#haedia grumbles

[haedia]

It would be really neat if I could pause my lifetime compulsory subscription to Chronic Illness Daily. I'm getting real tired (badum tiss) of being exhausted when I have shit to do.

>:/

[haedia]

Something that tickles me in a kind of dark way is how the gen-ai scammers pretending to be artists have no idea how long it can take to produce things similar to the images they claim to have made.

Like, it makes sense that they wouldn't have a clue since they've never put in the work in the first place. But it's fascinating to watch them with their posting schedule.

Skilled artists generally have gotten in a habit for their workflow, whatever that is. And some artists can produce pieces very quickly, especially if their art style and techniques they use complement that speed. But a new(er) artist will not have that framework set up already.

With the gen-ai faux-"creative", they have little to no context for any of that and so their posting cadence is guesswork. Guesswork and the drive for receiving attention (and let's be real, that's the obvious driving force for people who don't want to put in the work for things like this). If they post a piece that gets a lot of attention and it isn't noticed for what it is, they'll often speed up their posting cadence as a result.

So, a (potentially) semi-plausible posting cadence can very quickly become absurd.

It's especially so when they post faked "progress" images ahead of the "finished piece". Others have gone into deeper detail about this so I won't elaborate too much on that other than to say:

it's obvious when someone is tracing a finished piece and trying to pass that off as a "WIP" sketch

It's obvious when someone is hella faking anatomy under one of those tracings

It's obvious when those "WIP" images show a complete lack of understanding of both process and image construction

Some of these people think that a brand new artist will understand and be able to execute flawless foreshortening, complex lighting scenarios, complex composition, and more. All while not having a clue how anatomy and proportion work in those "WIP" images.

And, since they're ignorant of the time investment, they're churning out several of these a week. Sometimes daily.

It's comical in a way.

[haedia]

I did a lot of driving over the past few days, one of those days was the last of the heat spike, so I have a rough fatigue recovery ahead of me.

The driving itself wasn't really the issue, though it didn't help. The issue was the heat and sun exposure I got while doing it. Which set off all my bad symptoms.

So now I'm an achy, exhausted mess.

It's so frustrating. I just want to be able to do the things I want and need to do. Instead, I have to be horizontal and often unconscious while my body recovers.

No cleaning for me. No art time for me, either.

[haedia]

Gonna grumble about bad Subnautica 2 takes. Putting it below the cut because I'm annoyed.

First off, if you play it and don't like it, that's fine. I'm not annoyed that people don't like it. Also, it's early access and things will change. It may become more to a person's taste before release. And it may not. That's okay.

What I'm annoyed about is the number of people (some who write for various publications who claim to have played the earlier games) complaining about things that are series standards.

Read an article from one of the gaming publications where the guy said he'd played the first two games and then spent paragraph after paragraph complaining about things in 2 that aren't new, but writing as if they were. Even saying at multiple points how the first game didn't do (insert thing here that the first one absolutely did).

Below is a sampling of examples of things he was annoyed about, but was so sure that the first game didn't do. The previous Subnautica games didn't:

Alert you when you had thirty seconds of air left

Alert you when you had ten seconds of air left

Start you off with barebones base pieces that required further exploration and discovery to locate bigger and better ones

Require various upgrades to progress into different, deeper, or hostile environments

Have upgrades that modified the vehicles

Make you find blueprints or pieces of things to scan to unlock new gear

Give you alerts or direction to investigate things (ya know, in a story progression kind of way)

Have structures present in the world before you got there

Have tonally different characters talking to you at different times (possibly the most baffling one right there)

(That last one, especially gets me. It's not bad writing to have different personalities present for the player to interact with. There are two distinct computer characters — or character-adjacent beings — that you interact with and they have different tones while both having fairly neutral delivery. One is very dry but at times amusing. The guy in question apparently felt it was jarring for her to be written like that. Why? I have no idea)

I just had a sea of question marks fill my vision, reading that. Like. I know it's been several years since the first one came out but come on, dude. This is embarrassing.

Either he just did not remember the game at all or he didn't actually play it.

According to another guy, this game is simultaneously hand-holdy, yet opaque and inscrutable.

Like, which is it? It can't really be both. Especially not all the time.

And then there are the people whining about not being able to have guns, when again, that's been a series staple forever. It's not new and it's not changing.

I just want to tell them to get over it. Christ.

It starts to feel like a skill issue, honestly. The game gives you tools to deal with problems but this is not a game where you can just delete an obstacle.

You have to adapt.

It's a core tenet of the series: both in mechanics and story.

Anyway. Enough grumbling.

I'm enjoying Subnautica 2 so far. Given the strength of the early access launch, I'm very excited to see where things will go.

If you played either of the earlier games and enjoyed them, you'll probably enjoy the new one already. It feels like a natural progression. It is both familiar and new. And I'm so excited to see where the story takes us.

It's going to be a massive experience, by the time it reaches 1.0, also.

[haedia]

If life could just be chill for a bit and if my body would behave, that would be great.

I've spent so much time recovering from shit lately. Mostly, things are okay it's just the combination of circumstances that are being frustrating.

And with summer looming, it's hard not to get anxious on top of it all.

Take this week so far. Yes, it's only Tuesday.

Saturday night into Sunday, I just basically could not sleep, so Sunday was a very low energy day. I got to see my partners, which was nice but basically the moment I got home, it was emergency nap time and I slept for several hours. Woke up feeling better than I would have had I not slept, but I had fatigue crash symptoms and spent a lot of the evening achy.

I did get to sleep earlier that night, which was good. I had tentatively planned to do a thing on Monday, yesterday, with one of my partners, then do some art stuff after I got home.

Instead of that, though, I ended up having to take my best friend to urgent care (he's fine). And that endeavor ate up basically my entire day and all my energy.

We headed out at like 11:50am and I did not get home until 6:50pm.

So that brings us to today, when I wake up to the realization that my bank (a real shitty awful nationwide bank that is pretty universally despised) apparently was unable to complete a regularly occurring transaction within a reasonable time frame, so I just basically have no funds (it's fine, I'm just furious) until they decide to process it. It's a thing that, during the week when the processing days don't overlap with a weekend, should not take more than 24 hours — in fact, it usually doesn't take more than 24 hours, assuming the process dates aren't weekend ones.

And yet, it's gonna take ??? amount of hours. Why? "Just 'cause :)"

If they didn't vacuum up money instantly when it's for their benefit, I would be less pissed off about this. But that's not how it is. They can instantly take it but if it's gonna be deposited? Into your account? Well, that's not fair to them, so they gotta make sure it's accounted for and that everything is legit. For 24 to (if I'm very unlucky) 100+ hours after the money has entered the ether.

And I get to stew in these feelings (jk, I'm doing my best to dispel them) on a major fatigue crash day.

Gonna be spending a lot of time in and around my bed today when I'd rather be able to do any of the things I had loosely planned for the week. >:/

[haedia]

Ugh. I hate feeling restless, especially when I don't have enough energy to use it to produce something creative. Like, I feel creatively motivated but the fuel isn't enough for me to make anything.

I can write little bits and doodle for a short amount of time but then it's fumes again and I have to stop.

Like, yes, that's still progress and I'm happy to have even that but goddamnit I just want to be able to work for a few hours before I have to stop.

[haedia]

The actual fatigue part of chronic fatigue sucks, it's true. But I think the part I hate more is the brain fog.

The worse the fatigue gets, the worse the brain fog becomes. So on days like today, when my fatigue is made so much worse by heat and sun exposure, my thoughts slip through and away from me like fine sand between my fingers.

Lying down helps some. But it's never fixed. It's always a game of attrition: I may eke out some respite but it's never back to a fully functional "normal".

...

I was going somewhere with this. But, remember: sand.

I think I'm just feeling demoralized and deflated today.

My body grief has been well controlled for a long while. But I think my grasp on it slipped some today and as I lie here, confined to my bed for at least a few hours, I'm feeling somber and wistful.

And tired.

Always tired.

[haedia]

I was going to do some digital art today but with the bullshit computer stress over the past couple of days, the thought of opening Clip Studio right now makes me want to turn inside out. So instead, it's gonna be a crochet day. Maybe I'll get the head and neck of the next flamingo done today.

Ugh. I'm still so annoyed about everything. I'm glad it didn't turn out worse but christ on a bike, it was almost real bad for no fucking reason. >>>>:C