AnarchistArtificer

I didn't end up with Lae'zel in the end, but I hedged my bets for long enough that I got the Long Rest scene where she wakes you up in the night. The encounter ended hilariously fast, but what followed melted my heart and made it very hard to not choose her.

I also love how quickly Lae'zel changes her entire world view, which happened around the same time for me. Mad respect for such principles and focus

I ended up with Astarion. I was en route to romancing Shadowheart, but I got surprisingly few approval moments or interactions with her throughout act 2. At the same time, my character seemed to be taking the shape of "goodie-two-shoes but sassy bitch to those who deserve it", which gave loads of Astarion approval.

I ended up learning into it and I'm super glad I did. There's an Act 2 Dark Urge scene that I felt completely changed the romance dynamic between my character and Astarion - it felt like it put us on a much more even footing, and I was surprised by how sincere and empathetic the scene felt (given that Astarion's main Cope is a mask of flirting and sass).

I had originally wanted to romance Karlach, but there was a bug that prevented her approval from rising and by the time I discovered and fixed it, I had missed loads of Act 1 approval moments

I don't think you're necessarily missing anything. Lower Decks is probably my favourite Star Trek series by a decent margin, but I think that people's varying tastes is part of the Trek experience.

Like the first Star Trek I ever watched was TNG, with a partner who hated DS9 because of how far it was from the much more utopian tone of TNG. My best friend, however, loved DS9 most of all for that exact same reason. I can't tolerate The Original Series because of how campy and cringe it is, but I have friends who love it for that.

If you hate Lower Decks, then your perspective is one I can't really relate to, but that just feels like regular old Trekkie solidarity to me - with a show so varied, inevitably there's going to be diverse viewpoints. That in mind, I'm not going to try and change mind, I'm just going to highlight why I love Lower Decks.

My favourite bit about Lower Decks is that it feels like a love letter to Trek, in all its forms. There's a lot of references I don't get, but I don't need to get them to feel the warm fuzzies of knowing this show was made by people who are, first and foremost, fans of Star Trek. I like utopian sci fi because the state of the real world means that I can find real hope in the fantasy because in my heart, I believe in humanity.

Alongside all of that idealistic space exploration though, Lower Decks doesn't shy away from the more pernicious aspects of Star Trek, and Starfleet/the Federation. The humour isn't always my taste, but I think they use it well to poke fun at Star Trek, the show, but also the world within. The sometimes critical lens that is taken is part of why it feels so much like a love letter to Trek - if you truly love something, you've got to take the bad with the good and not pretend that everything is perfect.

Looks great! I love the colours

In the past, with similar issues, I've had good success with requesting the book on Zlib, especially newer books.

I have a friend who says that "whatever works is elegant" and solutions like OP's is why I simultaneously love and hate that phrase.

"as asexuality to the manosphere is like Antarctica to a flat earther"

Damn, this quote is fire.

That's a good quote. And by good, I mean helpful in understanding the cycle of assholery.

If you're confused because you came here from /All, then for context, this community is for Vampire: The Masquerade (VTM), a tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG). In the background lore of the game, Cain was the first vampire, and all vampires in the game are descended from him.

We'll just be very disappointed in you.

I have both autism and ADHD, and whilst it's difficult to draw the line between the two, I do have some instances of inertia that feel more ADHD flavour than autism. I've also seen many of my ADHD friends struggling with something like this too, but it seems like it works differently than autistic inertia.

I think that there's a decent chance that understanding autistic inertia will help us to understand ADHD inertia, even if they're distinct modes

As someone who has been in that exact same position, be cautious about organisation choices that seem like they'd be beneficial regardless of whether you live, but actually make it easier to die than live.

For me, it was the way that I stored my craft and hobby stuff - I made them tidier and more but in practice, harder to access. I did it this way because I wasn't actually using my hobby stuff, so they were just in the way. However, part of why I was so passively suicidal was because of the gradual atrophy of all the things that used made me happy, so by tidying away my tools, I was just digging myself deeper.

What I'm saying is that living, and life, is messy. Having a clear out can be good and productive, especially if you're not in a great place, because it can reveal things that aren't working for you now, but try not to make the same mistake I did. With the new space freed up by your organisation efforts, look over your stuff again and consider whether there's anything you could put in a more accessible place to reduce the activation energy of starting. I put some of my crochet stuff near my computer so I can do it while I'm in meetings, for example.