just doing my best

Going Through Changes, Ripping Out Pages (chapter 5)

[ch 1] [ch 2] [ch 3] [ch 4] [ao3] [ch 6] [ch 7] [ch 8] [ch 9] [ch 10] [???]

Fandom: The Penumbra Podcast

Relationship: Lord Arum/Sir Damien/Rilla

Characters: Lord Arum, Sir Damien, Rilla, The Keep

Additional Tags: Second Citadel, Lizard Kissin’ Tuesday, Established Relationship, (uhhhhh sorta), Amnesia, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, (WE WILL GET THERE…… EVENTUALLY)

Summary: Lord Arum wakes to discover that some things have changed while he slept. Namely, there is a human in his bed.

Chapter Summary: Just a moment to breathe together.

Chapter Notes: happy LKT! it's finally not death-grip hot today. i hope you're doing well <3

The Keep brings the pair of them to a familiar room, though not one that they would have expected. There are a lot of spaces in the Keep that don't have particular functions, exactly, since Arum isn't keen on categorization or organization, but this room he and Rilla have mostly taken to calling the study. It has a few books (far fewer than the scroll room), a couple soft seats (fewer than the dining room) and a window shaded by a thin, wide-leafed curtain of vines, and as they enter, the Keep drops another set of vines, lifting Rilla's instrument from beside the window and pressing it into her hands.

Rilla stares down, and Damien watches her swallow roughly as her hand wraps around the neck. It's a homemade thing, the same instrument that she engineered during her first stay within these walls, though it has been structurally bolstered and restrung and better tuned and painted with playful florals since that time. Rilla laughs, and it sounds nearly hollow, and the Keep's vines press the instrument more firmly into her grip.

"Keep," she says, her tone uncertain and worried, and the Keep warbles an urgent set of tones, pushing the instrument again before it releases it into her hands. "I'm… I'm not sure if-"

The Keep sings, then. Sings in words, the first line of a familiar song, and Rilla clutches the neck of the instrument tight enough that one of the strings makes a tight high noise against her fingernail.

"Oh," Damien says, catching the Keep's meaning, and it is so strange, he thinks, that such a sound can fill him with such warm memory and such sadness at the same moment. "Oh," he repeats breathlessly. "I see. You believe that he might… if he hears- you think the familiarity of the song, the association between it and us-"

"No. No, that's not going to work," Rilla says firmly, her eyes upturned vaguely in the direction of the Keep.

Damien sighs as the Keep exhales a wilted sort of song, but he can't deny that he agrees with his flower. Rilla winces, though, raising a hand to pat at the air consolingly.

"I mean- Keep, it's a really sweet idea, and the theory that he'll remember the song-" her voice goes strange and wobbly for a moment, and then she inhales and continues, "the theory that it would help him remember isn't without merit. Music has a lot of connection to memory, between repeated patterns of things like rhyme and rhythm and leitmotifs- but- but I don't think he's gonna take it very well if we try to like, perform a little three-creature concert for him, y'know?"

The Keep sings again, tentative but hopeful, and Rilla sighs.

"He'll think we're trying to manipulate him," she says quietly. "Technically, we would be. And- and he won't buy it if he can tell I'm not fully into it. I'm an awful liar- he can always tell if I'm putting on a face, and- and honestly? I just-" she folds her arms over her chest, looking down and to the side. "I just … I really don't feel like singing, right now."

Damien's heart pulls, caught in the tide of Rilla's ill-hidden sorrow. For its part, the Keep sings again, an understanding descent of notes, an obvious concession to Rilla's points.

"Why don't you play, just a little, my love?" Damien's keeps his voice low, and he brushes his hand over hers on the neck of her instrument. "And I will do the singing myself."

"Damien," she says, sounding tired and uncertain. "It isn't going to w-"

"Not," he clarifies, "for the sake of a solution, I mean. Simply for us. You have sung for my own comfort more times than I could possibly count. If it would bring you more distress, you need not play, but at least let me sing for you. Our Keep has made a lovely suggestion, and I should like, I think, to take some small measure of comfort where I can, and share it."

"Oh," Rilla says, blinking, and then she breathes a weak sort of laugh. "Oh, I mean… if you- if you want?"

Damien smiles, and it feels mostly genuine. They still have not come to any solutions, but surprising Rilla is delightful enough to warm him regardless. "I believe you are correct," he says, "that any attempts at artifice will only cause our lily to mistrust our intentions further. Perhaps we should attempt to show him your recordings, next. That seems an appropriate step. But currently, while he is… cooling off, as you put it, I think we should take a moment of our own. Settle our minds, comfort our souls." He squeezes her hand, ducking his head. "Will you let me sing for you?"

"Damien," she says, and her cheeks are dark as her lips tilt into a fond smile. She glances down to her instrument, and then she sighs, and sits, and lifts it to a proper playing position as she meets Damien's again. "I'll play. You can sing, if you really want to. But- but you don't have to sing for me, okay?"

"I know," he says, settling to sit beside her as her fingers dance across the frets, lazily adjusting the tuning. "But surely you know that I want to."

Her smile grows, and she plucks out a few unconnected chords. "Alright, alright," she says, voice warm, and then she bites her lip for a moment as her fingers move, as she strums through a few more experimental notes before she decides on something he can sing along with.

Another folk song, one without quite such a fraught connection to the four of them, this time. A song about warm rains and bolting for shelter, about closeness and laughter, about staying together in the hidden places, even after the storm passes by.

She is always so beautiful when she plays. She laughs, even, when the Keep begins to hum wordlessly along with Damien, and he nearly loses his thread when the combination of her talent and her joy threatens to overwhelm his heart. Eventually, on the final verse, she lets her own voice raise to join theirs, harmonizing until she strums the last chord.

Her smile tilts her lips, and her eyes sparkle between rueful and mischievous.

"Tactical and romantic," she murmurs, and Damien attempts to look innocent. "Okay, okay, I'm actually feeling a little better now. Happy?"

At the admission, Damien's shoulders relax, and he cannot help his own smile. "Absolutely delighted, my flower," he says, and then he leans closer, and Rilla breathes another small laugh as she lifts one hand away from the frets to cup his cheek, to pull him more decisively into the kiss.

Damien freezes when he hears the sharp inhale from the doorway, and he can feel the too-small reserves of comfort and warmth shrink within him. He can feel Rilla's frame stiffen beneath his hands as well, and he forces himself to pull back, to glance aside, to look where he knows he will see-

Arum leans on the doorframe, two hands clinging to the wood, his thin lips parted and his expression confused and open and raw. A moment after Damien looks towards him, though, he snaps his jaw shut again, forcing himself to look nearly blank.

Nearly. Damien knows him too well to be entirely fooled.

"How- how long were you-"

Rilla cuts herself off before she finishes the question, and Arum looks away with a throaty rumble, his tail flicking behind him.

"Long enough to know you were including my Keep in your little moment of bonding, which I do not appreciate in the-"

Arum cuts himself off as well, and Damien wonders for a strange moment if this is a very convoluted attempt at mocking, but the lizard's mouth twists into an uncomfortable line as he visibly struggles through some decision, his hands clenching and unclenching from tense fists as the rattle in his throat grows again.

Arum inhales, glances back behind himself for a moment, and then he seems to shake whatever thoughts he had been grappling, and he narrows his eyes at Rilla.

"You," he says, and Damien can see the way he is layering suspicion over his confusion now. "Rilla. You mentioned the Senate, when discussing how you claim we first came to… to know one another. What do you know of them?"

Rilla bites her lip, confused over this sudden return to interrogation. She furrows her brow as she meets Damien's eye for a moment, and he gives the shadow of a shrug, exactly as unsure about the monster's intent as Rilla herself is.

"Uh, only what you've told me?" she tilts her head, setting her instrument gingerly to the side of their seat and then crossing her arms over her chest as she thinks. "Which honestly isn't all that much. I don't think you really like talking about them? And as far as I know they haven't been much of a factor since the mess at Fort Terminus. They kinda-sorta run the show with the monsters in general, yeah? Mostly because they're powerful enough to just… do what they want, even if it infringes on what other monsters want."

Arum frowns, but despite his clear displeasure he nods. "That is not entirely inaccurate." He pauses, tension in his jaw before he continues, "and you are certain that I am… no longer in communication, then, with these beasts?"

Rilla's eyebrows shoot up, and Damien answers, "You have certainly not mentioned any correspondence, no. May I ask why this is a concern, currently?"

"Do you think they're involved?" Rilla asks, eager, and Arum's snout wrinkles.

"I cannot say for certain," he mutters, and then he bares his teeth uncomfortably, "and if I do not discuss them with you, I do not know how I could find out."

Damien turns that phrasing over in his head, and he is sure that he must have misheard for a moment, because he seems to be implying-

"Wait." Rilla shifts at his side, sitting straighter. "Wait. You're talking like- do you believe us?"

Arum stares at her for a moment, brow furrowed, and then he blinks quickly, hissing sharp and low.

Damien watches him hunch his shoulders, duck his head, hands flexing, and Damien does not know if his heart should swell or plummet. Arum did not even realize his own implication.

"I-" the monster stammers. "That is not-" he shakes his head, his frill fluttering with distress. "I do not-"

Damien stands, and Rilla stands a moment after, her hand at his elbow.

"Arum," Damien tries, and the monster snaps his jaw shut, glaring between the both of them for a long moment.

"… I do not know what to believe," he says slowly, eventually, and then he drops his eyes. "So … so perhaps you should continue attempting to prove your point. If- if you are so terribly certain that you are correct, if you believe you have some so-called evidence that may be so utterly compelling…" he trails off, exhales a slow sigh, and then gestures with a hand, prompting the Keep to form a doorway at his back. "I may have found some evidence of my own. Come. Convince me, and perhaps I will show you what I've found."

[->]

#elle's fanfic #the penumbra podcast #second citadel #rad bouquet #lizard kissin' tuesday #sir damien #amaryllis of exile #the keep #lord arum #going through changes ripping out pages #pblease feed me comments pblease

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its8simplejulesblog · 4 years

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Today I Made Kale Chips

Which are four words I really never thought I would say, especially considering my track record of eating 2 cans of pringles for dinner and being the type of person that used to make snarky comments about people that ate kale chips (I mean really..you really have NOTHING else to eat??)

But I made them, and they were FANTASTIC because I put lemon on them and MMM *italian finger kiss*. I even had to shoo away my parents because they kept eating them and I’m bad with sharing food :)

However, eating kale is just one small thing in the midst of my self-care/wellness journey. I think that my recent breakup mixed with quarantine mixed with a complete and total change in mindset about my worth and what makes me happy has really led to a passionate interest in health and wellness. I’ve recently found myself so interested about the nutrients that I’m putting in my body and how different actions impact my mental health.

With that being said, I think the most important thing about health and wellness is that the same effects can be reached through multiple different mediums. It’s likely that not everyone is going to enjoy sitting in absolute silence and deep breathing (I know I talked a little bit about that in my previous post about meditation too) but the fun in experimenting with health and wellness is that everything you try is good for you in some way, and when you finally find a routine for yourself there is nothing more gratifying. For that reason, I want to share a little bit about the things that have made me a lot more comfortable and confident in my own skin.

I think the first two things that people think about when they hear the words health and wellness are working out and eating right. I know that there are SO many people out there telling you what you should and shouldn’t do so that is not what I want you to see this as, but rather just one individual’s story in the pursuit of feeling better about herself.

For me, I’ve always loved working out. It used to be something I dreaded because my only experience with working out was through organized sports: either being on a soccer or swim team, running cross country, playing tennis etc. All of those sports were sports I liked, to be fair, but at the end of the day I realized that I was just WAY too competitive for a team sport; and I often found that the presence of a lot of other people made me feel worse and worse about my own athletic ability. Again, this is just my own experience. I know there are people who love the motivation and accountability of having others around. For me, not so much.

Working out has always been a coping mechanism that I’ve always loved, not because of the way it makes me look, but because of the way it makes me feel. Let’s be honest though, it’s a horrible temporary feeling. If you’re running or lifting or holding a pilates pose it can be fricking unbearable and not everyone’s idea of “fun”. “ However, endorphins really are your friend because when you find the type of exercise that you enjoy it will seem more like fun than work. For me, I’ve really come to love pilates (which is essentially yoga, where instead of holding poses you’re constantly moving) and it’s gotten to the point where it’s something I look forward to everyday. I used to tell everyone that I was a runner and I DO enjoy running, but with yoga and pilates it feels like slightly less of a chore. I usually finish out by stretching and fixing my posture because sitting around all day slumped over honestly hurts sometimes now.

Whenever I feel good after working out it inspires me to take better care of my body in general, which leads me into my next topic of food. In everything I do I alway remind myself that it’s a combination of both mental and physical. Many professionals say that the biggest mistake that people make in terms of working out/ eating right is setting self righteous/ self centered goals like “I just want to look like...” “I just want to be hot/skinny” instead of “I want to be healthy for my body’s sake” “I want to feel accomplished” etc. I’m not going to lie and say that the former two things don’t cross my mind while I’m working out, but my main goal in terms of working out is remaining mentally and physically healthy for my kids and family in the future, and remaining able to do all the small things that I like to do like going on nature walks for as long as I can and am able.

The same mindset goes with food. In tandem with working out, I think that everyone and their mother knows that you have to eat right. However, the toxicity in terms of diet arrises when you either a.) overgeneralize b.) scrutinize or c.) polarize. This is what I mean by this. In terms of “fad diets” overgeneralization is the belief that something that works for one person will work for everyone..that’s plain and simply the reason why they’re called “fads”. Diet never has been and never will be universal. That’s why I am often confused by concepts like the paleo diet etc. It really doesn’t seem logical or safe to me.

On the opposite spectrum is scrutiny. This is where, unfortunately, we see a lot of the eating disorders come in. Personally, I’ve never struggled with an ed but I know plenty of people that have. It’s this mental capacity where you’re constantly judging and picking apart your own journey to the point where you mentally convince your mind and eyes to see yourself differently and it is very scary and very real. Obviously, the individuals that struggle with scrutinizing their eating habits are the only ones that can change their mentality and for that reason I think it’s SO important to validate your friends that you think may be struggling with this. No one knows what they look like to other people so confirming that they look nice today or making cute lil snacks together means so much. Obviously don’t LIE or say self centered things like “wow you look a lot skinnier” because that often strengthens their obsession, so just be careful. People often subscribe to commonly endorsed lies about weight loss that frequently damage their success and mental capacity because they simply don’t work. For example, eating less is not necessarily healthy and doesn’t mean that you’ll lose weight. Eating raw veggies in bulk is not really good for you either. If you look at diet as a systematic purge then it is actually very toxic. Instead, what you need to do is simultaneously forgo certain items while replacing them with others of better nutritional value. It’s a lot of research and experimentation that has caused me to have a growing interest (I say interest and not OBSESSION because if you scour nutrition labels in a worried tizzy then you’ll work yourself into stress which often causes eating issues) in reading nutrition labels and looking up health benefits of certain foods.

With polarization you categorize every food as either good or bad, which when you think about it is really silly because in everything there is good and bad. If you think “this is good for me and this is bad for me” then you’ll never eat pizza and brownies and cookies and ice-cream again and idk about you but that looks like a pretty dark world to me. What you really should condition yourself to do instead is weigh the pros and cons of the foods you’re about to eat and instead of forbidding yourself to eat the bad foods, just hold off or eat less of them or eat them less often. Naturally it’s hard at first, but I’ve found that when I drink less soda or eat less ice-cream that when I finally do drink and eat those things they taste a LOT better haha.

I know that a lot of people use the excuse that healthy food is expensive and it is and capitalism sucks, I understand; but what I’ve done (and you can do too) is just TRY a little. Ridiculous I know, but all you need to do is search up “2 or 3 ingredient, healthy meals/ snacks/ desserts” etc. and there are SO many options. I was honestly shocked at how easy it was to make food that was so good considering how unmotivated I can be to cook sometimes. It’s almost become like a game/experiment to me.

I know I talk about perspective and psychology and how I’m feeling a lot in my blog, but I’ve realized that the two concepts I’ve mentioned above in terms of working out and eating right are so foundational to everything else. When you condition yourself to have realistic and selfless goals to a pursuit of something other than a societally driven self image, you’ll come to realize how imperative that is to your mental health.

In fact, I can’t emphasize how true it is to take care of yourself for your own benefit FIRST and everything else will follow. I have gotten more genuine and supportive compliments about my body, mind and overall attitude so much more now than I ever have. It really does something about the way you receive compliments too because if I kill myself working out every day and force myself to eat things that I hate for the sake of losing weight then someone’s compliment about how skinny I look will only trigger the pain of all that I went through to get to that point. However, when I find things that I enjoy and eat food that I actually like then those compliments will reaffirm that I’m on the right track mentally. I really think that you’ll attract that right kind of attention if you treat yourself the same way. (it’ll be like if someone says you’re hot and instead of it being kind of lowkey creepy and shallow you’ll be like “YEAH BITCH YOU RIGHT” hahaha)

This goes both ways. When you give genuine compliments you’ll receive them and also you’ll be so much more attuned to realizing when they aren’t genuine. Once you’re good at deciphering who is genuine and who’s not you can give everyone else the boot :)

Annnnnyway...here are my kale chips hehe (also I’m having pizza for dinner because we don’t limit ourselves yeehaw)

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just-here-for-the-art-shit · 4 years

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I don’t know you at all, but at this point I just have no one to turn to.. I’m currently struggling in the recent oregon fires, were safe for now but it’s really been rough. I’ve been questioning my gender identity and it just hasn’t been fun.. I’m pathetic.. I left my online friends because I was scared that i’ll lose them.. so I left them myself. I don’t talk to anyone, I do nothing at all. I’m pathetic. every single day I imagine myself being another person, it helps for awhile but.. idk

Sounds like depression and anxiety mostly to me (I'm just a emt counselor though I'm no psychologist), and it's also not helped by the fires and other things you're experiencing. The biggest thing that will help obviously is time, but I'm sure you've probably heard that before. I might suggest sort of asking each problem individually first "Why are you making me worry about this" and "How does worrying about this benefit me or motivate me" and often times the problems can't come up with a very good answer.

As for friends, obviously we can't control who comes and goes, but if they're really your friends I bet they do care about you. If it helps, I have worried about losing friends before, and some of those life long friends I have grown apart from over the years ... But I don't regret it at all. I enjoyed our friendship and I don't feel bad that it ended. More friends will come.

Like many things, take it a day at a time.

As for seeking gender identity, it can be very frustrating but also experimental too! Almost like trying on new clothes. You can see what works and doesn't work and some days you may feel different about so and so and that's ok. Know that people who disagree with you or think you're "weird" either don't understand at all what you're going through (and they're not worth your time) or they've been through the same thing and put down others to reaffirm their own solutions.

Also imagining yourself as someone else isn't necessarily bad. Like one of the oldest phrases "fake it to you make it" or "be the person you want to be". If acting like something else makes you feel better, use it. If you're worried about being ungenuine, it's not really - acting like other people is a personality trait in of its self, and from there you can adopt traits, and bring out the hidden traits.

And another cliche thing - keeping a diary of things you love, and another one of things you hate. You can even burn the pages (safely) after you write it down. I know it's tedious to be like "ugh I don't want to wrote anything I don't feel like doing it" but remarkably it worked for my stubborn ass. I wrote out all the rant thoughts I had about people and the time and energy it takes writing about it calms me down. And they don't fester as much, and when they do I right them down again. Like exercising your mind so that it cannot think about it forever. For things I love I just write down simplistic little things like "The feeling of cotton on between my fingers" or "gravely sidewalks." It helps you focus on the little things - like you're an alien and you're just discovering earth for the first time and all its little wonders.

It takes time, because you have to retrain your brain to think, but each day is progress, and so on with each week. If you keep at it you'll notice your brain will just automatically start doing things like that. Noticing small details and categorizing things you like.

So that's my ramble, I hope it helps or at least takes your mind off things for a while. Have a better day.

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johanhellgreninteractivity · 4 years

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How can notions of "interaction aesthetics" be significant for interaction design practice?

Introduction

The purpose of this essay is to explore the concept of interaction aesthetics within the context of interaction design. This essay further argues for the value of establishing a common vocabulary for interaction aesthetics while simultaneously highlighting potential issues that might arise from such a system. To support my argument, I draw upon real-world examples and Lenz, Diefenbach & Hassenzahl’s writings on this subject.

The aesthetics of interaction

Up until quite recently the human experience of interacting with a machine or piece of software was shaped mainly by technical constraints and necessities, the possibility space offered to designers was delimited by hard factors such as functionality, cost, size, weight and so forth. However, in recent years the emergence of a vast array of affordable and miniaturized new technologies have to a significant degree untethered the possibilities of interaction from these constraints, resulting in a high degree of freedom in actually designing the aesthetics of an interactive object. It is now possible to create interactions that are not merely functional, but also beautiful and emotionally satisfying in much the same that has long been possible with user interface design. This development in turn makes interaction aesthetics an emergent field worthy of study and discussion. (Lenz, Diefenbach & Hassenzahl, 2014)

Lenz, Diefenbach & Hassenzahl (2013) describe how current attempts to discuss interaction aesthetics tend to focus on specific aspects of an interaction without providing a holistic view. In order to remedy this situation, they propose a kind of standardized vocabulary of interaction aesthetics which describes different types of interactions using different attributes that scale between two extremes, for example slow to fast or direct to mediated. They further categorize these attributes into why, what and how-levels. The why-level focuses on the subjective emotional experience created by the interaction, the what-level describes the actual purpose of the interaction, and the how-level deals with how the interaction is designed.

Two real-world examples

Direct versus mediated

This first protype we created during the course consisted of a virtual humanoid stick figure that a user could move across the screen using one joystick to control each leg. The purpose of the joystick walker was to explore how a user might experience having direct control of a virtual characters limbs, that is to say the direct opposite of the heavily mediated type of movement controls found in many video games. As opposed to simply abstracting movement control into a directional input, this prototype allowed for discrete control of each leg using two separate joysticks. This prototype could be said to invert the conventional “how” of controlling a virtual character in order to explore how this affects the “why”.

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According to Lenz et al. (2013) mediated interaction creates a sense of remove from the object of interaction, as if the user is merely triggering some action rather than directly creating and controlling it. Direct interaction on the other hand creates a “close relationship between the human and the thing being manipulated.” (ibid, 131)

This prototype demonstrates the value of having access to a vocabulary that both allows a designer to accurately define the nature of an interaction and grants access to its antonym and the wide gradient of possible modes of interaction in between both extremes. This is especially true when it comes to an interaction such as virtual character movement control, where the norm is entrenched to such a degree that it becomes difficult to imagine any other kind of interaction. Simply having access to a pre-defined opposite encourages a designer to expand the scope of their inquiry.

However, this example also raises the issue of the relativity of language and the great extent to which words are interpreted differently based on a person’s individual experience. While our prototype was arguably very direct compared to a traditional movement control interaction where a user would push a single stick to make a character move in a direction and we discussed the design as if we were moving from one extreme to other, it is in hindsight possible to imagine interactions that exist even further out on both sides of the axis. Thus, the scope of the gradient between two extremes expands and contracts based on context and the experience of the persons involved in a design process.

Instant versus delayed

The text-based compass was a phone-based prototype created with the purpose of navigating around places of interest in an urban environment while simultaneously facilitating spontaneous discovery by only showing the direction towards a location as opposed to traditional map applications that give the user precise directions to their destination. The compass rotated in concert with the yaw of the user’s phone, just like a traditional magnet- based compass would as one turn it. However, it further tracks the pitch of the user’s movements and tilts the on-screen content in accordance. However, the navigation system does not actually take the relative elevation of destinations into account, the tilting is purely aesthetic. The rotation on both axes does not precisely track to the movement of the user’s phone, it was intentionally made to gradually interpolate towards the current rotation of the phone. The interaction could thus be said to be both fluent and delayed, but it was the delay that was our main focus.

Instant interaction creates a feeling of physical connection and oneness with the object being interacted with, whereas delayed interaction promotes an awareness of what is happening during the interaction and imbues it with a sense of greater importance, that the interaction itself is something worthy of paying attention to rather than just the result. (Lenz et al., 2013)

As our prototype was intended to promote a sense of slow-paced casual discovery, we attempted to design it to create just the kind of feeling that Lenz et al. (2013) ascribe to a delayed interaction. However, in practice this approach rather ended up creating a feeling of sluggishness and lack of precision for the user, the delayed reaction of the compass led to the impression that it was struggling to lock in on the correct direction. This example demonstrates how it is key to view these terms in a wider context of already existing similar

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interactive objects, in this case our prototype emphasized attributes that conventional navigation tools try their hardest to minimize and thus generated a sense of performing poorly compared to what a user might be accustomed to.

Conclusion

The above-mentioned examples clearly illustrate the value for designers of establishing a common vocabulary for describing the aesthetics of interactions, especially, as was frequently the case during the course, when intentionally attempting to build knowledge by subverting and working against established norms for common types of digital interaction.

Besides the obvious advantage of engendering a more precise discussion during the design process, adhering to an established vocabulary of interaction also provides a designer with a toolkit of precise terms that allow one to define discrete attributes that can describe both practical and experiential aspects of an interaction and place them on a scale between two extremes, thereby facilitating experimentation and a wider scope of designerly inquiry.

However, any such usage of these terms would still unavoidably be highly contextual and must be interpreted in relation to similar phenomena and the individual experience of both designers and users. For example, while the transitional animations featured in iOS generally last less than half a second and could thus be described as fairly fast they might still be perceived as slow by a user who is accustomed to the even more rapid animations found on Android devices. Therefore, it might be valuable to expand on the vocabulary of interaction aesthetics by attempting to clearly delineate between which terms are absolute and which are relative, e.g. temporally fast versus merely feeling fast. Despite the existence of a common vocabulary for interaction aesthetics, designers must continually make sure that everyone involved has a shared understanding of the terms involved. Lenz et al. (2014) touch upon this problem when they caution against using terminology that does not build upon well-established definitions.

This objection does by no means render the concept of a vocabulary for interaction aesthetics useless, but it is an unavoidable problem that must always be taken into account when making use of such a system. Words are inherently imprecise and highly contextual, but a commonly agreed upon set of terms would still be a significant improvement over a situation where definitions are different between individual designers or at the most agreed upon among a small group.

References

Lenz, E., Diefenbach, S., & Hassenzahl, M. (2014). Aesthetics of interaction. Proceedings of the 8th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction Fun, Fast, Foundational - NordiCHI 14. doi:10.1145/2639189.2639198

Lenz, E., Diefenbach, S., & Hassenzahl, M. (2013). Exploring relationships between interaction attributes and experience. Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Designing Pleasurable Products and Interfaces - DPPI 13. doi: 10.1145/2513506.2513520

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