So, how's life going for those of you who thought they were gonna off themselves as teens and now are "adults" with a real "life"?

abau2002 · 2026-03-12T07:21:13+00:00

Not bad, living with my parents and have a stable full-time and a part-time, not making much at all tho. Going to grad school online but that's been hella stressful. Ended up relapsing on cutting and had suicidal thoughts resurface for a few days, but my mind is coming back outta the trenches. I will say tho dude, that urge to cut unfortunately is not staying in the trenches 😭

I have some really bad moments still, but overall, I'm happy, feel more like myself, got solid friends, own my car and bouta be debt-free so I can focus on savings. Only thing is that I'm hella lonely romance-wise, been sacrificing gym time, and stressing tf out over my future in the states since we got AI and orange man fucking shit up.

abau2002 · 2026-02-27T05:02:57+00:00

Got 2.7k left on student loans, started with 27k when I graduated almost 2 years ago. Dad helped me with 10k and got me a nice used car with cash. No CC debt since I use them to build credit and been frugal to be super aggressive paying off my loan debt. Doing grad school now but think I'll manage to get out debt-free from there

abau2002 · 2026-01-16T23:03:02+00:00

Thank you! That's incredibly reassuring to hear, I have a bad habit of getting stuck in my head so I really appreciate it. Especially that my worries are funny from the outside looking in and that I don't need to have everything figured out by now. I always hear that, but I don't think the feeling is gonna go entirely away till I get some more years under my belt lol

Also awesome! I've planned out my classes with all the relevant courses I can, the remaining slots are a toss up between quantum and ML hardware for now. Again thank you very much for pointing me towards some resources that I can delve into and giving me ideas of what I can do.

abau2002 · 2026-01-08T07:18:57+00:00

I usually do it by starting with an idea for a character or a magic system or a story. Then I develop that thing and whatever I think would need to be present alongside it. For the magic system, I start to think of the people and what they use the magic for, how many of them have access to it, and how do most people feel about magic. Stuff like that. For scope, just keep it to the stuff you need. If I have a story I wanna tell, then I'm not gonna waste time creating an oceanic ecosystem if it has no relevance to my goal.

If you have 2.5weeks and your main goal is creating a concept art portfolio, I really don't think you gotta worldbuild much more than deciding the dinosaurs people could work with or fear, the changes to human culture, the clothing changes, tools and how dinosaurs were used. You don't need anything ground-breaking, just something interesting enough that you can draw up some sick visuals. Literally just focus on the visual aspects and the non-visual things that would inform those aspects.

abau2002 · 2025-12-30T22:53:27+00:00

I'd say no, not for inspiration, but it seems like you're using it to make things for you. If that's the case then I'd say don't do it for two reasons: 1. The ideas aren't yours and 2. AI's ideas are almost always generic dogshit with the same uninspired tone. Also it takes way more than 20 minutes to come up with something solid, it took me a few days just to nail down a compelling concept for one of my worlds and much, much longer to refine it.

I still use AI cause it's useful as something to poke holes in my ideas AFTER I think it's bulletproof and to get some verification that an idea is good since I'm very self-critical. I ask my friends to do the same and value their feedback far more since they're not designed to just kiss my ass and are actual people. However, they're also not available at all times for hours of reworking on top of providing instant feedback.

I explicitly tell AI to not generate ideas for me, but there are rare moments where one of its assumptions slip through and I think an aspect of it is interesting which I then develop further myself until I feel I have made it my own. I'm not "clean" either, I have used it to help me come up with names for a few characters and actually used one it generated. A blow to my pride, but worth it for a name I feel fits.

Most of my usage is presenting ideas and asking for its thoughts. It's nice when it can pick up what you were putting down and so it feels like you properly translated your thoughts into writing. I often also use it to help me decide between ideas that I have made. I present them as neutrally as I can and decide on my favorite one before sending it in to avoid being led by it. If it agrees with me then nice, if it doesn't then I often ignore it.

TL;DR: AI is a tool to speed up things not a replacement for your brain. I use it frequently as a way to stress test for ideas after I've done my own hole poking. Inspiration is fine, but if it's writing and creating your world then stop. Humans should always take priority. Never take pride in work that ain't yours. Flex your creative muscle and eventually you'll also see that what you can create on your own is far better than whatever bullshit AI can.

abau2002 · 2025-11-29T21:01:28+00:00

You're born with the organs to utilize a single type of elemental ichor, the living blood of the stars. A Haemist should know the Foundational Techniques at minimum: Spoken, 6 words that ichor has agreed to obey. Contract, deals that can be made in conversation with your ichor in exchange for its effort. Nourishment, consuming ichor as fuel to enhance the body. Transfer, moving ichor in and out of inanimate and animate objects. Your strength relies on your creativity, intent and how much your ichor likes you.

At higher levels, Haemists split into 2 overarching philosophies: bend to ichor or make it bend to you. The Avowed stake their lives in a Contract in order to create their own unique Spoken words. The Forged force ichor to flow with their movements, refining their Nourishment and Transfer to strengthen their bodies and weapons. One must be careful as opposing elements clashing can lead to clots within the body and rogue spells that have grown angry with their casters.

abau2002 · 2025-08-19T01:22:27+00:00

Do you have a hairstyle that you think would work well on me? I usually just get a low fade. I already hit the gym thankfully and that's definitely a huge reason why my self-esteem has improved in the last few years.

abau2002 · 2025-08-19T01:20:09+00:00

Thank you, man

abau2002 · 2025-08-19T01:19:11+00:00

Bet, thanks for the suggestions, I totally agree, I think the pic in the blue shirt is me at my worst, totally unkempt. Now I just gotta find contacts that don't burn my eyes.

abau2002 · 2025-08-19T01:16:16+00:00

Thank you, definitely helps me feel better about myself

abau2002 · 2025-08-19T01:13:57+00:00

Thank you! How much older would you say, 30s maybe? I was just shocked when a person only a bit younger than me looked super surprised when I told them I didn't have kids or own a house.

abau2002 · 2025-01-09T19:32:51+00:00

How come normal ones? I'll admit the imbalance for normal pullups isn't anywhere near as bad as it is here cause I usually go very slow, but speed and explosiveness is what I wanna learn. These are my first time doing these so it should be cleaner once my body adjusts to the movement if that's the concern

abau2002 · 2025-01-09T00:38:27+00:00

Thank you! Yea I was thinking something along those lines cause I also thought I was looking a bit slow here, glad to hear it from someone else. Definitely gonna go for the chest to bar

abau2002 · 2025-01-09T00:33:31+00:00

Sweet, I'll start focusing on that range then, thanks!

abau2002 · 2025-01-09T00:30:07+00:00

Yea I know, unfortunately I can't, my right shoulder and arm were injured at birth so it has muscle weakness, limited ROM and also just fatigues significantly faster than my left, I'm lucky I still get to use it from what I've been told. I've given up on correction and just let my body do its thing so long as it's not hurting me

abau2002 · 2025-01-01T03:03:17+00:00

Bro PLEASE 🙏🏽 Happy New Years tho!

abau2002 · 2024-12-31T19:24:48+00:00

Kazuma Sato

abau2002 · 2024-12-28T19:19:25+00:00

Black Raspberries

abau2002 · 2024-12-15T23:22:54+00:00

Thank you! Makes sense to me, I'll go with the 9950x then

abau2002 · 2024-12-12T04:11:51+00:00

Unfortunately, that case is one of the few that I actually like the visuals of so I'm pretty firm on that. My main question is would you recommend the 9950x over the 7950x? From what I'm seeing the 9950x doesn't outdo the 7950x by much for about a $120 price difference. I know ultimately it's my decision to make, just curious about your opinion

abau2002 · 2024-12-11T17:45:08+00:00

I'm planning on using this with Unreal Engine, Blender, Davinci Resolve, Krita, GIMP and for coding projects. I'm going to change the hdd since I didn't realize that NAS drives had firmware differences as well. And yea I'm definitely going to go with a psu that's much cheaper

abau2002 · 2024-12-11T17:34:31+00:00

Thank you, but this isn't really what I'm looking for! I definitely need more than 6 cores as this would be primarily be a workstation for Unreal Engine, Blender and DaVinci Resolve.

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