#Material Design Admin

[themefork]

Unleash Backend Brilliance with Material Dashboard Laravel – A Powerful Free Admin Template

Why Material Dashboard Laravel is a Must-Have for Admin Interface Developers There’s nothing more frustrating than building an admin dashboard from scratch, especially when tight deadlines and limited budgets are part of the equation. That’s where Material Dashboard Laravel swoops in like a superhero. With its sleek design, responsive layout, and integration with Laravel 5.5, it offers developers…

[himblebo]

*rocking back and forth in the dark anticipating salary renegotiation* you have leverage you have leverage you have leverage

[devonellington]

Tues. Nov. 14, 2023: The Joy of a Flexible Schedule

image courtesy of  Nick Collins via pixabay.com Tuesday, November 14, 2023 Waxing Moon Neptune, Chiron, Uranus, Jupiter Retrograde Snowy and cold Yes, it snowed! Just a dusting, making the neighborhood look very pretty. Today’s serial episode is from Legerdemain: Episode 137: Jed and Sebastian Face Their Realities Love can’t always conquer all. Legerdemain Serial Link Legerdemain…

[themesnulled]

New Post has been published on https://themesnulled.us/materialize-v12-1-0-html-laravel-material-design-admin-template/

Materialize v12.1.0 - HTML & Laravel Material Design Admin Template

[cryptotheism]

The old administration mistrusted technology. Not all technology, mind you, he was a man intimately familiar with the concept of control.

He loved automation. He loved war machines. He loved those bipedal rifle drones and how they bobbed along on their gyroscopes. But he never much trusted the field techs who kept them up and running. See, those folks had pesky social relationships. Oh sure, give them a stole and surgically swap out their genitals for a Royal Monastic Order. You can only lobotomize them to the point where they can still do their job. If they can fix the drones they can scheme, eunuch or not.

See, the old admin was clever as he was paranoid. He asked them to just keep improving the drones. Refine the design. Refine the materials. Make em run for a year without repair. Two. Three. Ten. A hundred. He poured histories worth of wealth and knowledge into the fight against mechanical entropy.

The end result was beautiful. A truly self-sustaining autonomous garrison, entirely loyal to the admin and the admin only. No middlemen. No possible usurpers. We know, because he purged every single soft tech he had. Threw em into the sea and let the implants drag em down.

But even that wasn't enough. Because, he got to thinking. He thought "well what if one day, some upstart novice tech wiz figured out how to worm their way inside my garrison?"

So he just started hunting em. Anyone with cybernetic implants or even a passing interest in neurocircuitry. Most fled. Lots didn't even have the chance.

It's a gamble though, that sorta strategy. Only works if you get em all. Because if you don't, the ones that are left are gonna be some real bastards. Real cockroach motherfuckers.

[thosewickedlovelies]

A guide to writing fics set in museums / with a museum worker character

Hey hi hello it’s your local museum worker here, offering you some insight and tips to writing museum-related fics! This is primarily organized as a list of different jobs you could have in a museum and what their duties entail. This post might also be useful to you if you’re considering working in museums and want to know What Goes On In There. Let’s go!

For simplicity/fic-writing purposes, I would divide museums into 2 very rough groups: large national or city museums that Have Money (think the Smithsonian or British Museums, or the Chicago Field Museum or the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds); and smaller local museums. These could be local industry and culture/history-of-our town museums, historic houses, or  really niche subject museums run by One Person With A Passion.

Big national museums have a fuckton of staff and money (museums can never have enough money. But these places are very well-off compared to somewhere small that might always be hustling and writing grant applications). If you work here you’re likely to have a specific role in a particular department, and you probably won’t do much outside this role (ex., if you work in collections management, you probably won’t also design exhibits)

The smaller the museum, the more varied your workload will be/the more likely you are to be doing a little bit of everything. You’re probably organizing collections storage, manning the front desk, and desperately running fundraising efforts, all at once. 

To this end, smaller museums are more likely to be closed one or two days a week- you’ll be there, probably cleaning displays or managing storage, but visitors won’t be.

A lot of (most?) universities also have museums, so a college town setting is also doable. But the same big vs small museum disparity is still possible! At Penn State University, for example, the Palmer Art Museum is its own (recently redone iirc) building in the center of campus with a lovely plaza out front, while the Matson Museum of Anthropology is uhhhhh a couple classrooms in the Anthropology Department (which they’re currently rebuilding tbf, so we’ll see what they’ve done with it in 2025).

Types of Jobs

Curator

The one museum job that everyone can name. Nominally the person in charge. Probably laments that their job is way more admin than fun hands-on stuff now.

Actually this is the role I have the least knowledge of, but I think that’s partially because this job might vary the most from place to place? Structural organization can vary a lot between institutions, but I think the higher up you get in any field, the more your job tends to consist of meetings/overseeing, designating, and ~liaising~

A list of things a curator might do:

Planning or approving events and fundraisers, schmoozing with donors and members at said events, approving or designing a schedule of exhibits, publish outreach/advertising or research materials, oversee hiring, approve new object acquisitions (or de-acquisitions), generally make sure that the museum is working within the scope of its mission and if necessary, change or refine their mission

The curator might not necessarily control a museum’s funds; in this case they’ll liaise with the people who do, likely a Board of Executives or Board of Trustees. Once they get the money from these people, though, they could potentially redistribute it as they see fit.

 If you work in a fuckoff museum like the BM, you could also be the curator of a specific department, arranged by overarching subject, geographic area, time period, or even object type (eg Curator of Archaeobotany, Curator of Korean Collections, curator of coins from the medieval period). These categories can be more or less specific depending on what kind of holdings your museum has. I think these types of curators would still be able to do interesting things, as they aren’t the ones who Oversee The Whole Place.

You can also be an assistant or associate curator, like being an assistant manager.

Education/Engagement

These are the people who design fun extra activities (esp for kids) in the galleries or relevant events/workshops/lectures the public can attend. They might be called Engagement/Education Officer or Events Manager or anything similar

Again, the bigger the museum you work at, the more specific your role is likely to be. You might focus on web content/outreach and social media, manage the ‘friends/members of the museum’ program, or engage with shareholders, etc

Or you might do things like develop content and events to engage adult audiences. Workshops or lectures connected to new exhibits, after-hours visits. These people are also probably the ones with an eye on accessibility- you’ve probably seen advertisements for museums’ early or late hours for older visitors, or ‘quiet hours’ for people who might be overstimulated by normal museum hubbub, or tactile workshops designed for visually impaired folks.

I think most places would try to have someone specific for kids activities at the very least. They’ll be designing little activities or dress-up stations for the galleries, kiddie mascots or scavenger hunt trail kind of things, as well as, potentially, activities for any digital elements in the museum. They probably also coordinate school visits and act as a tour guide for classes, and will lead the kids in specific workshops or lessons in classrooms attached to the museum.

As a note on technology- some people would probably say that integrating digital elements into exhibits is the ~next big thing~, that museums have to get with the times in this regard, but opinions vary. Big science and technology museums are the most likely to have the most digital and techy elements in their exhibits, so if this is your setting, your character could also be a generic “tech person”. I would go so far as to say the smaller/more local the museum, the less technology you’re likely to have, but smaller museums are able to get grants, some of them potentially for specifically this type of thing, so it’s totally possibly that they have a few tablets with integrated activities, or some other Digital/Screen Thing.

Engagement Officers are probably the most likely people to be drafted for out-of-hours events, so that’s a potentially fun thing for your character to do. Some museums, particularly bigger ones, have event spaces attached that anybody can rent out, for weddings, galas, markets, etc, so they might also take care of these bookings as well.

Exhibit Design

This role has a lot of nebulous terms: exhibit coordinator, design constructor, exhibit programmer- but these are the people who design the exhibits. They’ll come up with a theme or narrative, a design scheme, choose the objects, write the text. They’ll probably come up with some marketing material as well, that matches the design scheme, or they’ll liaise with the marketing people who will.

These people might not be as familiar with the collections as the collections management folk (below), depending on how strictly divided your roles are, so they’ll likely consult with the collections people on choosing objects for a particular exhibit or theme (they say that good exhibit design builds an exhibit from the objects up, but I digress).

These people will also direct and participate in the install and deinstall (the actual terms) of exhibits- putting the objects on the right plinths/stands and arranging everything just so in the cases. Genuinely there’s a lot of psychology behind exhibit design- colors, lighting, the way you might design an exhibit to be navigated vs the path people will actually take through the gallery, people’s sight lines and where their eyes go first, how the display of any given object affects people’s perception of the importance of that object. Fascinating stuff, many books on the subject. 

There are also a lot of accessibility concerns to be considered here- how bright is the gallery, how large is your display text, at what height is the central eyeline of your cases?

Museums often loan objects to and from each other’s collections, so if you’re building an exhibit and you’d really like to include X type of object but your museum doesn’t have any, you can borrow some from another museum (this isn’t necessarily a guarantee- museums are allowed to say no to these requests, but I think manners would dictate that they should have a good reason)

Museums sometimes tour whole exhibitions as well- the objects, the text placards, maybe even the stands for super special or fragile items- and exhibit coordinator people are the ones who would handle those arrangements.

Potentially good opportunities for angst stories here- wow things come to life at your museum, you fall in love with a statue but oh no it’s only at your museum for three months

Collections Care

People who work in Collections Management have the most direct contact with the museum objects themselves. You probably work here if you prefer objects to people. When a museum gets new material, these are the people involved. They might not always initiate acquisitions, and the final approval is probably down to the relevant curator, but 98% of the time they’d be consulted (I hope).

A mind-boggling statistic is that most museums only have like 10% of their collections on display at any given time. Yeah. Forreal lol. But collections folk will know where the other 90% is and what’s in it (particularly the longer they’ve been there). 

There’s usually a head Collections Manager. Other workers might be a Collection Assistant/Associate, Collections Officer (we like calling people Officers for some reason), Registrar, or some variant of these depending on the specific flavor of your duties. 

Main job duties can be divided amongst documentation and database work, organization and storage of objects, and lite conservation. Just how much/how technical the conservation work depends on your own training, but also on the size/funding of your museum. The more money, the more likely your museum is to have its own lab with people specifically trained as conservators. More on them later. 

Here’s what happens when a museum gets new stuff!:

Ideally, it goes to a ‘quarantine zone’ first. This is a separate space or room where the objects can relax for a few weeks to a few months (ultimate best practice is actually a year, but, you know. that’s a long time) to ensure that they’re not harboring anything icky (bugs, mold, etc) that will infect the rest of the collections. It’s ideally super-sealed and climate-controlled, but the primary feature should be that it’s away from the main collections store.

Collections folk do the paperwork. They’ll give each individual object a unique number (following their preexisting system that will allow it to be identified distinct from all the other objects in the collection). They’ll create a ‘collections record’ for the object- documentation containing any and all information about the object. This includes the accession paperwork (everything that says ‘we legally own this now’); provenance info (all previous owners and everywhere else the object has been in its life); measurements and description (in painful detail); and conservation history and concerns (ie ‘there’s a crack in the side so pick up with care’, ‘this was repaired in the 70s so that glue is gonna fall apart any day now’).

(I'll say as a fic writer that this would be an great time to wax poetic over a beautiful statue or painting; you can’t write “This golden crown deserved to be worn by a great king, or maybe by that broody Roman general in the painting in Gallery B” in the collections paperwork, but you can think it.)

For fiction’s sake, your collections records could be either paper or digital, but in an ideal world a museum would have both setups, for security’s sake. So you’d fill out some long forms and/or input all the information to the digital collections management system (‘the CMS’, or referred to by your specific software’s name, as there are many out there). The CMS is not a static archive, but rather a living register that’s updated every time an object is interacted with. The object records also include where an object is at any given time (‘normally in Case E in the Fancypants Gallery, currently in Conservation Lab A for repairs’).

Once the objects are done in quarantine, they’ll go to storage. If they’re being displayed immediately, they’ll probably go to some interim storage space/shelf with other objects for the same exhibit and in that case only get a temporary setting. Every object will get labeled with their object number (directly on them, with a special pen that’s safe for this. Or if it’s really tiny, like a coin or jewelry, then their own tiny box will get the label). Small or fragile items, or items grouped together, will go in their own boxes (made of acid- and lignin-free cardboard or polyethylene plastic, like Rubbermaid totes; lined with polyethylene foam and then acid-free tissue paper). Stable ceramic vessels might sit directly on lined shelving, particularly if they’re very large or heavy, like many stone objects.

Listen, every type of object has a particular way(s) of storing that’s best for them, you’re gonna have to look that up yourself or consult someone if you need that level of detail

Ideally, before being stored away, objects are also photographed. This could be part of the Collection Officer’s duty, and/or your museum could have a photographer on staff. (say it with me:) This is more likely if your museum is really huge and/or has a backlog of unphotographed collections and has hired someone specifically, even if temporarily, to improve its collections documentation.

I would say a collections person, or anyone with a museum studies degree, should have some minimum amount of conservation knowledge that includes basic storage standards for different object materials, how to spot potential preservation problems (like if your bronze axe head is actively oxidizing or if that green spot looks the same as it always has since starting and pausing decaying), and maybe how to give objects a basic clean or deal with certain types of problems. But the nitty-gritty science is more the realm of Conservators, someone with a degree that ends in -Sci or who’s done some other certification course.

The general collections store should always be dark, slightly too cool for prolonged human comfort, and labeled to high heaven. Objects will most likely be grouped by material- ceramics/pottery, metals, precious metals and stones (jewelry or beads), stone, glass, wood, bone/ivory/other organic material like feathers or teeth or anything that can be decorative, textiles, paintings. A museum often has some paper material/documents, usually part of or related to a group of objects they acquired, but generally paper and photographic material is the realm of archives and archivists. Yet again, the bigger/more well-funded the museum, the more likely it to have a separate archive department, so your character could also work as an archivist in a museum.

Another thing the collections care folk probably do is ship objects. Remember how I said that  museums loan objects and exhibitions to each other? The stuff’s gotta travel somehow! If things are being shipped internationally, they’ll go in big wooden crates, with specifically dimensioned partitions inside. Then it will be lined with our favorite foam and tissue paper, cut so the objects sit snugly inside. I haven’t personally worked anywhere with a possibility of local shipments, so I can’t say where the threshold might be as to when a museum would just pay an employee to drive the objects over vs ship them with a shipping company. But the preparations would be similar, minus the big wooden crate but with extra-careful packing (and paperwork and insurance etc)

Conservation

Conservators are the people who work in labs with fancy equipment. Not every museum will have a formal conservator or a lab of any kind; sometimes the collections care person fills this role, or if something urgently needs care beyond the abilities of the museum’s equipment, they might send it away to a lab elsewhere, the same way you can send your old VHS home videos to a professional archive to be digitized.

If an object is actively deteriorating in a way that could harm itself or other objects (as opposed to like, at risk of fading bc the lighting is wrong, which is a straightforward fix related to the environment), that’s when a conservator would intervene.

Some methods/machinery by which you can analyze objects:

Ultraviolet (UV) and infrared (IR) light - Different materials absorb and react to light differently, which you can use to identify them. Useful for seeing things like the different layers of paintings

Stereo-microscopy (microscopes, of varying strengths)

At magnifications of x5-x100 you can see things like tool marks from an object’s manufacture, traces from wear, deposits, and coatings

At x50-x500, with a thin sliver of a sample, you can see (and hopefully identify) fibers, layers, particles, metallographic structures 

You can get information from objects without taking samples, but samples are usually worth the information. 

energy dispersive x-ray fluorescence spectrometry (EDXRF) - EDXRF allows you to identify the elemental composition of the surface layer of an object. So it might tell you what a tool is made of, and also the composition of the objects it was used on, if they left traces

scanning electron microscopy (SEM) - an SEM uses a focused beam of electrons to produce a magnified, high-resolution image of the surface of an object

X-radiography, both film and digital - X-rayy are beneficial for objects that might be covered by dirt or corrosion and can show you details of an object’s construction or hidden structural weaknesses

I’m not a conservator, so if you want more hard science-based info, ask one of them lol

Listen to me. If you take nothing else away from this post, let it be this:

 Once an object is in a museum, it is never seeing natural daylight again. Sunlight is the ultimate enemy of every object’s lifespan. If you need to see an object in the sun or moon light for ~magical spell reasons~, you will straight up be stealing that object to smuggle it outside.

Okay. That being said, you do hear (and could probably google) stories about museum employees stealing things from their museums on purpose to prove a point about security or insurance to their higher-ups, so like. Depending on your type of museum, it might not be impossible to steal from lmao. (Don’t tell anyone I said that.)

Possibly the most useful advice for you to keep in mind when writing your conservator or collections care characters would be that touching objects hurts them. It might not hurt them now, it might not even hurt them in ten years, but every time you handle an object, there’s a risk that you’ll damage it. Not on purpose, obviously, but to err is human. The simplest, most effective advice my conservation professor ever gave us was “don’t handle an object if you don’t have to.” That means don’t move an object without a plan and a place to put it, first examination should always be visual, not tactile, etc. Unfortunately, that means that your character cannot walk around lovingly handling and caressing their favorite objects (unless this is a Night at the Museum situation where the objects are caressing them back, ykwim)

Museum Technician

These people probably have a lot of different names, but basically, technicians are the background muscle of the museum. They do the technical construction of bigger pieces of exhibition material, up to and including the exhibition cases themselves. 

So they wouldn’t deal with the small mount that the object rests on, but they might build the big plinth that the mount sits on. They’ll help move things around the building, particularly big heavy things, hang big framed works, assist with exhibit installs, and generally do most things which might involve power tools/equipment or heavy lifting

I worked in a big museum that hired a third party company to supply their technicians; I interviewed at another place that hired their own. If you’re a small museum, you might just have a freelance person that comes in once or twice a week to help move things.

Other

Other miscellaneous roles one could have in a museum: researcher (for exhibits and/or collections), gift shop or cafe worker, security guard, room attendant, translator, archaeologist, consultant

Honestly, TL;DR? Just have your character be a consultant of some kind. “Oh no, I don’t work here, I’m Y’s friend. They called me in to provide some expertise on X subject that they’re doing an exhibit on.” This could work for literally any subject- history/archaeology/anthropology, art, transportation, science and technology, anything you might find pictures of in an archive, idk. This could get you into an office or meeting room of some kind in the ‘employee only’ space of the museum, or potentially all the way into the collections store if you’re giving them information they were missing about some objects. Otherwise you’d probably (hopefully) need a key or some other kind of security clearance to get into the collections store.

Whew, that was a ride, huh? I hope this guide was useful to someone! I’m always open to answering questions if you think I forgot something or if anyone wants more details <3

[rblxmaxxing]

🏙 admins !! .!!!

finally made some proper refs(?( So i can b less inconsistent when i draw themmm.... will be making more for other admins/mods but i jusr wanted to show these 4 first c:

Random little hcs/information yapfest i made abt them below the cut lalala

builderman

- mainly stays in his office more , taking care of paperworks and planning out renovations/locations/etc to further improve robloxia . also Used to do a lot more heavywork back then

- still likes to interact and stay in touch with the communities sometimes, Taking note to any concerns/feedback . Though most of the time this work is handled by john and jane doe now !

- has slight buckteeth That they can hide mosttt of the time (Beave r ) also subconsciously chews on things (typically any woodlike material) to focus / calm down

- can use their tail to lean back / sit since its sturdy enough to support her :D

roblox

- the body they present in is merely a vessel and isnt their true appearance . Said vessel is actually a mass produced helper model that aids in smaller tasks around hq . the only difference itd probably have from the bot models is their shirt color (roblox's blue, bot is a darkish grey)

- was partnered with builderman to help build up robloxia in its earlier stages , but now rarely pops in to interfere

- the bluegrey wires that stem from its back r supposed to be like puppet strings (sort of like a symbolic? design feature idunno? would not actually appear if that makes sense)

- sort of cared more about the clear order and flow of things as opposed to bm's more creative freedom kind of ideals

- face doesnt emote much. its eyes can open and shut but thats it

dusek

- was created alongside a handful of other admins to help keep the growth of robloxia steady and in control As well as improving it in their own ways

- dusek in particular specialized more with magic Creating architecture plans and the like

- their real head is actually just a flame/light of some sort , the dusekkar hat keeping it contained sort of . More flames spill out of their eyesockets to convey stronger emotions

- more info soon Sorry i am slowbraining

shedletsky

- used to go by telamon and was one of the many created to help in robloxias earlier production; Had bigger roles back then but nowadays just helps out in the hq with paperwork esque tasks

- can technically shapeshift to some extent Though there are two specific details that will always stay no matter what form he takes – one is that part of his form will always be a type of bird , and the other is the mark on his face not being able to be hidden

- made 1x1x1x1 a bit before he let go of the identity of telamon , was supposed swap in as a sort of successor before Shit Went Down (more info on this soon its . a wip)

- weird sort of??? cannibal??? (part chicken And eats chicken)

- has gotten a bit rusty in swordfighting now, but still likes to engage in it from time to time

[telamon will have its own little yapfest i Tried to limit it here]

If you got here and read all of that then um . dont perceive me 🦭🦭🦭 combustsinto flames and dies

[elodieunderglass]

Hi there! I need to write A Guy who is Extremely Narrowboat, for reasons, and the Narrowboat Guy you just posted is. well. Very much that-adjacent, I suspect. Do you have advice for a) what this Guy is like, and some tips on conjuring them into existence, or b) a good place to look for Narrowboat Things? (if this ask has come in twice I am sorry. Cursed)

No worries at all!

Post references: description of original character Ken who lives on a narrowboat, post about Ken describing characteristics of a quite normal boatie, picture of Ken trying to recruit you into his band (he will teach you how to sing maybe.)

Ken is a Very Boatie Boatie so you should be able to pick or extrapolate some aspects of his character from some of those. The overall smell, of course, being woodsmoke and diesel and slightly damp wool. Personalities range from shifty and feral, to surly, to normies, to chirpy influencers, to wide-eyed wanderers, but boaters are often (not always) daytime drunk. Ken’s a sunny inclusive one that strikes a careful balance between many boatie extremes; practical enough to do a lot of his own repair and maintenance, but silly enough to always have oil on his nose. Your character can fall anywhere on these spectrums!

People who live full-time on narrowboats are incredibly diverse, ranging from prosperous retirees in custom-designed floating houses worth hundreds of K, to people who are functionally homeless. They can be people who live permanently on moorings or marinas, or continuous cruisers who are completely nomadic, (or sensible plan-ahead people who pay a “winter mooring” fee to pause the “continuous cruising” rules during winter and get the best of both worlds.) Ask five boaters and get ten opinions. There are a thousand nuances and reasons why. Some people choose the lifestyle with excitement; for some, it’s forced on them. Some are right-wingers and some are left-wing and some are anarchists, but all of them are living in someone else’s back garden on charity-owned property. The only things they have in common are some basic boater characteristics, like cork-ball keyrings and a lofty resentment against anglers, and the fact that every boater has willingly chosen to marginalise themselves.

The UK has always been hostile to nomads, but is increasingly so now, and the various inconveniences of living without a fixed address add up to some material penalties. It’s not just slightly harder to pay bills, do admin, arrange childcare, commute, vote, etc. The liveaboard narrowboat community once prided themselves on being “the last legal nomads” in the British Isles; anti-traveller legislation has increasingly soured this, with laws being passed limiting everything from the use of wood-burning stoves (positioned by the anti-biofuel lobby in the Guardian as an eco thing. In London. I ask you.) to laws making it easier to remove off-grid children from their parents. And yet, due to housing pressures and the cheap sustainability of the lifestyle, the liveaboard population hasn’t dropped.

By going off-grid you are commenting, politically, in some way, about the grid. By stepping out of society you are agreeing to be a little bit out of society. You simultaneously cross many social classes, and don’t leave your own life at all. Your rights and worries are now shared with the legal rights of Travellers, the Roma, fairground workers, and the unhoused - to the point where the collective term for your community is G****y, Traveller, Roma, Showmen & Boater (GTRSB). (Yes the first one’s a slur, yes people know that - it’s still a community self-description for some, and essentially you’re expected to ignore it and not use the word.) ultimately, a boatie only has to be slightly sideways. A bit self-reliant. A bit willing to be outside.

Reference books? Well, Narrow Dog to Carcassonne is an exciting account; I read Narrow Escape by Marie Browne before moving aboard and appreciated her honesty. There are a lot of influencers living aboard nowadays, but plenty of books abound. My friend Dru remains brave and true and is a trans woman in some tricky days, so you can buy some poetry books from her Etsy shop to keep her afloat and hear from boaters.

I lived aboard for years and am happy to answer questions - maybe Ken could do his own information post! A boater character is a wonderful, rich, textured thing. What would you like to know?

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

Good Omens graphic novel update: December 2024

We promised a graphic novel treat for December to send off 2024, which we have at the end of the update, so let's dive in!

Colleen has been working diligently ahead of the graphic novel going to print next month, which she discussed over on Patreon. For those looking for more behind the scenes on both Good Omens and Colleen's work more broadly, we recommend either following her Substack, or subscribing via Patreon, as she approaches the finish line.

A snapshot from our production HQ where dummy books of the graphic novel, slipcase and other editions of Good Omens have been arriving thick and fast. The graphic novel (slipcased version shown) has quite the heft to it. It's going to be such a magnificent object inside and out.

Here, we're testing out the various papers, finishes, embellishments and more – everything is falling into place!

Merch-wise, some more delights. The A.Z. Fell & Co tote bag design is in, one side in celebration of our favourite angelic bookseller, the other as if it's been purchased from the bookshop itself, so you can take your pick.

We've got more pins that will be available in the 3-pin set add ons. While the full list will be available in 2025, we're happy to share a few more to get excited about:

On the trading card front, have a look at some of the base deck designs by Steve Gregson and Kirsty Hunter in situ as this all comes together rather nicely, and causes a heated game or two behind the scenes.

And, a quick admin note to wrap up that we always recommend checking the FAQ page as a first port of call for any queries. If you have questions tied to specific tiers, we'd suggest checking the last few updates if your answer can't be found on the FAQ. If there is any information required for your pledge, we will be in touch. We will be back at full steam in the New Year!

Thank you.

So, to wrap up this year's updates, we give you the draft of the full first scene of the graphic novel, artwork by Colleen Doran and lettering by Lois Buhalis. If you'd like to wait until the graphic novel publishes in Spring, skip everything after the ducks!

To 2025 🥂

Until next time.

+ post from Colleen Doran:

Good Omens: You Get...Stuff Like This

In the most recent Good Omens update at the Kickstarter, a few people got upset at the suggestion that you have to get past my paywall here to see Good Omens updates.

Except you really don't, and the post doesn't actually say you do. You get a bit more, like pics of my studio, a discussion of tools and process - but not all of that is exclusively about Good Omens.

I think the Dunmanifestin team just wanted to draw a little attention to my blogs and other works, for which I am very grateful.

As my Patreon supporters already know, Good Omens info posted here gets to the Substack and Kickstarter eventually. And since most of my posts here aren't just about Good Omens, but my other projects and personal stuff, as well as links to our weekly Virtual Art Studio sessions, I think I'm justified in keeping that material behind a paywall.

In fact, I don't think I've posted much stuff about Good Omens since the summer: pages of flats like the one you see above, a few studio photos, and color tweaks.

Also, me boo-hooing about my nerves and health.

But for those who feel left out missing even this small amount of stuff, then the screen shot above is for you.

That's called a flat.

It's a prelim color before adding final color.

Here's what the final color looks like.

So I've posted a handful of this sort of thing since this summer, but frankly, there's even more of my sketches and so on posted at my Instagram that aren't here at all.

For those who don't know, I am doing most of the color myself on the book, but I am working with assistants. I'm not sure how much the Dunmanifestin team wants out there before the big reveals, but here's a snippet of a sky.

In the first image, my flat color.

And after my assistant worked on it.

Here, I've done a repaint. Sometimes I do very extensive repaints after the assistant works on a page. Sometimes not so much. I didn't use assistants on many pages at all. About 80% of the labor on the color of the book is my work.

However, the assistants have been a big help, and I am very appreciative of them.

I will make a point to go through all my prior posts and get every single bit of art that you haven't seen and make it public for all of you in the coming weeks. I need to excise it from previous posts. As I respect the privacy of all my readers, I never make prior posts public without their permission as they may not want their comments or identities to be public.

Thanks so much for everything!

[sonic-syndrome]

LOG DATA – ENTRY 002

Admin "Chaos Sonic" demonstrates unexpected repair efficiency. Initial assessment: utilization of obsolete materials would be suboptimal. Post-repair diagnostics confirm arm functionality at 92.8% efficiency. Visual sensors repeatedly drawn to reflective surfaces—new claw appendages aesthetically satisfactory. Primary improvement: leg mobility restored to 100% operational capacity. Conclusion: no further floor-dragging required. Satisfaction parameters: elevated.

New Directive: "Calibrate locomotion systems." AKA Attempt: walking.

Error encountered. Locomotion protocols not pre-installed. Chaos Sonic's reaction: unexpected. Hypothesis: defective programming or inferior model status. Unknown subroutines activated—designation: self-assessment downgraded to "lesser creation" status in presence of superior unit.

Chaos Sonic forcibly engages physical support mode. Standing: unstable. Equilibrium compromised. Chaos Sonic's logic: flawed. Additional irritation: grip on polished hand components persists despite resistance. Motion attempted—balance fails. Emergency stabilization subroutine engages foot actuators at 0.3-second delay. Inefficient.

60 minutes of forced "walking." Outcome: autonomous steps achieved (quantity: 7). Success rate: 15%. Discomfort levels: high. Preference: negative.

FINAL ASSESSMENT: Illogical. Unpleasant. Highly irritating.

– End of Report

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[whereispearlescentmoon]

Hermit-A-Day Day 12: Pearlescentmoon

A reminder that these are both individual pieces of writing that can be read on their own and supplemental material for my fic Glitch.

@hermitadaymay

Notes on the Player Known as Pearlescentmoon, Taken by the Admin.

Name: Pearl

Tag: Pearlescentmoon

Age: 28

Species: Shapeshifter

Season of Arrival: 8

Method of Arrival: Invited to join at beginning of the season

Species Traits: Pearl has some of the most unique biology of any Hermit. Her code is, by her own explanation, upside down. This allows her to manipulate it to shapeshift into a variety of forms and take on the traits of those forms. While she tends to stick to a fully human or moth hybrid form as a her default, Pearl has demonstrated the ability to shift into the following hybrid forms: Cat, Goat, Bat, Wolf, Beetle, Raven, Owl, Demon, Goose, Lion, Deer, Salmon, and Alien. She tends to stick to one form, though she can apparently mix and match.

While her hybrid forms tend towards human, typically only developing one or two traits like wings, antennas, claws, or tail, Pearl has demonstrated the ability to fully shift into certain forms like a wolf or an alien.

Admin Notes: Pearl’s presence on our server was felt before she was here. Both I and Grian have used her builds as inspiration or copied them (with permission) before she was invited to join. Her and Grian worked together to design a number of his builds on season 7. Inviting her on season 8 was only natural. Pearl is known largely for her organics, her detailed and sometimes fantastical creatures and plants (such as the large flower in the center of her Season 9 base). Her builds are often vibrant, and even the more monochromatic ones show an artistic eye for color and contrast. She makes colors that should not go together work perfectly. Pearl is an artist and building is the medium she chooses to show her beautiful work.

Pearl is a pleasure to be around. In large groups and upon first meeting, she can come across as shy and quiet. However, once she is more comfortable, her real personality shines. Pearl is goofy and makes ridiculous voices and noises. She loves a good prank and can be very mischievous when the situation calls for it. When it comes to competitions, Pearl will dedicate herself to them until she knows every bit as well as she can (As shown by her being the Queen of Decked Out 2, her record in Cub’s labyrinth, and her consistently being on the leaderboard of Hungry Hermits).

[themefork]

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[ninakoll]

hi you have been one of, if not probably my most favorite enstars artist for a while!! I found you here before I had an account, and then I found your account on Instagram, and then I re-found you on here!!! So yay!! I just wanted to say u are sooo good at character designing to fit their personalities…. Your vision of Crazy:B is PERFECT!!!! I love your comics too, your dialogue is so organic and AGH just so well done,!!!! I have one request …! Which is… to please draw Kaoru (sometime in the near future I don’t want to seem demanding SORRY)!! That’s my GUY and I really like how u draw him but alas u do not do so very often… I LOVE HIM!! Maybe with kanata idk And I love YOUR ART!!! anyway happy new year!!! I hope it’s very nice and successful for you!! Stay awesome as always ^_^🎇🎆🌄🌅

omg what an honorable title to be bestowed, thank you so much for all your kind words and for taking the time to write😭❤️❤️ comics are like my main thing i do when im not animating so it's very encouraging to hear..! and i'll gladly draw you a kaoru or even several...!! KAORU IS SO FUNNY he is my fav undead member rn (and its a tight competition between all of them, i honestly love undead!!!!!)...

ALSO i see your narusasu pfp, you have excellent taste!! and if youll forgive me for rambling... i worked a weird admin desk job while going to uni and had a lot of time to watch thru all of naruto during quiet hours and then come home and discuss the ninja way with my then-roommate-now-wife. it honestly got me thru university, and we have some production materials (mostly ref sheets used by animators) from studio pierrot at home...

happy new year to you too and stay awesome yourself as well!!! 🌟

[sweetmoons]

Message to Quackity and the team

IT IS OKAY TO ASK US FOR FINANCIAL SUPPORT ON THE PROJECT!!!! SHIT, WE WANT YOU TO! Seriously we love the qsmp with all our hearts and see how much you love it and how passionate you are so let us help pay you guys!

I know people have given plenty of ideas but really something like a patreon where we can support monthly would be amazing. It doesn't even have to have special material it can just be text posts from the admins chatting we'd love to hear from them. Or maybe even just concept art or pictures of prototypes of models, stuff that already exists so no admin has to do extra work it just needs to be uploaded.

Merch is a much longer process and we understand that but if you were to come out with anything I know we all would eat it up. I've even saw some talented people on Twitter giving out their merch designs and explicitly stating that they're willing to share it for free just because they love the project that's how passionate this community is and how much we want to support.

I know that this shit is probably so stressful and scary to deal with but trust me when I say fans of the project are willing to help it reach its full potential, you guys aren't in this alone we want to help if you give us more ways to :]

[mcsm-catified]

Some redesigns, because those were long overdue.

The main!! The OG!! Red-clip female Jesse because that’s who I play. Might make a bunch of designs for the rest of the Jesse’s one day, if people wanted it I suppose. Honestly just wasn’t a fan of the colours in the original design, too yellow. She is now soft brown, like coffee, and keeps the heart motif.

One I’ve been planning for a while! It’s more simple than the old design, but I think it was a good thing. Fun fact, the way I made Petra’s old design, with her being a wild cat (bobcat) and with unnatural colours (blue accents), that technically qualified her as an admin according to my design rules. Petra unknowingly being an admin (maybe being unwillingly mentored by Romeo) is a really awesome AU idea, but it is not canon sadly, so we get red stripes cat Petra like everyone else’s. Still kept her box-ness and short tail.

“Lukas isn’t an ocelot because everyone’s already done it” maybe because they’re RIGHT. Ocicat Lukas. Bro is not tabby material.

Say what you want, the last Aiden design was Complete Ass. I let him keep his robot prosthetic arm (he lost it in the fight with Jesse) because that was cool, but no more gross yellow and brown and neon green. Also he’s a tortoiseshell because I thought the colours looked good on him, so either he’s transmasc or one of those 1/3000 male torties. I’m leaving it up to interpretation because I can see it either way.

Currently working on s2e1 designs, keep an eye out for that!

[mamasplat]

i have no organizational skills. 3am (by the time im finishing this: 4am). i am jane real life. courtney.

save for very typical room things, a laptop, a banner, and the tm for dark pulse, it's easy to see: courtney's room is very empty.

we know this is courtney's room because the laptop contains many images of maxie. many maxies is a telltale sign of courtney cacophony.

technically, there is an easy way to explain why this is the case: when a place is not as important as others, the game designers will not focus on that thing. some describe it as "gamefreak lazy as shit 😭😭😭" they are probably right.

but i will attach meaning. i am jane from real life. common belief is only belief: i can do anything. i am god. i am jane from real life, and with what we know about courtney, the empty room makes perfect sense.

on a surface level, you can attach the room with courtney's devotion and obssession. the lack of anything in this room can imply a lack of material attatchment. this can mean many things, (foreshadowing is a literary d-) but it can be interpreted in a way that communicates that courtney's obssessions with the things that fascinate her run deep enough to make her disconnect with everything else around her. an unstoppable force that tears through reality itself, screaming "nothing to me matters when you are in my mind."

you can also kind of interpet it as like. a kind of way to describe her kind of , "less-is-more, direct, yet mysterious" character in an abstract sense or something. idk. does that even make sense?

but we can go much deeper i think. if you're as absolutely off the wall as i am when it comes to intepreting anything, i think the empty room can say a lot about how courtney's own upbringing could've been like.

the lack of anything at all can imply that courtney is very used to an environment where she wasn't able to have (or just didn't have access to) much in her childhood. that scarcity was basically the norm and that she continues to perpetuate this norm because she doesnt really know what to do.

one thing that really struck me personally was how very neatly everything's placed. perfect, virtually untouched. that says a lot to me. personally, i like to think she could've had parents on the stricter side that emphasized neatness and other such things. strict parents can also kind of explain why she doesnt have much too, as stricter parents tend to kind of hold things off from their kids for one reason or another, along with other non-room things like her intelligence.

... or maybe the emptiness and tidiness is something more simple like "courtney is a minimalist" or "courtney is a neat freak." idk man do whatever with her.

but the room is fascinating. little things like this can say a lot about a character, you know. and little things like this fascinate me greatly. like dude. oh my god.

umme thatse it.

i can totally keep rambling bout other stuff though the courtney obssession is crazy.

ALRIGHTY I like it. Empty. Under stimulating. Don’t need to linger here anyways there’s work to be done.

When it came to how I wrote Kagari (trade off, this is turning into Courtney trivia trade) I actually gave her the other admin room because the file on the desk was Tabitha’s admin approval paperwork and i couldn’t understand why he’d keep that laying around if Courtney had to approve him due to her long term position in team magma

Her desk is messy much like her mind, cluttered like her busy schedule.

Courtney vs Courtney, one is aggressive vacuuming and the other is throwing balled up paper at the other so they’ll shut the damn thing off.