#I need a better workflow btw

[hemi-demi]

It's almost Valentine's Day, so here's some Dragon!Jon/Knight! Martin smooches for you ❤️

First legitimate animatic I've made in hand drawn! (Most of my experience is puppet rig, and it's been a minute since I've animated at all tbh). This was mostly just for practice, but I think they're cute af, so here you go ❤️

Lower quality gif version under the cut

[celestialspritz]

ts2 render workflow ramble under the cut if u wanna see what ive been doing

so i'm working on the pose browser again, except this time it uses maxis' rig rather than another rig from wherever. the maxis rig is GOOD bc it will use the original bone assignments from whatever meshes are used which in most cases ARE better than some program determining it.

i also did it properly this time so u dont need to do that thing with a million armatures

it made the workflow so much easier, this simple render took all of 5 minutes because i:

made this fat ass browser . ignore the fact some are duplicated ill figure that out

made these cubes with the textures for the skin / body so i don't need to use ninjaripper every single render

I also made their outfits an asset as well as their heads, so i can just drop their head/body into the viewport

and then i delete the armature the outfit and heads had and just plop this skeleton in and parent the outfit and head to it. and voila. literally everything that would've taken 20 mins done in under 5 mins

another example of the poses. took major inspo from vyxated's rig plus for ts4. cool thing abt this is u can blend poses similarly to how u blend face temps in ts2

btw, if anyone is interested in upscaling TS2 textures for use in renders, i highly recommend this free program UpScayl and the preset High Fidelity. makes them crisp and smooth and significantly reduces the crunchiness. i usually make the face and bodies like 2k textures cuz . cuz i can

anyway as well as the poses etc, im also working on maxis objects browser too:

and with these i took the liberty of manually creating spec and normal maps for them. some of the objects look super cool:

overall. this year is gonna be my year for ts2 in blender i just kno it. and as always if u r looking to get into this my dms r always open if u need help!!!

[thyfleshc0nsumed]

do you have any tips for getting started in setting up leatherworking as a business? sorry if you’ve already answered a similar question. i’m just not sure where to start as far as starting inventory vs cost of materials. do you remember about how many products you started with? your work is a huge inspiration btw 🖤

I started selling shit long before I even sorta knew what I was doing. Idk if it was a good strategy or not if I'm honest. Basically, at the beginning I was just needing to get the hours in and make shit and try to offset the cost a little bit.

I wasn't able to support myself primarily off my work till like, this last spring, and honestly given the overall time scale that happened incredibly incredibly quickly. It's still like a month to month decision and I'm still doing SW to fill out my income more, so if you are trying to make it full time thing, I'd say dont put your eggs in one basket. In a word, Ive been lucky. Right place at the right time, integrated into the right communities.

As for where to start... It kinda depends. Where are you at with your craft? If that's the thing that needs the most attention, start there and start slow. Don't make a a batch of a single item if you're gonna look at it in a month and be able to point out a bunch of different technical flaws. Id say most leatherworkers I know doing similar things to me don't have nearly the standing inventory that I have. They probably are better at pacing the different aspects of work that's involved in running a business where I tend to do it all in chunks.

I didn't launch with any products really, I just started making shit and sharing pics on Instagram and sold piece by piece through DMs. Didn't start an online shop till probably 6 months in. Don't really remember how many designs I had then but at that time I was still listing each item individually. In some ways that's great and I liked the variety that afforded me but in others it kinda made my workflow pretty hellish.

It's cliche but like, start where you're at. You can do a lot with some shoulders, a box cutter, and a 15$ set of tube punches

[keynb]

So I usually don't share my opinions due to my worry that people's lack of media literacy will misconstrue my words, but with some of the behavior I'm seeing I felt tempted. This is not to invalidate anyone, and what I'm about to say is entirely just my thought process. If you disagree that's fine, I'm not posting this to start an argument.

Anyway, was I super mega-bummed about Buddie karaoke being cut? Of course! Is it kinda messed up that the karaoke was a big part of the promo and now we won't get to see it? Definitely, yeah I was really upset. But after thinking about it for a little bit? It's not that big of a deal and I get it. I mean I am advocating for them to, like, release some extra little bits of the karaoke moment after the episode is released or at least tell us what the song was cuz Oliver and Ryan seemed to have a good time doing it and Oliver was so nervous about singing lol. But they made it clear that this season was a very "build as we go" situation and I believe they genuinely thought they were gonna be able to include more but that it just ended up not working out that way. I don't think they meant to shipbait us or anything either, I think they focused on Buddie in the promo cuz the main event was the madney wedding and chim being missing so they didn't wanna reveal anything about that particular plot, so they focused on the bachelor party instead. I know being teased about something and hyping it up repeatedly just to have it cut completely the day before is terrible, but with the workflow they're doing right now I feel like we shouldn't have been as surprised that they ended up, like, miscalculating a bit and having to cut more than they anticipated. And I'm sure they also prioritized the Madney content more than the bachelor party (which is good cuz this episode is about them) so those clips had to go. I feel like it was just an unfortunate series of events and not intentional on anyone's part. I've decided to give them some grace because making a TV show is hard, let alone doing it all so close to the release of each episode. I AM begging for the name of the song they sang at least!! Oliver was terrified to sing so he deserves that much lol. (BTW people saying "he got DRUNK for that scene how could you!" If you're joking then that's whatever but if you mean it seriously, I would like to say that he seemed more tipsy than anything, Oliver didn't say he had to be completely wasted to do it. He said they drank a little to loosen inhibitions but I don't think they'd get DRUNK. Lol Oliver has a hard time keeping an American accent sober, you think he'd be able to do any better genuinely tipsy?)

So TLDR: I don't think ABC meant to make us feel tricked, I just think their "lay the tracks while the trains still moving" method messed up a little. I also don't think they were intentionally shipbaiting us because with Madney being the focus of the next episode, they wouldn't wanna spoil or tease anything regarding their storyline, so they mainly focused on the more lighthearted Buddie bachelor party shenanigans, and they just overestimated how much they'd be able to fit in, and Madney should be the main focus anyway as this is not The Buddie Episode. If they continue to do stuff like this (tease and hype up scenes in promo that end up being cut, whether its ship baiting or not) then I will have more of a bone to pick

Also also, not to make it all about Buddie but as an endgame Buddie truther, I would really like to make a good impression to encourage them to make the moves to make Buddie canon. Like vent on your social media as much as you'd like but don't comment on official ABC posts saying they're like traitors or smth WE GOTTA BE PROFESSIONALS GUYS, this show isnt just about Buddie!! We need to find a balance between expressing our love for Buddie so they see our passion for it but not so much to the point it becomes insane, you know? And I say that with THE utmost love.

[the-cerene-rewritten-railway-au]

Rhys

🩷 Autumn 1899; December 1968

CW/TW: Pre-transition period (Edward), hostile work environment, gaslighting, mentioned character death, mentioned workplace violence

Buckled Tracks and Bumpy Trucks - Season 20 Episode 17 (edited)

Word Count: 1,823

Someone else was his first love interest.

A/N: "Rhys" is pronounced "reese." I didn't come up with that, btw. His crew did.

~

In the chilly autumn weather, passengers walked about Barrow-in-Furness Station. The leaves cluttering the ground crunched as folks stepped on them, awaiting the next passenger train.

A sharp whistle, reminiscent of the squawks of seagulls flying by coast line, went off in the distance, pulling in the passengers’ attention to the Indian-red tender engine approaching. She steamed into the station with a range of blue coaches with white trim, easing to a stop.

She was a Class 21, a class of engines dedicated to express passenger services. The sunlight reflected against the brass trim of her splashers and brass dome, giving it a gleaming shine. The oldest of the Class 21s greeted the awaiting passengers with a warm smile, as steam gently spewed from her chassis.

The weather was nice that day. There was no wind. Just the gentle breeze against her frames. It was like a soothing touch, which she appreciated.

Coming in the opposite direction, a small four-driver tender engine came by, hauling a goods train for someone else to take care of. Once he blew his whistle, the eldest Larger Seagull groaned. She would be foolish to not recognize it.

“Guid day, Coppernob,” she greeted through clenched teeth, trying to sound as nice as possible. Her crew reminding her to be nice to the elderly engine had become a daily routine, despite how arrogant and bossy he was. She didn’t need to turn the scolding into a daily thing.

Coppernob wasn't taking her forced greeting. “Don't treat me like a fool, young engine!” he hissed. “Such disrespect. You're better than that.”

“I wid if ye'd just go awa’,” she grumbled, “and didnae go around, gossipin’ aboot me.”

“It’s for the well-being of others, Alice,” he reminded her as her crew hushed whispers, telling her to knock it off. “We can't have your reckless behavior ruin the reputation and workflow of the Furness.”

Alice scoffed. “It’s always aboot thaim wit’ ye.”

“Bunny!” hissed her driver.

Before Coppernob reprimanded her, a Furness Railway 7 class steamed up to the platform adjacent to Alice’s. Unlike Coppernob, he had splashers, designed in a style similar to hers.

“Good day, you two,” he greeted. “Anything new I missed?”

“Nah! Nah!” Alice squawked out, immediately blushing out of embarrassment from the slip-up. She ignored the piercing glare from FR No. 3. “Nawthing new, Rhys.”

Rhys hummed, not convinced. A Furness engine would have to be a fool to not notice the conversation from kilometers away. And not to notice how furious the glare directed towards him was. However, he chose not to poke any further. Yet.

Alice’s guard blew his whistle, interrupting the thoughts going through the engines’ minds.

“Och!” she perked up. “Thon’s me. Guid-bye, Rhys!” With a quick whistle that resounded throughout the station, Alice departed from Barrow-in-Furness, heading north on her railway line, the Cumbrian Coast Line.

Once she was gone, Rhys sighed before glancing at Coppernob. “What is it you have against me?”

Coppernob didn't respond. Instead, he stormed off, leaving the other confused.

…

About a week later, Alice and Rhys met again but at Roose Station. The latter had finished telling a story that left Alice squawking.

There was just something about spending time with Rhys that comforted Alice, making her feel warm and appreciated. It was different to the way her sisters would comfort or check up on her every evening, especially if she’d had to defend one of them from one of the other Furness engines.

It was different, yet she couldn’t figure it out.

As she calmed down, a saddle tank engine pulled in, hauling a small freight train of steel rails, coming from the Barrow Haematite Steelworks.

“Diane!” exclaimed Rhys, noticing the black tank engine. “How’s the Steelworks going for you?”

Diane gave a quick smile to Alice, who smiled nervously, before replying. “Exhausting!” she exclaimed. “But it's good work!”

“Good to hear, dear! Good to hear!”

“You know, I’m surprised the old horse hasn't tried physically separating you both,” Diane noted. “He complains about you two whenever he runs out of things to whine about.”

Alice hummed, her freckled face crunching at the mention of Coppernob. “I din’ get why he diz’nae want me near Rhys. He diz’nae make sense aboot it.”

“Remember, dear,” Rhys assured. “He just… wants the best for you.”

The Larger Seagull frowned.“Well, he huz a funny way o’ showin’ it.”

Just then, her guard blew his whistle. With a heavy sigh, she bid farewell to the other two engines and promptly left.

Once she was gone, Diane shot a glare at Rhys. “Have you told her?”

The 7 class winced.

“Rhys!” she scolded.

“I know! I just-” He took a deep breath. “It’s too soon. We don't know when.”

“But it’ll be soon, Rhys!”

“I’ll tell her tomorrow, I promise!”

“You better!” she exclaimed before steaming off to Ravenglass, leaving her friend to go his way with the daunting thoughts in his head. His crew tried to soothe him, but it only made him feel more guilty.

…

“Alice! Stay away from that engine!”

Her safety valve was ready to burst. Earlier that morning, she fended off one of the Seagulls, her predecessors, up at Foxfield after seeing them pester one of her baby sisters. The utter annoyance those older engines could be.

And then they wonder why they could’nae get me and ma sisters tae ‘behave’ being the thought to go rampant in her mind after every confrontation.

“Bug’ aff! I'm no’ dealin’ wit’ ye today!” yelled Alice before storming off.

Coppernob chased her down. “Listen to me, young lass-!”

“Shut it!” she screamed. “Yer raps ma knittin’!”

“Watch your tongue-!”

“Or whit?” she taunted. “Whit'r ye goin’ tae dae? I'm no’ afraid o’ ye!”

“I want you to get away from that engine…” hissed Number 3, the words seething like painfully hot steam. “And you will do it as soon as you see him.”

“Ye cannae control me!” Alice argued. “Why is it thon when I’m finally doin’ better, it’s all wrong?”

“It wouldn't be wrong if you weren’t acting like that with him!”

Still furious, she looked at him confused. “Like whit? Whit’re ye implying?” she questioned.

Coppernob stared at her in horror, eyes going wide.

The look brought tension to Alice’s frame. “Copper-?”

“You can't even see it, can you?”

“See whit-?”

“You’re too far gone,” he mourned.

“Excuse me-?”

“Stay away from Rhys,” he hissed. “I don't want to find out that he’s broken the same way you are.” With that, he steamed away, returning to his work leaving a stunned Bunny behind.

“Broken…?”

…

That evening, Alice returned to her shed, only to find Rhys, resting in a siding. His crew were smoking cigarettes, unaware of the larger engine. Coppernob’s words had stung her to the core. She spaced out momentarily when Rhys called out for her.

“Alice! There you are,” he hollered, alerting his crew. They quickly climbed aboard into his cab. “Listen. I-”

“Am I broken?”

“...Pardon?”

“Am I broken, Rhys?” she asked again, looking Rhys straight into his eyes. “Coppernob said I’m broken.”

“What-?” He was dumbfounded as he approached the young Victorian engine. “No, of course not, Alice! Don't listen to Coppernob. His age is getting to him,” he reassured her.

“Okay…” was all she said before letting the silence overtake.

Her mood upset Rhys, making him rethink his choice. Should he? He didn't want to upset the young engine even further, but she needed to know.

It would be worse if she went about her life, not knowing what happened to her dear friend.

“Did… ye want tae say somethin’?” asked Alice after a while of silence. “Sorry if I-”

“I'm being withdrawn.”

Bronze pupils shrunk as her eyes went wide. “Ye're what-?”

“I'm being withdrawn, Alice. I don't know exactly when… but it might be soon,” he stated, carefully wording his sentences.

“Soon? How long have you known?”

“Alice-”

“How. Long?” she asked sternly. Her eyes burned in frustration and despair.

Rhys sighed with guilt. “A month.”

“And you didn't tell me?”

“I don't want to break you.”

“Break me?” she scoffed, offended as tears brewed up and her voice began to crack. “I'm not fragile, Rhys!”

“But you're still growing out of your old behavior!” he exasperated as both crews held onto the brakes of their respective engines. Alice’s crew held extra tight, making sure they didn’t let go as their engine tended to be hostile, especially out of emotion. “Alice, please promise me you won't go back to your old self.”

“Rhys-!”

“Alice, please,” he begged. “Please, do it for your sisters. For Diane. For me. The board isn't going to tolerate it any further, and you know that.”

At the mention of her little sisters, Alice agreed. “I promise, Rhys,” she sobbed. “I promise.”

…

“I hope ye're happy,” Alice sneered. It was the following morning and she’d come across Coppernob at Barrow-in-Furness once again.

“What?” scoffed Coppernob.

“Rhys is bein’ withdrawn.”

Shock went through the older engine's frames. “Whatever for?”

“I dinnae ken. Go ask him yerself,” she sneered.

“Alice!”

“Dae me a favor and boil yer smokebox,” she hissed before storming off, jerking the coaches by accident. The sentient ones yelped and her passengers were startled as her crew scolded her severely, and Coppernob called out for her.

She blocked out the sounds of the world around her as her four driving wheels pushed her north towards Foxfield.

.

.

.

Later that week, Rhys was withdrawn. He was able to bid farewell to Diane but not Alice. Diane was the one to break the news to Alice.

Alice broke her promise.

And Edward made a realization.

Rhys, I’m so-

“Edward?”

Said engine jerked, accidentally jostling his trucks.

A few days had passed since he left the Steamworks with his pistons fully repaired. He’d spent a week waiting for the parts to arrive.

“Did you even hear what I was saying?” James asked again, concerned as the extra Troublesome Trucks Edward hauled yelped and complained.

“Guidness, naw,” Edward replied, guilt building on his panic. His freckled cheeks burned. “Och, dear. I’m sae sorry-!”

“Are you okay?” James interrupted. “You spaced out for a bit.”

“Er, somewhit?”

“We can stop-”

“Naw, naw!” he exclaimed. “No need to! It's just- You reminded me of something.”

“Something you'll tell me?” James asked with a glimmer of curiosity in his heterochromatic eyes.

“N-No’ today…” He looked down. “Sorry.”

“Oh…”

“B-But-!” Edward stammered, “what about your adventures on the Mainland, hm?”

“You're gonna have to be more specific, Ed,” chuckled James.

The smaller engine pieced together what he could recall from the conversation that had taken place. “That incident with the twins! Up in Whitehaven?”

James winced playfully. “Oh, what a mess that one was-”

As James continued to ramble on, Edward's mind focused in. But not after he processed what he'd realized.

I wis in love wit’ Rhys, and I didnae even ken…

~

AND then his twin baby sisters were built the following year and things are all good again, right...?

...right? :)

Well damn, i guess I did end up writing a story before the 1910s ovo ANYWAYS, first EoSR story of 2024 and it ended up being a ship-verse story but its angst-

very normal muxse behaviour

i got to actually sit down and work on Edward's backstory a little more. It was EXTREMELY vague before so hopefully this starts adding up, especially for "You've Got Mail." (i'm a bit all over the place with my fics)

Being the oldest of a new generation is already a lot of pressure but how would it feel when its tradition for them to try to shape you in a way that is deemed appropriate in your railway. This usually works but Edward was different.

Notes:

Rhys had zero romantic interest in Edward.

Rhys' basis: 16 - FR Class A3 0-4-0 - built 1858 by W. Fairbairn & Co., Manchester - 1899 withdrawn

Introduced Diane (FR 17 "A5" class) and Old Coppernob (FR 3 "A2" class) sooner than I thought ovo Oh well.

The family relations on the Furness are a bit odd because the A2, A3, and A5 don't have a specific designer, just like the K2s. Just know that Edward isn't related to them. To my understanding, the Furness Railway 21s were designed by Sharp, Stewart & Co. Neither Pettigrew or Mason designed them. Same goes for said classes. Only the A5s were built by Sharp, Stewart & Co. but in the original Manchester location.

^ that being said, Diane and Edward are probably distant cousins for that reason, but Old Coppernob and Rhys aren't related to them. :p

Rhys translates to "ardor" in Welsh. Ardor means a strong intense feeling, which i think perfectly describes what engines feel when they're in love. :)

there was a lot of back and forth on previous love interests for these two. at one point, i considered Goldilocks to be James' first love interest but went against because i just thought it was weird and it would imply that Edward is a replacement for Goldilocks. I did not want that so i scrapped it.

Edward and Old Coppernob are basically the failed unintentional attempt of a healthy father-son relationship. They're both at fault for this. (yes, Edward has daddy issues. it just kinda happened but it also feels like it makes sense considering his role as the oldest and the issues he has)

guys i dont JUST write angst, i swear- :((((

evidence:

ps if i made you sad, read "He Squawks!" (one of my favorites /bias) it has pre-2x5 fluff + silliness (not the main focus but the silliness is :p the screenshot is unrelated :p)

[mequestrianequipment]

Hey, if you need a high poly tree species let me know. I have an archive of globe plants and I want to increase the variety available in ts3 I'm happy to help you make them suitable for ts3 if you' dbe interested in sharing your knowledge and workflow with me as I am a beginner cc creator. Just thought I;d reach out :) Love your recent releases btw!

Hi! :)

You can send me plants and trees and I will see what I can do (only if you want) :) I have already A LOT in stock in plants and trees etc just so you know.

It’s kinda hard to explain on how to do plants and trees.. because they are a lot harder to make than objects, especially if it should be under 10 000 polygons. And good textures are really hard to find too.

But if you want help with smaller things like objects, what programs you need, bones in milkshape, etc I can help as much I can! Just ask me and I will reply when I can :)

BUT if you want better help you can check out gruesims videos on YouTube because she have helped me A LOT! And I don’t know if she is still okay to write to her on tumblr and ask for help… because there I have gotten a lot of help too

But I am not fully learned so have that in mind. But I can always still try to help :)

I hope this helped a little :)

[daemonhxckergrrl]

if you're in the market for a new monitor and draw/edit video/3d model etc., check to be sure it covers 100% of the sRGB colour space (and optionally how much of Adobe RGB it covers - though from my limited understanding, a monitor focused on the Adobe RGB space will be fantastic for working w/ print images but may make everything else look 'wrong', can anyone advise ?

another key factor in buying a monitor is colour accuracy. it doesn't matter how many colours it supports if it shows the wrong ones (this is why calibration is important btw !!)

look for reviewers who focus on monitors for creative workflows and actually test the claims made by monitor manufacturers.

you don't need to spend $10k on the sort of reference monitor big film studios buy, but an extra £50 may go a long way to getting a better product.

it's similar in music. reference monitors (the big speaker kind) in studios are killer if you're lucky enough to use some, but even a more reasonable set of like Yamaha HS5s will go a long way to ensuring you're mixing and producing well and that it's more accurate.

though one valuable lessons there is to listen to a finished mix on a variety of sound systems, speakers, earbuds etc. so you can make revisions to account for any common issues (reference monitors are accurate yes, but most consumer stuff doesn't have that flat response curve - earbuds may have no bass or overcompensated bass and boosted low mods for vocals, Bluetooth speakers tend to be bass-heavy etc.)

I would recommend doing a similar thing if you draw digitally, make videos etc. - check out your work on your phone, multiple monitors, friends' laptops, etc. to see if there's any common things that can be compensated for

fucked up how colors look different depending on what screen you’re looking at them on. that should be illegal I think

[blue-mood]

08.05.2025

Damn. It’s been a while since I made an entry on here. Last time I was on here I had just started my master’s degree. Now 2.5-3 years later everything changed. Well to be fair everything changed very suddenly and I was forced to move forward quickly.

So I have recently started my first job (yay?). I am not really happy about it because, well, it’s work. Who loves working. It’s actually more of an internship for now (probation). If the internship goes well, at the end of it (November), I might get hired. I don’t really care that much about being hired honestly. I just want to accumulate some work experience given that I have none. I am not really enjoying it so far. The job is actually in my small town so I did not have to move at all. The pay is decent given that I won’t really have any bills to pay. The work for now is just learning about their platform and workflow. (It’s a 9-5 office job btw). I’m worried because I am finding it hard to follow. Everything is so new and weird and adult. Their platform and work is kind of hard to understand. But it’s only my first week. I hope I will understand better soon. You know, I was almost giving up looking for a job this year as well. We have a lot to catch up on huh?

I actually almost started working last year. I had received an offer to work in Milan. I was also progressing in a work interview with another big company in Milan. But once I received my first offer I got so panicked and terrified that I just decided to reject and drop everything, and I just lied to almost everyone saying that I got rejected by all of them. By this time it was already July. So I just decided to take a break from job hunting (I had started in March). Then my family and I went on vacation in August. I procrastinated until the end of the year. I went on a trip to Norway with my mother in October. Then I went on a trip to China because my best friend went there for a short-term job opportunity but was finding it hard to adjust so I went there to help her move back. At the end of the year we went to Montecarlo, and we visited the Christmas stands. So the end of 2024 was full of trips. January 2025 was also pretty chill but I already had the pressure to find a job and everything. Because I had put it off earlier in the previous year. I was honestly also getting exhausted of trying to keep my knowledge fresh, sending applications and doing interviews (which to be honest were not that many). In February my parents decided to travel to their home country and visit their parents. So I was left alone for two weeks at home because I decided that I would stay here and try to find a job instead. Unfortunately on the second week of that vacation my mother got a bad diagnosis from a doctor’s visit and that got me really upset. Everything has changed since the end of February. That was a catalyst for a series of changes in the past 3 months that I’m still trying to cope with.

My mother had a tumor and they removed it surgically. I was so upset and shocked by it all when I first heard about that. Luckily the surgery went well and she was told to rest for at least a month before flying back home. So my father came back before her because he needed to open up shop. Since my father was on his own I had to work in place of my mother. That was a very jarring experience. I had never worked before and working in hospitality is something I dreaded a lot because I hate interacting with people. My anxiety was out of the roof. In fact, the first day that I tried to work, I basically just sat on a chair and refused to help at all because I was feeling very anxious. That very night my father decided to give me a depressing ass speech about my mother not feeling well and that I need to step up for them both. It was so heavy on my heart that it made me just very depressed. I had stopped eating and lost quite a bit of weight too. A week later I was basically told to fly to my mother and help her come back home. Because she couldn’t strain herself too much because of the surgery. The flight was awful and long as hell. But I made it there in the end. I stayed for 3-4 nights I think. The week prior I had started sending out job applications again because I was dreading working at my parents’ place and I selfishly wanted an escape. When I got to my parents’ home country I received an invitation to get interviewed. It was way faster than I had expected. The funny thing is that I applied randomly to this company that was highlighted on LinkedIn. Perhaps one of the only ones that had a position similar to what I was seeking in my hometown. I was not really expecting them to answer but they did. I initially was gonna just brush it off and pretend that I didn’t get invited. But then I announced it to my parents and relatives and everything else just happened. I was kind of already planning on how I was going to just work at my parents’ place for the summer and then start job hunting again in the fall. But welp, that did not happen. I kind of wish I did that though. Because I don’t feel too ready now. But I’ve just started this new job so I don’t know… maybe I just need time to get used to it. Everyone is very nice to me but I feel very inadequate.

Anyways. My mother stayed home for 1.5 months but a bit earlier we received bad news about her blood work sadly. That was also very jarring and made me quite depressed. Working at my parents’ shop actually helped in keeping me a bit distracted. So she started taking some stronger medicine that supposedly would give a more targeted treatment. Then she traveled back to her home country to do more blood work and to see what to do next. Everything is still uncertain and I’m scared. I’ve been scared and anxious and stressed and depressed since the end of February and I’ve been functioning mindlessly. Working at my parents’ shop was such a struggle to adjust to because of my severe anxiety, then starting this new job, dealing with the circumstances, having to do so many things I had never done before. It’s been such an awful time. I really wish I did not get this job. I wish I could’ve just worked at my parents’ shop until I felt a bit better.

Right now I’m just waiting to start a meeting with my coworkers. I’m not sure what we are going to do today. My mother is overseas. The weather is gloomy and I think it’s raining. I’ve been sick for almost a week now. I suffer from lactose intolerance. Last Friday my sister came back home for a few days and she got me a frappe. That got me shitting my guts out. And unfortunately it just did not get better. So come Monday I still feel like shit but it’s also my first day of work. I thought that perhaps it was just anxiety and stress making me feel bad. But the next day I go to work and then start feeling awful as soon as I arrive at the office. Like the first place I went to when I got there was the bathroom. I didn’t even sit down or greet anyone yet. And that was only the beginning. At 9:30 I had a meeting with my supervisor and during that whole time (1.5-2 hrs) I went to the bathroom 4 times. I felt so bad and embarrassed about interrupting so many times. It was awful. Then he just told me that I could go home and work remotely if I wasn’t feeling well. So that’s what I did and it’s what I’ve been doing since Tuesday. I’m still recovering now. I’m not sure what I have and my doctor’s appointment is in like 10 days. I’m pretty sure that all those days of awful bowel movement really ruined my gut’s microbiome. So I’ve been taking some supplements to help with that and it’s actually been making me feel better. I’m still not completely fine though so I don’t feel comfortable going to the office. I just don’t want to be asking to go to the bathroom constantly. It’s embarrassing and I don’t want to interrupt constantly. Anyways. My supervisor is very nice and he told me that if I need to stay home and recover that I should just do that because health comes first and it’s just a few days. I still have many days to come in my internship (which is true, since I finish in November 💀).

So this was a bit of a recap of the awfulness of these past few months. Unfortunately this also means that I’ve been robbed of my free time and I couldn’t really do much with my best friend anymore. We don’t hang out much, we just keep up via text. It’s awful. We used to do cooking nights, movie nights or just take walks frequently. We’d meet up every one or two weeks. Now it’s much less frequent. Last time we hung out was actually briefly before I started my job. Well to be fair I do have time in the evening, she’s the one who’s been kind of busy and also going on holidays.

I guess I will update y’all about life and work in the near future. I hope it will be good news. I am thinking of doing a monthly recap for work. So that it’s also useful to me to have something to look forward to. I just want this internship to be over already. Week 1 out of 24 is done.

[guzsdaily]

Another "return", another "change"

Day 49 - Dec 24th, 12.023

Today I, procrastinated, but also organized the tasks for this week. It's again the end of the year, and after December 31st, it will be another "return to productivity" for be, seeing how I didn't work so much on my projects these pasts 2 to 3 weeks. I don't plan to make a lot of changes for my organization workflow that much, even more on Obsidian, the main blocks are already done, so there are just some small system to do, but said systems are more about the collecting information, note-taking, etc. part of things. Now, something I want to work on more is my Operating System.

My current OS

Using Arch, btw

"I use Arch, btw" for around a year now, and being honest, it's great! I made my switch to Linux not a lot more than a year ago also, but in the first months I tried using Zorin OS, but switched to Arch Linux not long after, because of Davinci Resolve being easier to install on it [and] because of the Arch User Repository (AUR) [itself] and the Arch Wiki, both which really helped me a lot during this first year of going full-time Linux.

For most of the year, the experience was great and there weren't a lot of problems, I used the Archcraft distribution, so didn't to bang my head installing the OS, the desktop environment (DE) was really customizable, and was a normal experience for someone who was using Windows (so floating windows, mouse-centric, etc.). Developing on Linux was, and is, something so fucking good also, and I don't see myself going back to Windows any time, if any time soon.

Even using my drawing tablet, the HS610, didn't have a lot of problems even when it's not that well-supported, and being honest, I think that using Linux and most importantly Krita for drawing, made me draw a lot better also.

Customizing

After using Linux for half a year, I wanted to customize it more. Without counting, changing things like colors and themes in my DE, I didn't make that much to make my operating system my own. So after switching to NeoVim and learning about how much customizing your environment specifically for you can help your productivity, I wanted to make it to the OS level.

Without going into many details, I switched from XFCE (X11) to Hyprland (Wayland), so I could migrate to the new paradigm that Linux is going nowadays, have a more performant and responsive desktop and also a tiling window manager, so I could make my OS more keyboard-driven. Also, switching to a different, not configured, desktop environment, opened the opportunity for me to customized and understand it more deeply. With that all, I created a system for switching between different types of work environment, something which I gave a small glance in Day 25: "[A little taste of] The joy of Linux", and a lot of keystrokes and things like that to move on my computer without the mouse.

The problem: Stability

For most of the time, and to this day, most of the experience was okay and really improved my workflow and how and how fast I use, navigate, and interact with my computer. However, switching from X11 to Wayland didn't help a lot in the terms of compatibility with some applications like Discord and my drawing tablet. I was able to fix the problems most of the time, and my main work, programming, wasn't affected at all. But, if you don't know, Arch Linux is a rolling releases distribution, and somehow for some reason, and/or because most of the fixes that I made were glue together in some way or another, they stopped working, primarily Discord not being able to screen share, but also some visual glitches that happen from time to time.

And being honest, most of the problems are fixable easily, and I choose this path going to Arch Linux, because when I fix something in my computer, I also end up learning something about it and my OS. However, I'm trying to find a job now, I'm trying to work day-to-day now, and needing to fix something that broke because of an update, without being able to just roll back and work on it later, will not help at all. Not only that, but I want to customize even more my computer, so if I could make said customizations reproducible in other machines and/or when I need to reinstall my OS time to time, I could save a lot of time.

So if you are someone in the Linux community, you already know where I'm going with this.

Going to NixOS

I have been hearing and orbiting the topic of NixOS for a time now. If you don't know about NixOS, I'm going to be honest, I'm not able to explain everything to you here, and if you know little to none about Linux also... what the fuck are you doing here? Nonetheless, it has what I need nowadays: it is more stable, and can roll-up the entire system pretty much to a previous version if anything breaks; it isn't a rolling release distro; and it has something which I didn't see in any other OS, which is the ability to configure everything about your computer in one (or multiple) main configuration file. Not only that, but also copy that file(s) to another computer with NixOS, and reproduce everything about your setup easily without moving dot files around.

So of course it is a no-brainer for me.

And yes, I know that NixOS is not the best for beginners like me, but thankfully I think I found some videos and tutorials to help me start and have a working system like I want in some week(s). I can always work and customize more as time goes. The only things which I already know are going to be a challenge is its wiki not having the best documentation, even worse for beginners, so I will probably use a lot of Reddit, Discord, and even the Arch Wiki a lot in some problems that I encounter. I hope that with the new paradigm that I want to work on mitigates a lot of problems that I encounter, because I plan to use a lot more Flatpak to install day-to-day applications and use containers on coding projects, I want to try to isolate more the things on my computer, so they don't end up affecting each other that much, but that's a talk for another day.

I will keep posting about this transition in the coming days, probably, so prepare for some Linux-related entries.

---

Today's artists & creative things

Song: Moonlight Sonata (3rd Movement) - by Beethoven, remix by Meganeko This song doesn't stop playing in my head nowadays.

---

Copyright (c) 2023-present Gustavo "Guz" L. de Mello <contact.guz013@gmail.com>

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) License

[butterfly-winx]

Hi, This isnt about the butterfly au but i was wondering do you use any apps to draw your art on and if so which ones due you use? also do you have any tips?

Hey there! No worries I'm happy to talk about art in general as well!

I use Procreate (I think currently V5) on a first gen iPadPro to do most of the art and photosh*p cs2 for any edits, or compiling files when my layers overflow. (I'm not gonna lie, that is the major bummer with Procreate, but the app is well priced and I got no complaints about it otherwise.)

As far as art tips, go I wanted to acknowledge that these are tips I would and also do give myself, so it I am not an expert in any of these, but they are cool things to strive for.

1. Find the workflow for what makes sense for you. Not everyone has to do 2 sketches a lineart, flats and render in that order in every single piece. Experiment around, find what works for you, which parts of the process you enjoy, most importantly. I do very clean sketches on top of loose pose puppets and hate lineart. So I usually don't do that, but I get away with it bc I like doing the detailed sketch phase and "line sculpting" so I just go straight to colouring most often. Maybe you don't either, but for you a lineless style would work better. This is also how you can build style very easily!

2. Experiment with programs and find the one that supports your workflow best. I started off with a pen-tablet and PS/Corel painter and that didn't work for me for the longest time - I guess I never had the necessary hand-eye coordination for laptop and pen-tablet setups. Drawing ON the screen however, whoo boy my improvement skyrocketed. So I would urge everyone to look at what they struggle with while making art bc it might not be you, it might be the setup you use. Sure I could have spent a million hours fine tuning my lines to be straight, but I cold have also switched to a program that supports stroke stabilisation, you know? Also look into available shortcuts and pre-sets: the better you know your program the faster you are, the less likely you are to burn yourself out on a piece.

3. Build skills, but let your interests dictate what skills to focus on. Sure practice is key and you need to draw a thing a 1000 times to understand it, but I'm saying you are only going to draw something that many times if you like it. When I was into series that featured many male characters I beefed up on male anatomy; when I was crazy about a live action show I practiced copying the features of real actors; now I am neck deep in fashion refs and drawing different types of fabric. Find your passion and let it drive you! It does make sense to identify shortcomings and get comfortable with art basics like shape, light and colour, but if you don't find a way to apply it it a way that sparks joy, you risk your hobby turning into a chore (so this advice is mainly for hobbyist), so try not to do that and instead focus on eating your "veggies" and "dessert" as well if you can. Do sketches all day if you want, but you will need to face drawing the other eye or that hand on the hip if you want to see eventual improvement.

4. Collect inspiration with a goal in mind. It's fair and well to have endless lists of inspiring art and photography saved in your likes, pinterest or wherever, but it is good to sit down sometimes and examine why you saved a pic. (This is not for direct references btw). Ask yourself what you like about the individual piece and whether what you like about is something that just appeals to you as a beholder or whether that is something you would like to reproduce in your own art? It's actually a huge difference. I am drawn to stylised shapes and bold colours in art, but I like to paint like that? No. On the other hand I like looking at guache paintings and really taking apart how they were painted, bc that is the rendering style i like to push for in my art. It's a good idea to go cross-media in your inspiration: from traditional art to photography to industrial object design, you can find a lot of things to learn from outside your native art medium. If you found something you really like, you can do a master study of it (absolutely fair to share with public domain, classical pieces, if you copy a contemporary artist, do it for the sake of study and don't post it).

5. Don't compare yourself to others. Yes, I know this is the hardest. If you find yourself unhappy with the reception of your art online, it impacting your joy in creating art in the first place, it might be worth taking a step back. That's what I did. I was doing winx doodles for almost a year for myself only before I made this blog, (and this is far from being my first art blog on the internet btw). This may not be the right decision for everyone, but I wanted to say something other than "just don't give up", bc when you are in that spot it feels like utter bulsh*t. Social media has us comparing our skills and success to a million other people every day, and as harsh as it sounds, it's just not worth breaking yourself up over it. There is also no need to monetise every hobby you have and become the absolute best in it, especially when you are young.

So, to sum it up:

[eatanorange]

and if you’d like more evidence, (with the related anti-capitalist rant about corporatization of hospitals aside/deeply ingrained to this specific evidence) look no farther than corporate creating bullshit titles that Mean Nothing so that they can put an entire job description through nine circles of hell and 6 months of approval before they even post the job for people to apply. Under a guise of ‘We’re doing this for you!’

We are Always Understaffed if you’re staff and Never Hiring bc corporate decides who, when, and why to hire

Bc god forbid u hire a secretary to replace the one who retired and left the other one alone when we should have three. No, of course, Mr.Moneyballsack we should have a singular ‘Lab Coordinator’ instead who can maybe help in the office sometimes but is also going to oversee phlebotomy and micro and cytology and blood bank and the OR schedule and needs to be a certified pathologists assistant just in case. Yeah no our 75 y/o secretary who u have in a chokehold kept from quitting bc of her insurance needs really wants that instead of two normal secretaries. She wants you to sacrifice her wellbeing so that you save so much money. You’ll save so much money. You will. If the Cost is not Money it does not Count.

No no of course if they lose the cytotech upstairs (who they are underpaying w a lab assistant rate, bc the job post ‘said’ lab assistant) u should definitely evaluate if they even need the position at all! You should probably just get rid of that position actually. The supervisor enjoys talking to others too much and that keeps her from being Efficient, which deduces our imaginary profit predictions by 4%. Of course, we’d never say that. Instead we always approve PTO, you guys just don’t finish your work. The reasonable amount of work that we give you. Why aren’t you taking PTO? Someone else can learn your medical job how hard is it? Internally of course. We can NOT hire anybody new right now. Training is so hard :(

No definitely. Boss lady. Hand me, then, your part time lab assistant, the entire secretary training packet to “see how much I can learn” in my 4 hours present per day. That’s 76$. And give me deadlines to learn it by so that I do it in a week or two. That’s 760$. Just in case Secretary burns out again and is absent for a couple days! We wouldn’t want our big partner companies to know that we don’t have backup! That was -504$! Terrible Incident that. Before we ‘trained’ you of course. Should her Discrepancy of the Mind happen again and you are Perfect (required) it will only be -276$. See. Profit. From last time. Less loss. Could look at it as +228? To you? Do you want to work Extra Hours? We will give You. Chosen One. 456$ for the same time and job 🤗. 48 dollar profit 🤫 no benefits! You’re a part time worker. That’s what you signed up for.

I don’t even go down to the lab anymore btw. Bc they will Not hire a full time person to put anywhere unless that person signs up for 3 other embedded jobs at the same time and says workflow with a straight face. After the job description is approved of course.

At Hospital. Brought to you by Corporate. where Profit Saves Lives!!!!

We said saves lives. We said nothing of livelihood. You must not be able to read. Therefore we were unable to proceed with your application at this time. If you don’t hear from us in more than 30 days, assume we have moved on to other candidates that are a better fit for our institution.

Hot Take:

There is no labor shortage. There is no shortage of people who want / are able to work and either possess useful knowledge and skills or are willing to learn them.

What there IS a shortage of is business owners that are willing to spend resources on training, safety, benefits, PTO, proper staffing levels, and fair compensation.

[hopoo]

Devblog #12 – Somewhere, Over the Double Fucking Rainbow

Hello there! This is Chris, hijacking the RoR2 devblog to share a few notes on music.

Tl;dr:

Yes, I am writing the music for RoR2

No, there won’t be a Coalescence 2

Chanson à nouveau..

The day I would start composing for RoR2 was a day I looked forward to with equal amounts of excitement and fear. The score to the original RoR is one I hold very dearly. It is music I loved writing, created during a very special time of my life, infused by each and every musical influence of my childhood and adulthood. It’s a perfect capture of me at that particular space and time. It also happens to be my most successful soundtrack to date, primarily because it’s part of a great game that people love to play, but also—if people’s feedback is to be believed—because it’s not too bad in its own right.

Now I find myself exploring the musical world or RoR once again and I can assure you it’s an awe-inspiring place! It’s also immense, savage and untrodden... You can witness this for yourself in the wonderful images posted on this blog and all over the internet, but let me tell you, it’s one thing looking at it and a whole different thing experiencing it first-hand.

The move to 3D was a bold one and I’m its biggest supporter. Honestly, even if it didn’t offer this amazing opportunity to expand the game’s universe into this whole new level of detail and immersion, I would still embrace it only because it gives me the perfect excuse—the obligation, even—to avoid repeating myself. The thing I feared most starting this project was writing the same music all over again. Not because I don’t like the existing music (I love it) but because the existing music already… exists. What would be the point of Coalescence 2 (some people have actually asked for it)? If anyone wants to listen to Coalescence it’s right there for the listening. The RoR OST is a product of very specific, irreplicable circumstances. Even if I wanted to write sequels to these tracks, I couldn’t. They would be mere parodies.

So, I’m writing new music for a new game. Hopefully it will be better music for a better game, but I’m going to be satisfied if turns out being good music for a good game. I know many of you will not be happy reading this but I ask you to be open minded and trust me. If you liked the music for the first game chances are, you’ll like this one too. It’s the same person doing the writing (and performing, and producing, and mixing, and mastering) after all. It will be different, but it won’t be that different.

Paying my Dews

Let’s make sure we avoid any misunderstanding here: I don’t take the RoR musical legacy lightly. Rest assured that many things will carry over, not least of which the RoR motif. The usual odd meter and various polyrhythms will be featured prominently too. There’s drumming, lots of drumming, way too much drumming…. Several cameos of familiar instruments and even entire sections that will sound very reminiscent to old players. And then, there’s the unsung (pun intended) hero: form. Even though you can’t literally hear it you can certainly feel it. Form is the glue holding the music together. Just like with the first game, I’m working my ass off to fit these new tracks into meticulously woven forms.

As such, all the above elements that are part and parcel to the RoR sound will not be let behind. As previously mentioned, this is terra incognita we’re heading into and only a fool would go into the unknown without a flashlight. I plan to use the original music to illuminate all the new one hidden in the darkness beyond.

Forecast

It’s still too early to tell what the new soundtrack will actually sound like. I guess it will sound more like the original RoR than anything else—a definition as intentionally vague as can be. A word I liked using to describe the first soundtrack was “monolithic”. I feel the RoR2 OST will be even more so. To use a classical music analogy, if RoR1 was a suite, RoR2 will be more like a symphony. Don’t worry though, I’m still delivering discreet pieces of music that you will be able to tell apart (and prefer over others). Let’s just say I’ve set up my sessions like communication vessels of sorts.

For the time being, you can sample some new music in the game’s teaser and this SoundCloud playlist (which I plan to sparsely update). There’s a lot of material already written but most of it is still being forged into shape. There are also new things we’re testing to make the in-game music more dynamic and meaningful to the player, which have directly impacted my workflow. For the moment, all I can say I’m working on it steadily but slowly—slower than usual (sorry, Duncan & Paul!). As I said, while I’m very excited I’m also quite fearful. There’s plenty of pressure to satisfy the many fans of the music from the original game (thank you all so much, btw!!!) and even more self-imposed pressure to write music that I feel proud of and enjoy listening to for years to come. You see, I’m trying to uncover music I’ve not written before and I need to make sure my excavation brings to surface more than just petrified feces…

FAQ

When? When the great Magma Worm in the sky deems us worthy.

Where? All over the place, starting with Bandcamp.

Vinyl? Probably. Hopefully in a nice boxset with an RoR1 re-print.

Engineer Edition 2? Yes, but no sheet music this time around. Too many arpeggiators and modular patches for it to make any sense.

DEADBOLT 2? I sure damn hope so!

“It Can’t Rain All the Time”

That will be all for now! If you made it this far, thank you for reading and see you next time! If you want to keep the conversation going you can find me in the social media outlets below, where I will post the occasional RoR2 update, answer all your questions and share pictures of my cats:

Twitter | Facebook | Instagram |YouTube |SoundCloud

Take care, Chris

[hydralisk98]

Servitor random content-dump #2

I was simply editing my bucket-list / wishlist for 2023 and this came out as I was editing the retro computer hardware section.

Some brands in Angora and some of their products

Luna_Minimakhs Kex, Kora, Ren

Utalics Vixen, Wax, Ukiren

Pflaumen Alef (upper), Beya (mid) & Kappa (minis)

Macroware Bel & Fira

EBM Wyatt

Sphinx Perseus

Symbolics Union, Fraya

May_Timesharing Druid

Teko_Bevel Savy, SASS

Nineveh_Equipments Undex, Sakex

Hitachi Ural (upper tier but costly), Ouya (lower-tier but FLOSS-compliant)

Ideal Angora workflow:

Community Wyatt Maximus mainframe bulletin board system for jobs, gigs and other processing workloads in the Maskoch town

My Luna Kora workshop power-station

My Pflaumen Kappa household mid-station

My Utalics Vixen smartphone (thin-station PDA but handheld)

Symbolics Fraya retro game engine (think successor to Ken_Silverman's BUILD2 but as a Y2K engine outdoing Quake), useful for leisure and casual chatting

Sphinx Perseus Lex rich media editor, useful for fast wiki documentation & rich research workloads

Memex Miropad, useful for collaborative & cooperative time scheduling, creative activities & mainlined process management, also doubles as a memory sharing site, a digital marketplace and a utility suite for sapient autonomous processors aka "humans" in most cases

May Druid agent processing flow (Syndicated social assistance multilingual suite for androids)

Sakex Vox-Populis Ava synthetic serf (my own unit is called 'Nova' and has a similar software build mod of Ouya than mine except it is less stable due to being a testbench to my own)

Hitachi Ouya, (customized forked edition by myself decentrally shared with Ava, built for looser lower-level access than default to disjoint Haywire cerebral monitoring, much closer to natural liberty than IRL surveillance) cyberware suite

Klara Ker's Selfless Ker (my main blog name's being AutisticAngora, with a couple of side ones like MagneticHelix & NeueHashDotList) hand-curated blog & multimedia RSS tracker for journaling, analog privacy-focused personal projects and sidestream data processing that is easy to share with other wider LittleBearnet users (a smaller indie community within Angora than the wider SalvoNet, that is less centralized more transparent, more varied and more spiritual)

Much collecting of retro hardware + software technologies from many worlds to build a handsome yet deep meta-narrative simulations, aka vector-animated short films with interactive components & other silly cute physical media contents. Polymer, Maynard and SalveHistoryCarto being some of these silly personal creative outbursts

Not gonna lie, it seems to grow into a stronger and stronger vibe of Cyberpunk/Solarpunk every time I add something in there. Maybe I could provide more information about the less... dystopian and more suburb/rural side of the world eventually. Especially as I am still figuring out the exact details of the overhead map and other miscellaneous details to give ourselves much space to breathe away from such... dark or restrictive tropes. (I mean, I call for a nicer and more comforting vibe future world without sacrificing too much familiarity or 'personalization', so that's why I would need to tweak this emerging situation before it becomes too close to recent shared universes like idk, Cyberpunk 2077, Halo & Half-Life franchises.)

Btw, when (not just if) you got any suggestions, comments or criticism to share, I am welcoming such big time because I am getting closer and closer to some first milestone to reach some MVP shareware demos and I appreciate feedback so much. Mostly because it is not just a world for myself as far as I am aware, it is one I share with the rest of you (the current worldly context is not that horrendous all things considered but I don't trust quality change to occur by itself without some additional incentives... hence why I share it to serve as a refeuge and a sampler of what we could do better) and also manifest at least bits of it somewhat.

So yep, find victories + joys for yourself in this world's mess and take care of yourselves. (^*^)//

[raidenloml]

end of year update.....

1&2) i did this!!!! i have so many more characters now hihihi (i made an entire spreadsheet for them btw..) stories have been going slower mainly cuz its all just in my head and not written down but!!!!!!! its there!!!!!!!

3) uhm💀 i barely drew any fanart this year LOLLLL theres like one portal drawing i did as a joke and some tf2 stuff…. but like its all doodles really nothing serious (like unless you count art of ppls ocs but this was specifically about blorbos from media i like so???) whatever i was just majorly oc brained this year maybe next year ill latch onto something teehee

4) got too busy RIPPPP idk if itll stay that way but my priorities are absolutely not here atm (and again sniffles my own characters…. )

5) i actually did learn blender!!! made a total of two (2) models for school stuffs and i know the very very basics, still have a long way to go but soooo much better than last update LOLLL

6) im pretty sure i improved… like the way i view stuff has changed and i also tried a ton of new stuff!! started a sewing project (THAT I STILL NEED TO FINISH OOOOPSSS), picked up physical paints again and like just started getting comfortable w my workflow and style :DD

i dont really have any proper goals set in mind for next year except for putting together a proper portfolio and just expanding upon what i make but having this list from last year really helped me show how much i did actually end up achieving :)

art thingys i want to do in 2024!!!

1. work more on my OCs, esp splatoon and original stories (write and draw their asses)

2. more ocs!!!

3. more drawing my sillies from the media i like

4. open commissions perhaps??? get that bread

5. learn how to use blender! important!

6. eudgdhshs improve yes yippie yoohoo

just be able to draw stuff i want in general ok thats it yayyy scheduling a reblog for this to be in a year ‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️

[hydrus]

Version 324

windows

zip

exe

os x

app

tar.gz

linux

tar.gz

source

tar.gz

I had a great week. The downloader overhaul is almost done.

pixiv

Just as Pixiv recently moved their art pages to a new phone-friendly, dynamically drawn format, they are now moving their regular artist gallery results to the same system. If your username isn't switched over yet, it likely will be in the coming week.

The change breaks our old html parser, so I have written a new downloader and json api parser. The way their internal api works is unusual and over-complicated, so I had to write a couple of small new tools to get it to work. However, it does seem to work again.

All of your subscriptions and downloaders will try to switch over to the new downloader automatically, but some might not handle it quite right, in which case you will have to go into edit subscriptions and update their gallery manually. You'll get a popup on updating to remind you of this, and if any don't line up right automatically, the subs will notify you when they next run. The api gives all content--illustrations, manga, ugoira, everything--so there unfortunately isn't a simple way to refine to just one content type as we previously could. But it does neatly deliver everything in just one request, so artist searching is now incredibly faster.

Let me know if pixiv gives any more trouble. Now we can parse their json, we might be able to reintroduce the arbitrary tag search, which broke some time ago due to the same move to javascript galleries.

twitter

In a similar theme, given our fully developed parser and pipeline, I have now wangled a twitter username search! It should be added to your downloader list on update. It is a bit hacky and may be ultimately fragile if they change something their end, but it otherwise works great. It discounts retweets and fetches 19/20 tweets per gallery 'page' fetch. You should be able to set up subscriptions and everything, although I generally recommend you go at it slowly until we know this new parser works well. BTW: I think twitter only 'browses' 3200 tweets in the past, anyway. Note that tweets with no images will be 'ignored', so any typical twitter search will end up with a lot of 'Ig' results--this is normal. Also, if the account ever retweets more than 20 times in a row, the search will stop there, due to how the clientside pipeline works (it'll think that page is empty).

Again, let me know how this works for you. This is some fun new stuff for hydrus, and I am interested to see where it does well and badly.

misc

In order to be less annoying, the 'do you want to run idle jobs?' on shutdown dialog will now only ask at most once per day! You can edit the time unit under options->maintenance and processing.

Under options->connection, you can now change max total network jobs globally and per domain. The defaults are 15 and 3. I don't recommend you increase them unless you know what you are doing, but if you want a slower/more cautious client, please do set them lower.

The new advanced downloader ui has a bunch of quality of life improvements, mostly related to the handling of example parseable data.

full list

downloaders:

after adding some small new parser tools, wrote a new pixiv downloader that should work with their new dynamic gallery's api. it fetches all an artist's work in one page. some existing pixiv download components will be renamed and detached from your existing subs and downloaders. your existing subs may switch over to the correct pixiv downloader automatically, or you may need to manually set them (you'll get a popup to remind you).

wrote a twitter username lookup downloader. it should skip retweets. it is a bit hacky, so it may collapse if they change something small with their internal javascript api. it fetches 19-20 tweets per 'page', so if the account has 20 rts in a row, it'll likely stop searching there. also, afaik, twitter browsing only works back 3200 tweets or so. I recommend proceeding slowly.

added a simple gelbooru 0.1.11 file page parser to the defaults. it won't link to anything by default, but it is there if you want to put together some booru.org stuff

you can now set your default/favourite download source under options->downloading

.

misc:

the 'do idle work on shutdown' system will now only ask/run once per x time units (including if you say no to the ask dialog). x is one day by default, but can be set in 'maintenance and processing'

added 'max jobs' and 'max jobs per domain' to options->connection. defaults remain 15 and 3

the colour selection buttons across the program now have a right-click menu to import/export #FF0000 hex codes from/to the clipboard

tag namespace colours and namespace rendering options are moved from 'colours' and 'tags' options pages to 'tag summaries', which is renamed to 'tag presentation'

the Lain import dropper now supports pngs with single gugs, url classes, or parsers--not just fully packaged downloaders

fixed an issue where trying to remove a selection of files from the duplicate system (through the advanced duplicates menu) would only apply to the first pair of files

improved some error reporting related to too-long filenames on import

improved error handling for the folder-scanning stage in import folders--now, when it runs into an error, it will preserve its details better, notify the user better, and safely auto-pause the import folder

png export auto-filenames will now be sanitized of \, /, :, *-type OS-path-invalid characters as appropriate as the dialog loads

the 'loading subs' popup message should appear more reliably (after 1s delay) if the first subs are big and loading slow

fixed the 'fullscreen switch' hover window button for the duplicate filter

deleted some old hydrus session management code and db table

some other things that I lost track of. I think it was mostly some little dialog fixes :/

.

advanced downloader stuff:

the test panel on pageparser edit panels now has a 'post pre-parsing conversion' notebook page that shows the given example data after the pre-parsing conversion has occurred, including error information if it failed. it has a summary size/guessed type description and copy and refresh buttons.

the 'raw data' copy/fetch/paste buttons and description are moved down to the raw data page

the pageparser now passes up this post-conversion example data to sub-objects, so they now start with the correctly converted example data

the subsidiarypageparser edit panel now also has a notebook page, also with brief description and copy/refresh buttons, that summarises the raw separated data

the subsidiary page parser now passes up the first post to its sub-objects, so they now start with a single post's example data

content parsers can now sort the strings their formulae get back. you can sort strict lexicographic or the new human-friendly sort that does numbers properly, and of course you can go ascending or descending--if you can get the ids of what you want but they are in the wrong order, you can now easily fix it!

some json dict parsing code now iterates through dict keys lexicographically ascending by default. unfortunately, due to how the python json parser I use works, there isn't a way to process dict items in the original order

the json parsing formula now uses a string match when searching for dictionary keys, so you can now match multiple keys here (as in the pixiv illusts|manga fix). existing dictionary key look-ups will be converted to 'fixed' string matches

the json parsing formula can now get the content type 'dictionary keys', which will fetch all the text keys in the dictionary/Object, if the api designer happens to have put useful data in there, wew

formulae now remove newlines from their parsed texts before they are sent to the StringMatch! so, if you are grabbing some multi-line html and want to test for 'Posted: ' somewhere in that mess, it is now easy.

next week

After slaughtering my downloader overhaul megajob of redundant and completed issues (bringing my total todo from 1568 down to 1471!), I only have 15 jobs left to go. It is mostly some quality of life stuff and refreshing some out of date help. I should be able to clear most of them out next week, and the last few can be folded into normal work.

So I am now planning the login manager. After talking with several users over the past few weeks, I think it will be fundamentally very simple, supporting any basic user/pass web form, and will relegate complicated situations to some kind of improved browser cookies.txt import workflow. I suspect it will take 3-4 weeks to hash out, and then I will be taking four weeks to update to python 3, and then I am a free agent again. So, absent any big problems, please expect the 'next big thing to work on poll' to go up around the end of October, and for me to get going on that next big thing at the end of November. I don't want to finalise what goes on the poll yet, but I'll open up a full discussion as the login manager finishes.

[empmoniitor]

DOES PC MONITORING SOFTWARE IMPROVE REMOTE WORK FLEXIBILITY?

We all might complain about the monotony that the work from home schedule has brought to us, but low-key, we all love it. It was not a very long time ago when only a fraction of the employees used to get this luxury of remote work- now it is the new normal.

While the world is fighting with a global crisis, the corporate sector managed to keep it running distantly. Telecommuting was not a problem until the employers realized how less control they would have over their employees’ behavior and the company’s assets. As a result, many workplaces started using PC monitoring software and tools to track their staff.

This step proved to be revolutionary for various workplaces in a lot of aspects. For starters, there was a hike in the overall productivity and more employee satisfaction. Is it due to the flexibility that the staff gets now? How does monitoring computer activity ensure the increase in productivity, responsibility, discipline, and, most importantly, employee satisfaction?

Before we dive into further details, let’s get to the basics:

WHAT IS WORKPLACE FLEXIBILITY?

Contrary to the general belief, workplace flexibility is way more than having flexible shifts. A flexible workplace indicates the willingness of an employer to adapt their staff’s changing needs- regarding when, where, and how they perform their work.

A company with flexible work ethics includes all kinds of flexible work arrangements that cater to employers as well as employees. It aims at creating a work environment that proves beneficial to both of them and helps the organization to grow faster.

BENEFITS OF A FLEXIBLE WORK ENVIRONMENT

There are various reasons why all workplaces must adopt a flexible work culture. Here is how it helps:

1. WORK-LIFE BALANCE:

Providing your employees with flexible shifts, remote work, fair work assessment, etc. will assist them in being more responsible and focused during the working hours. As a result, they will save some time.

And since the staff will save a lot of time from getting ready and commuting to the office, they will be able to understand the value of those extra hours as well. They will be able to spare more time for their families, hobbies, and interests. They will eventually learn how to manage these extra hours in completing their pending tasks or managing their upcoming projects beforehand.

A flexible workplace, thus, leads to peace of mind, job satisfaction, and high employee morale.

BTW, HERE IS

HOW TO MANAGE TEAMS AND WORK DURING THIS DIWALI?

2. SELF CONTROL:

A flexible shift will allow the employees to have much better control over their working environment, schedule, breaks, lunch hour, and many more.

It doesn’t matter if they are an early bird or a night owl- they are going to manage their time accordingly to finish their assigned tasks and meet deadlines faster.

3. EMPLOYEE RETENTION:

Employees feel valued when their employers start focusing more on the quality and quantity of work instead of the total working hours.

Deploying a tool or employee computer monitoring software on their systems will assist the employers in focusing on the actual number of active hours. You would know which employees work harder, despite the number of breaks that they might take.

Such workplaces are, thus, more preferable for the hard-working employees who may feel like their company doesn’t recognize their efforts.

3. SAVING ON COMMUTE:

Whether an employee travels by public transports or a private vehicle, they get to skip all the hours, expenses, and money spent on their mode of commute when working from home. The extra money and time that they get to save here are WAY MORE than what they could when going to the office.

All the extra bucks that these people have now goes directly into fulfilling their personal needs. It’s more like a saving that they never saw coming!

IMPACT OF USING A PC MONITORING SOFTWARE

The reason behind the majority of employers using employee computer monitoring software is to ensure that they are providing their teams with a flexible workplace without compromising their company’s security and overall productivity. Some of the best pc monitoring software like EmpMonitor provides employers with a statistical analysis of what their staff is up to during the working hours.

Using such tools is a mandatory step to introduce transparency and flexibility in your distant premises. Here is why:

1. FAIR WORK ASSESSMENT:

Some of the best pc monitoring software and tools provide employers with a detailed analysis of what their staff does on their screens. This way, you stay aware of the apps and websites that they visit and the number of hours that they spend on them.

As a matter of fact, you can check why they visited particular websites, for instance, their social media handles (Staff may refer to their social media for research purposes, at times).

Thus, you can fairly assess the tasks performed by your teams, taking into account their actual working hours on the keyboard and mouse.

2. EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY:

Employees work more attentively when working under vigilance. Procrastination and distraction seem to take them over very little when they are aware of the company computer monitoring software running on their systems. Always make sure that you keep your staff informed about the vigilance, or else they may not trust you in the long run.

On one hand, you can always catch hold of the employees who are goldbricking or taking advantage of the flexible shifts. On the other hand, you can always reward the ones who sincerely work for longer hours.

Don’t worry. The staff won’t feel threatened by your employee computer monitoring software. They would, in fact, appreciate the fact that you are aware of their efforts and productivity. They would act more responsibly, manage their breaks wisely, and input maximum efforts in completing their assigned tasks.

3. DATA SECURITY:

One of the main reasons why employers generally hesitate from letting their staff handle their company data from elsewhere is the risk that comes along. Various employees work on public WiFi, share their devices with their siblings, barely check before clicking on an unknown link, and download unsolicited files without hesitation.

While training your employees to identify and avoid cyber threats is something you must never skip- you also cannot avoid using a tool or employee computer activity monitoring software.

While there are various free pc monitoring tools available in the market as well, we would advise you to go for the best ones that provide you with detailed statistics and reports of your staff’s screen. Check for the type of files they download, if they purposely extend their working hours to work on suspicious tasks, look for the ones who share unnecessary files with their colleagues, etc.

Having a flexible work environment does not imply letting your staff make their own rules. It has a lot more to do with how the employers, as well as employees, can stay happy with the regulations that the workplace has. Use the best computer monitoring software to ensure that you keep an eye on your teams while they work their best.

ALSO READ,  

A GUIDE TO PRODUCTIVITY MEASUREMENT AND ANALYSIS

WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT: TIPS TO IMPROVE WORKFLOW IN YOUR BUSINESS

TOP 10 INTERNET MONITORING SOFTWARE OF ALL THE TIME

WRAPPING IT UP

The dawn of this COVID-19 crisis was not only sudden but also a bit too overwhelming for all of us. But we are all loving the visible transformation in nature and the environment as well as in our workplaces. The strategy of workplace flexibility is becoming increasingly popular day by day as it benefits both the employers and the employees.

Follow the methods and tips that I have mentioned in this article to use a pc monitoring software on your employees’ systems, and introduce better flexibility in your distant workplaces. Was this article helpful? Drop your suggestions/ queries to us in the comments section below. We would love to hear from you!

Originally Published On: EmpMonitor