So that whole interview made me super emotional but I particularly relate to Travis’ initial feelings about D&D, like, a lot. Pretty much all I knew about role playing games until college I learned from that one episode of Lizzie McGuire where Gordo gets addicted to it and Lizzie and Miranda have to stage an intervention. It’s made out to be weird, kinda cult-ish and just not portrayed in a very positive light.
Fast forward to college: I’m a theatre major and a group of my very closest friends were like “Hey, we’re gonna start a D&D campaign, do you want to join?” And my answer was a super resounding “NOPE.” Even as someone who adores reading and movies and different ways to tell stories, I was genuinely put off by the medium at first. So my friends were like “That’s okay, you can always come watch if you want!” (Matt Mercer, you were right about “no one watches D&D,” we’ll get there in a second) And again I said “Yeah probably not, kinda weirds me out! Thanks but no thanks.”
And then. And then it happened.
The majority of my close friends were involved in this campaign, so I was facing a day of hanging out alone when the invite was offered again: “Hey, just come watch! If you’re bored or you hate it you can leave.” So I went.
I have no clue if the DM was doing a home brew or a guide based campaign or what. I sat down on the floor and I was a little skeptical, I was listening to everyone plan stuff out and trying to figure out the character sheets and what all the dice were for, I was just so lost. And then they sailed to an island where the people had velociraptors as pets. And someone in the campaign said “I’m gonna try to pet one.” He rolled for it, didn’t do so hot, and the DM said “She hisses at you.” And without even thinking, I just kinda hissed under my breath to my friend on the left thinking we’d just have a laugh.
IMMEDIATELY, the guy that just tried to pet the velociraptor looks at me and dangles his hand out with an imaginary fish and said “Okay, I’m gonna try to feed her then!” And held out a fish. To me. And I sat there thinking “Ok dude running the show, you can jump in any time now and take over!” until I realized he was looking at me, too. He had given me total control over that dinosaur and was waiting to see what I was gonna do.
And I GOT IT.
In that moment, playing a dumb dinosaur in a narrative I didn’t even half understand, I got it.
My face is having uncontrollable spasms. Great. It hurts really, really, really bad.
I think part of why I have trouble explaining pain to the doctor is when they ask about the pain scale I always think “Well, if someone threw me down a flight of stairs right now or punched me a few times, it would definitely hurt a lot more” so I end up saying a low number. I was reading an article that said that “10” is the most commonly reported number and that is baffling to me. When I woke up from surgery with an 8" incision in my body and I could hardly even speak, I was in the most horrific pain of my life but I said “6” because I thought “Well, if you hit me in the stomach, it would be worse.”
I searched and searched for the post this graphic was from, and the OP deactivated, but I kept the graphic, because my BFF does the same thing, uses her imagination to come up with the worst pain she can imagine and pegs her “10″ there, and so is like, well, I’m conscious, so this must be a 5, and then the doctors don’t take her seriously. (And she then does things like driving herself to the hospital while in the process of giving birth. Probably should have called an ambulance for that one!)
So I found this and sent it to her. Because this is what they want to know: how badly is this pain affecting you? Not on a scale of “nothing” to “how I’d imagine it’d feel if bears were eating my still-living guts while I was on fire”.
I hate reposting stuff, but I’ll never find that post again and OP is deactivated, so, here’s a repost. I can delete this later, i just wanted to get it to you and I can’t embed images in a chat or an ask.
This is possibly why it took several weeks to diagnose my fractured spine.
Pain Scale transcription:
10 – I am in bed and I can’t move due to my pain. I need someone to take me to the emergency room because of my pain.
9 – My pain is all that I can think about. I can barely move or talk because of my pain.
8 – My pain is so severe that it is difficult to think of anything else. Talking and listening are difficult.
7 – I am in pain all the time. It keeps me from doing most activities.
6 – I think about my pain all of the time. I give up many activities because of my pain.
5 – I think about my pain most of the time. I cannot do some of the activities I need to do each day because of the pain.
4 – I am constantly aware of my pain but can continue most activities.
3 – My pain bothers me but I can ignore it most of the time.
2 – I have a low level of pain. I am aware of my pain only when I pay attention to it.
1 – My pain is hardly noticeable.
0 – I have no pain.
It’s also really important to get this kind of scale to people who have chronic pain, because chronic pain drastically lowers your perception of how “bad” any kind of pain actually is, and yet something like this pain scale is extremely user friendly.
For example, if someone asked me how much pain I’m in at any given time, I’d say hardly any, and yet I’m apparently at a chronic 2.5, and it only goes up from there depending on the day.
And there will be not a whit of consequences for anyone. Conservatives will remain in power in both nations.
Maybe vote? Maybe throw a riot? Maybe do that over and over until change happens. “Conservatives face no consequences” enables them and excuses people from doing something. Why don’t we make consequences for them? Big or small.
if anyone would like to learn a couple tricks for carving pumpkins:
– dont cut out the top to scoop out the seeds, cut out the bottom instead. this way the pumpkin doesnt cave in on itself and lasts longer
– sprinkle some cinnamon inside at the top after carving. this way when you put the candle in it smells like pumpkin pie
this is the quality content I wanna see on my dash
– rub the i sides with lemon after you’re done scooping. This will also help preserve the pumpkin
It’s fucking June, at least wait until the fourth of July, you animal.
I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of me disemboweling this pumpkin.
During a conversation with my manager this morning, she mentioned that her manager– the district manager– had told her that “We want people who are passionate about our products. We don’t want people working here if they’re doing it for the money.”
To which the manager (internally, because she doesn’t want to be fired), went “you’ve got to be fucking shitting me.”
Here’s the thing: it is totally possible to do a job for the passion and not be obsessively thinking about the money every minute of every day. In fact, there have been economic studies regarding that very thing.
You know when it starts?
When the employee in question is making $50-75k per year.*
That’s the starting point of financial security. That’s the point when you’re fairly secure that you’re going to have rent, food, and basic living expenses covered.
I’ve worked a lot of jobs over the years. A lot.
I saw the same working as a freelancer– when I charged lower rates, my clients treated me like shit and acted like they were doing me a favor; when I charged more, they respected me as a professional. A newspaper that started out paying me above market wage also treated me very kindly, because they started with the assumption that I was a human being who needs to eat.
In my experience, the employers that insist that your job be your “passion” are also the ones that pay you nothing and treat you like garbage. It’s exactly like abusive people, who tell you that you would put up with their abuse if you “loved them enough”. It’s a way of convincing the victim that they’re responsible for their own mistreatment, which is absolutely fucked up.
Here’s my advice to you:
It is absolutely okay to take a job that doesn’t pay you what you deserve– you’ve got to eat, after all. But don’t think for a second that you have a responsibility to that job. If you see something available that pays better and treats you better, take it and don’t look back. Don’t waste an ounce of sympathy for employers who try to convince you that passion is an acceptable substitute for survival.
Sometimes self care is making a batch of turkey burgers at 9pm cause you might have been trapped in an ADHD executive dysfunction cycle all day, but time is an arbitrary concept and you deserve nourishment regardless of what the stupid clock says.
Bonus scenario: you can now have turkey burgers for breakfast.
Also as an aside, in the Regency era the concept of supper was formalized into a late evening meal and was held usually at the end of a grand social event, so therefore could take place anywhere after 8pm to midnight depending on the event. It was considered super fashionable and elite.
So if it helps to think of it this way, romance yourself like the Jane Austen heroine you are, and eat leftovers out of the fridge at 3am like the high spirited and unconventional person you are. You’ve got this.
In the event you don’t want to be a Regency Heroine, you can also Be:
A Hobbit, who has a meal for roughly every 2 hours of the day and they never said WHEN second breakfast was. or maybe it’s First Breakfast, just really, really early.
A Nocturnal Cryptid coming out of hiding at odd hours to avoid the paparazzi
You’re preparing to battle jetlag on an interstellar trip where you’ll be on a 30-hour schedule becuase it’s a good compromise with the alien’s 36-hour schedule.
Frankenuff’s Castle 