Rexxitor. Biology nerd. Roguelites, indie games, and TRPGs. Drowning in unused yarn, unread books, and mandatory cat hair.

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Cake day: June 10th, 2023

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  • From the US: I’m over 30 and this is the first time I’ve heard surrogacy referred to as human trafficking. And now I need to sit and think.

    It’s always felt a little bit creepy to me, but I’ve also never wanted kids and the idea of pregnancy for any reason would be traumatic. So I’m starting out heavily biased. I think if you take the money out, it no longer counts…?

    But the idea would be so out of left field that it would mostly be dismissed out of hand, probably even by most women.




  • Ok. Mini-rant because I can’t contain myself atm. Do you wanna know a badly-kept secret? I’ve been making art on and off for 29 years. My ass wishes I could draw too. A ton of artists wish they could draw.

    Talent will only give you a leg up, and mainly just at the beginning. The rest, all of us have to struggle for and I’m quite sure very few of us appreciate having to do so. And no matter how good they get, there is always something they have no idea how to do yet or they have some idol whose style they envy more than their own. Or they’re the type that only hates what they make because they’re the one who made it.

    Van Gogh had a painter friend named Gauguin, and they were both jealous of each other. There is no magical point that one hits where you feel like you’re Good Enough. The best you can aim for is the kind of steady improvement you don’t even notice happening except on a scale of years, and the confidence to acknowledge those improvements instead of hyper-focusing on every way it isn’t what you saw in your head (it never is).

    Go get a pencil or your ipad or whatever. Youtube is by far your biggest friend. Go look up videos about how to actually see what’s in front of you instead of what your brain insists must logically be there. USE REFERENCE. Trace a photo over and over, then immediately try the same thing freehand – this one is super useful, because a lot of drawing is also muscle memory. Break things down into simple shapes and then build on those. Use the open space between objects if you need to, to trick yourself into drawing something complex without getting lost in intimidating structural details.

    When you’ve got those down, move onto perspective and composition. Cry a little if you have to, then get back to it. Because now you’re able to do whole backgrounds. People? Do tons of deliberately imprecise gesture drawings. Give your OC a terrifying robot head, a pillow for a torso, and springs for limbs. But go get. Your pencil. And be ok with drawing at first like everyone thinks they draw.

    Barring that, my second choice is singing.







  • When I get deeply emotionally attached to my data analyst, I might care if they’re moonlighting on the side. Sex, work or not, is still an emotional topic for most of the human race and it’s not new knowledge to anyone.

    Enough that it would not naturally occur to me that “please do not engage in prostitution while we’re together” needs to be said out loud. I will casually ask if you’re monogamous and if you say yes, that’s how monogamy works.

    Even aside from that, yeah, tbh, I would consider it good form to let your partner know you’re considering a new job regardless, just so they generally know what’s going on. If you have to hide it, maybe something is wrong.


  • I think we very much do understand it’s a problem and there is not a whole lot women can do about it that we aren’t already doing. The majority of feminists would love for men to see a fucking therapist. They keep fighting it tooth and nail, though.

    They’ll either not open up at all for fear of being judged, or they’ll ONLY lean on the women in their life. The one or two women in their life, because in my anecdotal experience they don’t seem to stick around women they can’t sleep with.

    You guys want and desperately need actual emotional support, but you seemingly refuse to support each other. When we tell you to so much as just give each other the compliments you’re looking for, it’s met with whining because the respondents want women to do it. Even though mainly the compliments we get are…also from women, and going along with this request puts us in harm’s way.

    A lot of men are so beat to shit from such an early age that they can’t even put a name to a lot of emotions besides anger. Which causes them to be both unable to manage what they can barely explain, and to feel significantly uncomfortable (outmatched) in marriage counseling, watching their wife run circles around them.

    But biting the bullet and improving on emotional literacy via counseling and/or self-study and deep reflection never seems to strike the fancy. Their date has to teach them. And they WILL be fighting every step of the way.

    I would love to date someone who doesn’t define their entire existence through their job. That’s nearly the entire reason two out of my four relationships fell to pieces.

    -I- didn’t give a shit. I met one of them when we were both homeless and said yes anyway. But if I made more money or they got laid off at any point, both of them would have a months-long binge drinking breakdown regardless of what I said.

    You know you could just stop, right? That’s what’s incredibly frustrating about this for me. A lot of problems that are specific to men seem to be an issue of self-image, and are thus self-imposed, and you could just. Stop.

    I can’t make anyone not pick me up by the throat, but any day you could just wake up and decide your paycheck doesn’t actually fucking matter and never date someone who thinks it does.

    You could be excruciatingly nice to people for no reason instead of demanding women do it, work out what’s going on with you and tell people about it, and give them both barrels if they think a human being needing help is gay.

    As much as I feel for men as a group, it’s the empathetic part that makes me want to hold them upside down and shake them till the sense falls out. Take. Care of each other. Fix the thing.







  • Up til now, we’ve had:

    • The sudden realization that you can bathe and don’t have to crunch around in weeks of dried gore

    • The further realization that at least one npc mentions you stink and should probably do something about that

    • Standing relatively close to a waterfall for a few minutes if you can find one, or perhaps walking at a normal pace through a really deep puddle.

    • Sophisticated method — stealing a water bottle, throwing it really hard at the floor, and hoping the splashback is enough

    After months of steady work, we can use the soap now, but you’re going to have to give your fellow gamers a minute to get used to things before you start making other suggestions