Get a little sketch book or tablet. Every time an ad comes on, draw an object (or dog! Or person!) in the room with you. Try to do the whole sketch over a single ad break, focusing on the biggest, most important shapes first. You’ll learn to draw very quickly.
If you already know how to draw, draw. Use it or lose it!
Disclaimer: am artist, possibly biased. Doing art for its own sake is fun for me, so it doesn’t need to have a ‘point.’
I seem to recall Maverick(1994) having a good card game as a central plot element, which takes place on a river boat casino. It’s also just a really fun movie about three competing con artists (played by James Garner, Mel Gibson, and Jodie Foster).
It’s been a few years since I’ve seen it, and it’s set in the old west, so sorry if it has any racisms I forgot about!
A good DM is both of these. They want you to feel that the danger is real, because higher stakes means the narrative payoff feels earned. They want you to feel like the world is wonderous, so that it feels like a thing worth fighting for.
I get that OC can mean lots of things, but I think most people in this thread are willfully misunderstanding you because of preconceived biases about original characters being ‘childish.’
I will instead attempt to engage in good faith. Here is an original character I conceived for a Star Control D&D game I ran.
Archivist Ryll (pictured at right) is an Yllk who joined the crew after they performed a mission to help him study an anomalous neutron star. He is pragmatic and cheerful, and always game to help out, but dislikes authority figures. He lost his rear legs in an accident involving IDF (interdimensional fatigue). He is shown here in the epilogue of the campaign in his capacity as archivist, assisting with the official documents as the Alliance of Free Stars signs a formal cease-fire with the VUX Admiralty after the Battle of the Sa-Matra and subsequent dissolution of the Ur-Quan Hierarchy of Battle Thralls.
People usually see doctors when something has gone very wrong with their life. It’s scary when your body backs you into a corner, and fear makes people act stupid and angry. I would hope they could be given a little bit of slack.
Are you suggesting my good Mr. Baggins of Bagshot Row, Hobbiton is not a god among burglars?
Has nobody ever talked dirty to you? Words can be very powerful, even recorded ones.
I think that varies wildly from one person to another. For me, housework is emotionally exhausting. So is making decisions that affect other people, like where to go for dinner. These are examples where it feels like a bad kind of exhausting. On the other hand, running a D&D game is a thing that’s emotionally exhausting but that I still enjoy doing.
Oh, that’s why I like “dipshit” so much. Now I understand myself better, thanks!
The sound of Agatha Trunchbull’s angry grunt as she throws the shot put in her office to intimidate Ms. Honey in Matilda (1996).
Or really, any of the noises she makes throughout that entire movie.
Disgusting things, children. Glad I never was one.
This post has a weird energy. I can’t decide if it reads more phobia or more fetish. Maybe both XD
I mean…
You’re the kwisatz haderach, Charlie Brown.
A psychopath wouldn’t be worried about whether they’re a psychopath.
I don’t think anybody really sees themselves as a simple ‘A’ or ‘B’ in this way. Maybe I’m wrong. It just seems impossible to simplify an entire life and experience of the world as either ‘blessed’ or ‘cursed’.
Which isn’t to say I think models of human capability can’t be fun.
I like to imagine it more like ability scores in D&D. Someone might have low Wisdom, but training and proficiency can still make them extremely perceptive. And in some cases, you can find ways to leverage an unusual ability when you’re trying to do something, like making an intimidation check using Strength instead of Charisma. What is a weakness in one scenario can be a strength in the next.
This model is still simple enough to visualize easily, but has enough moving parts to allow for lots of different ways of being without any one way being ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Neurodivergence might be part of the stats you roll up, but your circumstances and your choices combine to build a life experience around them that can be completely different from another person who rolled the same numbers. Likewise, different rolled stats can affect how well you handle certain situations and adventures, but this is neither a curse nor a superpower, and is true for everyone.
Models only get you so far, but humans are a social species. We need each other by our very nature. Teamwork is in our DNA. And, like DNA, teams are more adaptable when they are diverse. Everyone has something to bring to the table, neurodivergent or otherwise.
Assuming you are genuinely asking, “ugly” is entirely subjective. Someone might be unattractive to you for any number complex reasons, including the possibility that you are simply not who they are trying to appeal to (or they don’t make appealing to other people a priority at all, for political reasons, personal reasons, or just convenience), but there is no objective standard of ugliness, despite what mainstream media and beauty standards may want you to think. Everyone is beautiful to someone.
Free Stars: The Ur-Quan Masters has an excellent story and wordbuilding, and you can talk to all kinds of weird aliens. If you don’t like the ship combat, you can set up the game’s AI to fight for you.
If you liked this game, you might be interested to learn that Pistol Shrimp games, an independent game dev company started by Paul Rieche III and Fred Ford (the original creators of Star Control and Star Control 2), are making a sequel, with story written by Paul Rieche III.
The re-release on steam is partly to get the word out about it. Join our discord to learn more!
Hey, this is my exact story, including the undiagnosed ADHD, dropping out of college, the dead-end wage slavery for way too long, and now having a decent paying job that isn’t what I went to school for, but that also doesn’t kill my soul.
Except: I have an epilogue!
I still don’t have a degree, but I never stopped practicing my art because I am simply incapable of stopping. It’s what I do. I recently got a side gig that was my absolute unrealistic pie-in-the-sky dream job when I was in college, working for the very creators that inspired me to choose my major in the first place. College wasn’t what got me there. It was passion for the artform, introspection/therapy to develop a more forgiving and accepting attitude toward myself, and sheer perseverance. I spent the first 18 years of my adult life thinking failure and dead ends were all the universe had to offer, but I kept trying anyway (mostly to spite that hostile universe in a ‘fuck you, kill me yourself’ kind of way).
It’s not over until it’s over. You don’t know how your story ends. Keep trying. If someone says you missed your chance, fuck 'em. They can’t see the future any more clearly than you.
My roommate is obsessed with Halloween and does one of those little model villages every year with tiny spooky buildings that light up and stuff. I sometimes sculpt or 3D print parts and props for it. It’s fun to see how much joy he gets out of it, and how it grows a little each year.