#im not even really a programmer yet

[devotedlystrangewizard]

i fully understand we dont need ultra perfect realism in games but there is a part of my brain. that really likes pretty graphics. there is a part of my brain that sees how raytracing is evolving and giggles in unbridled glee. i adore stylized games more than anything ever (my current favorite games are ultrakill, ffxiv, hollow knight, celeste, and rain world) but MAN.

[kremlin]

How DOES the C preprocessor create two generations of completely asinine programmers??

oh man hahah oh maaan. ok, this won't be very approachable.

i don't recall what point i was trying to make with the whole "two generations" part but ill take this opportunity to justifiably hate on the preprocessor, holy fuck the amount of damage it has caused on software is immeasurable, if you ever thought computer programmers were smart people on principle...

the cpp:

there are like forty preprocessor directives, and they all inject a truly mind-boggling amount of vicious design problems and have done so for longer than ive been alive. there really only ever needed to be one: #include , if only to save you the trouble of manually having to copy header files in full & paste them at the top of your code. and christ almighty, we couldn't even get that right. C (c89) has way, waaaay fewer keywords than any other language. theres like 30, and half of those aren't ever used, have no meaning or impact in the 21st century (shit like "register" and "auto"). and C programmers still fail to understand all of them properly, specifically "static" (used in a global context) which marks some symbol as inelligible to be touched externally (e.g. you can't use "extern" to access it). the whole fucking point of static is to make #include'd headers rational, to have a clear seperation between external, intended-to-be-accessed API symbols, and internal, opaque shit. nobody bothers. it's all there, out in the open, if you #include something, you get all of it, and brother, this is only the beginning, you also get all of its preprocessor garbage.

this is where the hell begins:

#if #else

hey, do these look familiar? we already fucking have if/else. do you know what is hard to understand? perfectly minimally written if/else logic, in long functions. do you know what is nearly impossible to understand? poorly written if/else rats nests (which is what you find 99% of the time). do you know what is completely impossible to understand? that same poorly-written procedural if/else rat's nest code that itself is is subject to another higher-order if/else logic.

it's important to remember that the cpp is a glorified search/replace. in all it's terrifying glory it fucking looks to be turing complete, hell, im sure the C++ preprocessor is turing complete, the irony of this shouldn't be lost on you. if you have some long if/else logic you're trying to understand, that itself is is subject to cpp #if/#else, the logical step would be to run the cpp and get the output pure C and work from there, do you know how to do that? you open the gcc or llvm/clang man page, and your tty session's mem usage quadruples. great job idiot. trying figuring out how to do that in the following eight thousand pages. and even if you do, you're going to be running the #includes, and your output "pure C" file (bereft of cpp logic) is going to be like 40k lines. lol.

the worst is yet to come:

#define #ifdef #ifndef (<- WTF) #undef you can define shit. you can define "anything". you can pick a name, whatever, and you can "define it". full stop. "#define foo". or, you can give it a value: "#define foo 1". and of course, you can define it as a function: "#define foo(x) return x". wow. xzibit would be proud. you dog, we heard you wanted to kill yourself, so we put a programming language in your programming language.

the function-defines are pretty lol purely in concept. when you find them in the wild, they will always look something like this:

#define foo(x,y) \ (((x << y)) * (x))

i've seen up to seven parens in a row. why? because since cpp is, again, just a fucking find&replace, you never think about operator precedence and that leads to hilarious antipaterns like the classic

#define min(x,y) a < b ? a : b

which will just stick "a < b ? a: b" ternary statement wherever min(.. is used. just raw text replacement. it never works. you always get bitten by operator precedence.

the absolute worst is just the bare defines:

#define NO_ASN1 #define POSIX_SUPPORTED #define NO_POSIX

etc. etc. how could this be worse? first of all, what the fuck are any of these things. did they exist before? they do now. what are they defined as? probably just "1" internally, but that isn't the point, the philosophy here is the problem. back in reality, in C, you can't just do something like "x = 0;" out of nowhere, because you've never declared x. you've never given it a type. similar, you can't read its value, you'll get a similar compiler error. but cpp macros just suddenly exist, until they suddenly don't. ifdef? ifndef? (if not defined). no matter what, every permutation of these will have a "valid answer" and will run without problem. let me demonstrate how this fucks things up.

do you remember "heartbleed" ? the "big" openssl vulnerability ? probably about a decade ago now. i'm choosing this one specifically, since, for some reason, it was the first in an annoying trend for vulns to be given catchy nicknames, slick websites, logos, cable news coverage, etc. even though it was only a moderate vulnerability in the grand scheme of things...

(holy shit, libssl has had huge numbers of remote root vulns in the past, which is way fucking worse, heartbleed only gave you a random sampling of a tiny bit of internal memory, only after heavy ticking -- and nowadays, god, some of the chinese bluetooth shit would make your eyeballs explode if you saw it; a popular bt RF PHY chip can be hijacked and somehow made to rewrite some uefi ROMs and even, i think, the microcode on some intel chips)

anyways, heartbleed, yeah, so it's a great example since you could blame it two-fold on the cpp. it involved a generic bounds-checking failure, buf underflow, standard shit, but that wasn't due to carelessness (don't get me wrong, libssl is some of the worst code in existence) but because the flawed cpp logic resulted in code that:

A.) was de-facto worthless in definition B.) a combination of code supporting ancient crap. i'm older than most of you, and heartbleed happened early in my undergrad. the related legacy support code in question hadn't been relevant since clinton was in office.

to summarize, it had to do with DTLS heartbeats. DTLS involves handling TLS (or SSLv3, as it was then, in the 90s) only over UDP. that is how old we're talking. and this code was compiled into libssl in the early 2010s -- when TLS had been the standard for a while. TLS (unlike SSLv3 & predecessors) runs over TCP only. having "DTLS heartbeat support in TLS does not make sense by definition. it is like drawing a triangle on a piece of paper whose angles don't add up to 180.

how the fuck did that happen? the preprocessor.

why the fuck was code from last century ending up compiled in? who else but!! the fucking preprocessor. some shit like:

#ifndef TCP_SUPPORT <some crap related to UDP heartbeats> #endif ... #ifndef NO_UDP_ONLY <some TCP specific crap> #endif

the header responsible for defining these macros wasn't included, so the answer to BOTH of these "if not defined" blocks is true! because they were never defined!! do you see?

you don't have to trust my worldview on this. have you ever tried to compile some code that uses autoconf/automake as a build system? do you know what every single person i've spoken to refers to these as? autohell, for automatic hell. autohell lives and dies on cpp macros, and you can see firsthand how well that works. almost all my C code has the following compile process:

"$ make". done. Makefile length: 20 lines.

the worst i've ever deviated was having a configure script (probably 40 lines) that had to be rune before make. what about autohell? jesus, these days most autohell-cursed code does all their shit in a huge meta-wrapper bash script (autogen.sh), but short of that, if you decode the forty fucking page INSTALL doc, you end up with:

$ automake (fails, some shit like "AUTOMAKE_1.13 or higher is required) $ autoconf (fails, some shit like "AUTOMCONF_1.12 or lower is required) $ aclocal (fails, ???) $ libtoolize (doesn't fail, but screws up the tree in a way that not even a `make clean` fixes $ ???????? (pull hair out, google) $ autoreconf -i (the magic word) $ ./configure (takes eighty minutes and generates GBs of intermediaries) $ make (runs in 2 seconds)

in conclusion: roflcopter

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[crookedkryptonitebeliever]

Yandere best friend part 5

tw: I don't see any atm, if there is please do tell me thankx, mini rant in the authors note at the beginning

Minors n ageless blogz pls dni

as usual, no proofreading and my leg keeps twtiching but in a hurt ouch way. I feel really inadequate cuase i cant really do much atm and i cnat even cook for myself, have to eat whatevre my mom cooks for survival , im grateful she cooks tho

really short one today

enjoays

He tries to come to your home as much as possible. Treating you well as a loving spouse would. Today, he came in, already on the phone. Talking about something highly technical and confusing.

He would bring his fingers except his thumb, to his unmoving palm, quickly opening and closing them. A common greeting wave of his. A wink would always accompany that when he can't verbally express his salutations.

You watched him sandwich his phone between his raised shoulder and his ear, to free up his hand. He must have left his briefcase in the living room.

Your friend-- no, fiance, immediately got to work. He grabbed your folded wheelchair from the corner of your room and set it up for you. He tucked his hands under your thighs and signaled you to lean forward, which you did. He then tucked his other hands behind your back.

He carried you and gently placed you down on your wheelchair. All the while, talking about work on the phone. His voice never wavered and he never grunted, he made it look so effortless.

He fixed your hair, absentmindedly staring deep in your eyes as he chatter on with the caller.

Then, he walked behind you and wheeled you out of your dark room, into your parents' living room where you could get 'fresher' air and more sunlight.

Once he made sure you're in a comfortable position and in an appropriate location in the living room, he placed the TV remote control on your lap. Your fiance transferred his phone onto his left hand before pressing a light kiss on the lips, with his right fingers gingerly holding your chin.

He walked away and into the kitchen for privacy, loosening his tie in the process. It must be uncomfortable to wear that all day.

Your parents aren't home at the moment, that's why you get to conquer the television. You don't know what he told them, but they're suddenly quite intimidated by him. Alert and watchful of his every move, yet silent and refusing to address the metaphorical elephant in the room. You really doubt that your parents willingly allowed him to come back here after slapping you that day.

There is nothing good to watch on TV. You had a lot on your mind and that ruined every programme you came across. Moreover, your fiance's voice was bothering you.

After twenty minutes or so, you heard him express an amicable goodbye. Followed by a deep, exasperated sigh. You stretched your neck to see what's going on in the kitchen, he was propping himself up against the kitchen counter, tiredly dragging his fingers down his face.

He caught you watching him. He gave you a kind, genuine smile.

I'll be with you in a minute, dear. He picked his phone up again and made another call. While waiting for the other person to answer, he opened up a cabinet and took a box of your favourite snack in his hand.

He opened it and then walked towards you.

You stretched your hands out, very receptive to the treat. That made him chuckle as he brought the package closer to your reach. His eyes held nothing but love towards you, as it witnessed you fumble around with the snack. He couldn't help but caress your cheek and under your chin.

You ignored his touch and began munching, he doesn't seem to mind.

His smile dropped when the person who he was calling answered. His eyes hardened and the way he spoke changed drastically. He sounded mean, he talked fast and cold, yet professionally polite.

He didn't want you to hear him scolding one of his chief managers, so he walked away to another part of the house.

You don't really know how to feel. You chewed on as you caught a glimpse of a second golden ring on his other ring finger, identical to the one he wore, but in a better condition. It was yours, you refused to wear it because it made your finger itchy. So he put it on.

He was absolutely elated, appreciative and relieved to know that you didn't pawn it off. But, it was kept safely in a box containing items that you cherished over the years. Including the yoyo and an old smartphone he gave you.

You think he really didn't want to give up that yoyo, he probably did it for the sake of your love and attention despite losing it must have hurt him as a child greatly-- in more ways than one. Your fiance spent a couple hours playing with it while doing some paperwork at your dining table.

He would only return to his home at ungodly hours to maximize his time spent with you.

You didn't want to move into his home and he is fine with that. He trusts your parents more than his personal servants to take care of you.

You glanced at the television and it's showing an advertisement for your fiance's company. It felt... Bizarre. To have the CEO, the founder of a corporate giant to dote on you and be your personal chef.

You finished the last bites of your snack and set the empty box aside. A couple minutes later, he came back with no phone in sight.

His arms wrapped around you from the back and nuzzled his cheek against yours. He hummed contentedly as he pressed a kiss on your shoulder.

How are you today? He asked, words dripping with affection. He drew small circles on your arm with his finger.

I'm okay. You replied.

I'm glad to hear that. He mumbled against your skin.

He held you like that for a couple more seconds, before reluctantly letting go. You stared at him.

You're due for a check-up soon. He mumbled, crossing his arms. He winced a little when he looked at your legs. You didn't say anything else and neither did he.

He shook his head and ruffled your hair, only to brush it back neatly with his fingers. It seems like old habits die hard, he has been doing this since adolescence.

You didn't realize how spoiled you were back in high school. Not only does he cooks most of your meals, give you candies and gifts for free, he would also give you regular backrubs. You were reminded of this when he would give you a backrub until his hands ache, until you're sound asleep, all you needed to do was complain your back hurts from the awkward position you're laying on.

He also made it a routine to massage your hands everyday with some expensive hand lotion. Each knead and each gentle pull was filled with nothing but care and love. It was interesting that he would also pay extra attention to your cuticles, pampering them with good quality cuticle oil and a special massage.

Having his soft hands cupping the sides of your face felt nice. You leant into his touch, much more than usual. Your eyes avoid his.

Your fiance tilted his head to the side questioningly, it's not unwelcomed per se, but it is unusual.

Hm? He hummed, checking the temperature of your forehead using the back of his hand. Nothing seems to be amiss. But you look a lot more weary than usual. Something on your mind, love?

There is an uptick when it comes to pet names now.

You told him that you were just tired, but you're actually afraid of the changes that comes along when you begin your life as his spouse.

Yes, money is fun. Status, especially high status is fun. But what's not fun, is visibility. You know you're going to have a lot of attention on you, more of the bad ones and less of the good ones. Even though he may not be that interesting to the public, he is still a CEO of a famous brand. The paparazzi are working overtime to find any scandals on him, to sell to tabloids.

He is not known to have a fucking soul with thoughts and feelings and humanely desires like a normal human does. He is labeled as an ice cold machine, clad in silicone skin, trying to blend in with the masses to sell frozen food products to consumers and spread capitalistic propaganda.

So to have him seen with another person that isn't going to benefit his businesses, his wallet or his ever growing list of networking contacts will give the average onlooker a whiplash.

[singaporesainz]

this will be very long, so fair warning, but, as someone who does pay close attention to mclaren, the idea that so many people are already projecting oscar to completely outperform lando so soon makes me a little wary... not only is it underestimating lando but it's also putting a lot of unnecessary expectation on oscar who will still only be in his second year.

learning things like tyre and race management takes longer than most would think, and some don't ever perfect it despite initial promise (though hopefully oscar does!). they're incredibly complex and not just one singular attribute to learn, but rather a collation of dozens and dozens of conditions with dozens and dozens of outcomes. it's hard, and shouldn't be expected within a year or two!

we also can't forget that lando's only just over a singular year older than oscar; the guy is still so young, and the idea that lando won't also be making year-on-year improvements to his intrinsic performance level is a little silly. neither of them are at their peaks yet, especially when you consider that intrinsic performance improvement usually tends to plateau around age 26/27 for athletes.

another important thing to consider when talking about lando's career specifically so far is he has still never had a car which is even vaguely in line with something that suits his driving style – so you could expect another order of improvement from him when he has a car he feels he can really push and rely on. the mclaren's handling has historically been incredibly odd and unpredictable; not knowing how a car will react from corner to corner, lap to lap will have undoubtedly put a cap on maximum performance and the ability to perform consistently, purely inherently with the car's characteristics, especially when you're pushing 110%.

neither driver has reached their ceiling yet, and to try and predict the outcome in this intra-team rivalry as anything other than just "closer than last year" feels a little presumptuous, and does a disservice to both of them.

i won't touch on the sprint win vs. no wins argument for lando and oscar when only "freak" wins have been available to either of them so far, and doesn't really hold water when really assessing talent in depth in the midst of extremely dominated eras of f1. especially when the strategy department of mclaren is still a bit crap.

but yeah. i imagine lando will remain ahead, but it should be closer just by virtue of oscar now having f1 experience at all of these tracks now, and the combined experience of a year in f1 and the comprehensive f1 testing programme he went through with both mclaren and alpine over 2022-2023.

it'll be interesting to see how lando specifically will develop if he's given a car competitive enough that he doesn't have to compromise his personal aspirations (eg. risks in w2w racing, strategy risks, putting it all on the line for a win) to prioritise the team result. until now mclaren has been prioritising low-risk racing, low-risk strategy and low-damage costs for the sake of what is essentially a midfield wcc each year lando's been there, amidst what has essentially been a money-strapped rebuilding phase.

we've only seen glimpses of how aggressive of a racer lando can be by virtue of him also being a smart racer who knows when it's actually worth risking something. seeing how oscar fits in at the front-end will be fascinating to see as well.

multiple years down the line, once both are fully mature, the lando/oscar argument will be a fun one to have, because we'll have the proper information to evaluate them with; but we don't as of yet. and that's partially why mclaren's lineup is so exciting :)

there isn't anyway i can properly reply to this whole post because i wouldn't know any better BUT i will say that i soo appreciate talks like this. i love talking about the nitty gritty, going deeper than what we see from race to race. im working on really understanding the cars and all that, so it was nice to read this.

thanks for taking the time, truthfully <3

[2036sator]

hiiii :3 what r ur opinions on the characters in the cgvl and lha? Character wise, design wise, etc... (including freedom guy 🤭) I'm just really curious :3

[[ AA dude i’m gonna go so in depth w/ this !!!! this is personally from what I recently discovered from these characters so , i am kinda new to LHA and CGVL ,, not freedom guy tho lolol ]]

[[ Let’s start with LHA ^_^ ]]

> FREEDOM GUY - design wise … absolutely cool i can’t really explain how much i enjoy doodling him no matter what design he has , always loved the old design !! Red scarf is iconic to him and made him stand out even if its a bit plain… but other than the old design, new design kitt recently has made im ssooooooo inlove with how he became so …. HE LOOKS SASSY AT ONE POINT LOOOKING AT HIM FOR HOURS . his old design with his iconic hands on his hips pose already made me think he was all shiny sassy star that everyone praises of lllolololol 7_7 character wise by personality is great overall , he’s a code yet he is so , humane that being the therapist plus saviour is tiring even for a code sobbbb ilove gushing about freedom guy if u can’t tell

> FROST - design wise ? Love it . I would say that I love drawing Frost as well as much as I love to draw Freedom Guy :3 Character wise … very kewl…. I need to see more of frost stuff ………

> TANGERINE - DESIGN WISE AAHHHH OHMYGOD I have something for orange sticks idk why but she looks so cool i never actually noticed she even had like scars until i went thru deep into the LHA bloggers just to noticed she has like two or three scars like WHAT !!! Character wise , If she went to my school I would wanna be her friend tbh she seems fun to be around ^_^

> CION - Design wise is just… chefs kiss , I love drawing her marble head and drawing her in my design where she has like kind of maybe water ish? Or fire ish blob around it just bc I can’t see her with hair so instead I just made blobs that made to look like she has hair el o el ,,,overallll!! Super cool I love cloaks … Character wise is yes , just yes . Ilove the looks can be deceived like how Cion and Tangerine is the same just different fonts

> LUCKY - hhhahah lucky block…. I made Lucky’s head more not circular bc srsly I would totally believe lucky if xe told me xe was birthed from a lucky block. So it’s more geometrical? Character wise ilove xem ilove hackers and I don’t know much of Lucky ,,,still xe’s super cool either way

== WOOOOO CGVL IS NEXT ==

> SCRIBBLES - from what ive seen im surprised this is actually and technically the leader of cgvl and its just , a little scribble stick ( in a positive way not insulting ) , probably my favourite... ( i cant decide with scribs and rose ) ,,, character wise!!! ive seen a little bit of scribbles story and im cheering so hard scribs is so cool and with the programmer lore and everything going on is super interesting and all overall really cool character , easy to doodle when im bored in school

> VIX - oh jeez . can we get vix neutered . / LIGHTHEARTED JOKE ... Unique creature , i love the head design even though it sometimes confuses me when i try to doodle the back of vix :9 ., character wise .. freaky .... you a freak girl!!! also!!! I LOVE cannibal characters when they're all actually attached to a person then they soemtimes can't get over the thought of eating them ( filling them with guilt ) i love when cannibals feel bad for what they are ( technically its a parasite for vix's case but still!!! )

>ROSE - ohhhhhhhhh i almost tripped when i saw rose , pink characters save me ... shes so pretty by the design wise category .. made me jealous of her gender smhhhh.... character wise , mischievous thief and i would let her steal my whole house if she wanted to

> GEO - i wanna squeeze geo but i cant :( character wise by what ive seen from like interactions(?) and lore , its really interesting and really cool ( reminds me of another interest i have but who cares ) still i understand how frost would baby geo

> ENTI & BUG ( NO IMAGE NOOOOOO MY LIMIT NOOOOOO ) - big guys so cool they would absolutely obliterate me . i dont know them much but i wanna know more about them .... i need itt...

[sibyl-of-space]

oOOOOooohhhhhhhh i get it now. i have Identified the Problem that has caused the most recent amadeus-related crisis/spiral/whatever you want to call it.

there are 5-ish "roles" that i have taken on as a solo dev:

project manager

musician/sound director

programmer/implementation engineer

writer/narrative lead

artist/art director

and for each i THOUGHT i had figured out how to tackle them.

project management: I've had some experience managing collaborative projects (GBA collab album, mystery jam game), I also solicited advice from other indie devs I met at Seattle Indies Expo, and I *also* applied what I learned about how we manage projects in facilities at my day job using Asana and have applied that to Amadeus. I very consciously treated this as a skill to learn and taking that specific skill seriously has helped a lot.

music: ...I straight up went to grad school for this. I took like a billion units every semester so I could learn as much as possible about composition AND mixing/production. This is the one thing I actually have a strong background in. I have the skillset and I also have People I can ask for feedback and advice. The music is lowkey going to carry this whole project.

programming: I went into this knowing full well I have exactly One semester of Unity/C# under my belt and have no idea what I am doing. I have experience learning basic HTML and JavaScript and have reverse engineered most of Ghost Trick's code via ROMhacking, so I have a sort of janky skillset, but it's very amateur and I knew that. I have asked SO many questions to people who are more experienced. KNOWING that this is my weakest suit has let me ask for help when I need it, and also accept that even the most polished possible form of this game is still going to be jank as fuck. That's fine. My #vision will still come through.

writing: the whole reason I set aside an entire month to just focus on the Mystery Jam game was because I knew I needed more experience writing, and specifically writing mystery. I've spoiled the whole game to two different people who have writing experience in order to bounce ideas and get feedback. I've asked for workflow advice from a third person with writing experience. Identifying this as a weakness has helped me focus on improving it, and because of that I am really happy with where it's at right now.

Which leads us to....

...art.

My problem with art is that as of about 2 years ago, I was much more confident in my art than I was in basically anything else except music, because I have drawn stuff my whole life and have a shitload of informal practice at it. So I focused very heavily on the other stuff that was very obviously a weakness.

But, as we approach the final months of Go Time to finish the first episode... I'm like, hm, it turns out that the art and art direction of a visual novel are kind of important.

I *like* all of the assets I've drawn for the currently existing demo, but there are specific things about the overall look I don't quite like, and there is a specific metanarrative Thing that I have been trying to evoke with what I'm doing visually and I feel like sticking to that is at odds with making assets that look and "feel" right.

Basically I haven't really thought as much about art direction as I should have since finishing the demo because I kinda figured I could coast on the fact I consider myself a pretty good artist. I can make things that look Nice. But now that I've worked hard at my other areas of weaknesses, the fact I haven't really sat down with my art direction in the past 4-5 months is really starting to become obvious.

All this to say.

My "assignment" for this afternoon is to sit outside listening to all the tracks I've written (including new WIP ones no one but me has heard yet CUZ THEYRE AWESOME im SO excited about the new tracks im writing for this) and reading through my revised narrative with certain finalized plot points and concepts, and just sketching out visually what the game Should Look Like. I am almost certain I can still use the assets I've already drawn, like the sprites and backgrounds and icons and such, but I may edit them differently, or add to them, or otherwise change something about them. I just need to make some choices because I'm feeling stuck and I need to get un-stuck if I am going to finish this game AND I AM DETERMINED TO DO SO.

[izicodes]

LOA 😭😭 this whole time i've been so interested in learning computer science because i used to be an 11 year tumblr blog coder (not rlly but you know what imean, just being silly and adding things in like colors and <body> lol. BUT i sighed up for the free harvard intro to CS AND ONLY 30MINUTES IN, I CANT FOCUS AND IM DYING???? is this not for me, im so scared and its only about binary codes omg....... lowkey heartbroken

Hiya! 😊💗

I totally understand where you're coming from. It's completely natural to feel overwhelmed when diving into something new, especially with computer science. Remember, even the most experienced programmers were once in your shoes - I was complaining how I find things hard at work right to someone the other day because I don't understand the code and the project overall!

So, first of all, take a deep breath and give yourself some credit. Your interest in coding and your past experience with adding creative touches to your blog already show that you have a foundation to build upon. Starting with the Harvard intro to CS is a big step, and it's okay to feel a bit challenged at the beginning!

Binary code might seem intimidating, but it's actually the basis for all digital information. It's like learning the alphabet before you can read and write. Try not to let the initial difficulty discourage you. Break things down into smaller chunks, and don't hesitate to review concepts or seek additional resources if needed - I do this all the time! There are plenty of tutorials, videos, and online communities, such as on here, that can provide different perspectives and help make things clearer.

Learning computer science is a journey, and it's okay to take your time, I really encourage you to take you time~!!! If you're truly passionate about it, don't give up just yet. With patience, practice, and a positive mindset, you'll start to see things fall into place. And remember, every small step you take is progress. You've got this! 🥳

If you need any help or have questions, I'm here to support you~!

[sirensea14]

Did i leave a review on Still Wakes the Deep? I think not yet. Anyway, here's me screaming shit about Still Wakes the Deep.

I fuckibg love the story, compact, well-written, fucking heart wretching and tense. Its gameplay? Terrifying, u need to be stealthy and shit against jiggly flesh monsters who can speak. The music? Adds more to the atmosphere. The voice acting? Very fucking natural! Even if ur only watching the gameplay, the dialogues felt natural as if you were there. I even learned new curse words to use. Props to the Chinese room, programmers, VAs, artists and others who took part in the game😭😭 the story made me emotional and ive watched it for the 4th time now (i watched eddie play it, uncensored ver. Lol, juicyfruitsnacks, super horror bro and then jacksepticeye. Im still waiting for markiplier to play it 👀)

The game was so thrilling and emotional that i wish it was all fake and they all continue their darts tournament. I wish they were all just alive and well. They didnt deserve shit --except for Rennick and Addair, Roy was the best man, Brodie the prick, Finlay the intelligent and Caz the goodluck charm. 😭😭😭 And addair and rennick, i hate them. We only got to know them shortly but they are easily hate-able because of how they are so well written. (I also love that hair dryer joke by caz in the cafeteria XD joke never gets old, just like him oof) And caz's reaction to everything? An absolute chad, he's brave and he's scared yet he did and cursed holy words🗿very demure, very mindful🧨

I really fucking love this game, it was so high quality but it had to end there. The rig was a small area after all. Also the fact that the rig was fully modeled was fucking amazing. It was built like a cheap rig (what you'd expect from greedy managers) its not like those other games when hacked, you'd see darkness and the room/area of where the player is. But in Still Wakes the Deep? The devs just said "Nah, full model, full of bumpy flesh and shiny oil." I fucking love that. There should be more games like Still Wakes the Deep. Psychological game, monsters are unpredictable, fucking terror in all scenes of the game and great storyline.

In summary: pros and cons of the game

Pros

Beautiful graphics, realistic VAs, emotional story, terrifying gameplay, yellow paint thay guides the clueless(like me), fully modeled area, disgusting yet amazing monsters, rennick and addair dies

Cons

Short lived, the characters didnt deserve to die (except for the two angry peeps)

Thats all for my tedtalk, thank you for reading

[sezija]

Hello! I recently saw your art of Ghali, Drephl and Rleiph, and decided to finally try out making wiki pages! I plan on making all three of them before adding them, but I have a few questions on about them. (Im pretty sure that you wrote the fic, but please correct me if I’m wrong)

first off, the fic is AMAZING, I cried multiple times while reading it, and everything goes together so perfectly there’s too much to talk about so I’ll stop here before it gets too long.

1) On Ghali, I wanted to double check that she took the last name Shims, because at some point it refers to the family as “the shims”

2) on Frihl, does he keep the last name Shims, or take his husband’s name?

3) can I say that Rleiph has pale speckles in her physical description?

4) could you give me more insight on Ghali’s , Drephl’s and Rleiph’s personalities? I personally struggle with describing those myself.

5) are there names for Drephl and Frihl’s parents, as I would like for them to be in the relationships category.

6) same for Rleiph’s girlfriend. Also, does she have a physical appearance? I’d love to draw the two of them together.

7) WEREWOLF CENTAUR. Amazing idea. What does the kid look like? I know that they’re described as a foal, but WHAT IS THEY JUST HAD A WOLF HALF INSTEAD OF A HORSE HALF, OR A WOLF HALF DURING FULL MOONS. I would love to know things like their skin tones and hair color too. (And coat) also thank you for all these centaurs, there isn’t even a catagory on the wiki for them yet.

8) what kind of clothes does everyone wear?

9) I know that Drephl and Ghali probably just went to a courtroom and signed some papers, but I really want to draw Drephl standing on a stool with her under an arch, where they just hug. This is also so I can mess around with possible wedding traditional clothing during that time period.

10) what is the name of Drephl and Ghali’s grandchild? The werewolf one?

Thank you for this amazing fic! Loved the art you made, and this will be very embarrassing if you didn’t write the fic!



Putting this under read more;;

Ok first of all. omg??? that's so cool what the hell!!! i'm so happy you liked my fic so much???

1) Yeah, she becomes a Shims

2) I think he takes his husband's name (which i don't have yet)

3) I forgot to give her some white in her coat in the art lol, but i decided to work that in; she's born with just a brown coat, but some white speckles start appearing as she grows older :3

4) They honestly don't have much, yet; the style i wrote in makes it really hard to add Character and Personality other than just stated facts like "she likes hiking" and "she's a computer programmer", sorry

5) Not yet, sorry

6)

7/10) I want to give them at least 2-3 kids so i can actually make them all different, though i imagine they probably have 5-8 year age differences cus raising just one is chaotic and hard enough lol. someone made really good art of their kid!!! (i've come up w the names Phil, Lei, and Majil so far) (j pronounced like (consonant) y)

8) currently i've just been drawing them in some clothes from our time cus i haven't had the motivation&energy necessary to figure out the Fashion of their time, but i can say that the blanket??? dress?? things the centaurs wear is like. actual clothing they wear in their time period&place

9) I love that so much. also, it honestly makes a lot of sense for them to hold an actual celebration; your wedding is basically the only time in your life where you have an excuse to gather every single person you're close to in one place for a big party (aside from your funeral but uh. yeah.) their marriage was meant as the point where they no longer cared what anyone else thought bc they were so secure in their meaning to each other, so i love the idea of them going all out and then just hugging.

also behold! look what i found from way back when i was writing the fic :)

[dreadisdelight]

PLEASE DONT READ IT YOURE SENSITIVE TO LGBTQIA+ TOPICS!!!!!!!!:

sometimes i just sit there and wonder what i identify as.

i grew up in an area where i didn't have much representation of anything, "gay" was an insult and colours were dedicated to specific chromosomes. if you grazed football as a girl, you were seen as a tomboy alongside if you even looked at claires you were just odd. i think some messed up part of me still believes that, despite every fibre in my being disagreeing with it. there wasn't much representation of being homosexual in a form or another, mainly just jacqueline wilson books i peered into with such curiosity and utmost wonder.

it sort of struck me that i was different when i was much younger too. hell, sleepovers with girls scared me since they smelled so "sweet" or they were much prettier than me. we all watched films with the odd kissing scene and wanted to peer into the mirror, maybe attempt at looking into it without shame. it didn't stick, yet it didn't wipe off. i kissed a girl on her cheek in my bedroom when i was about nine, fags the most ive ever done, and i don't count it fully either. i kissed a girl on her hand too but still, that doesn't count in my books. nobody ever had the "it's okay to be gay" talk with me but they never had the "being gay is a sin" either. it just sat uncomfortably in the room. all the pins and homemade flags were just pretty colours opposed to something with significance in this world. ive tossed the majority of the relics besides a pin i bought when i had a sense of freedom for the first time but that's about it at most. we still haven't talked about it, and we don't intend on it either.

i remember my mom watching a tv programme with me, her eyes flickering towards me whilst saying "i don't get why people come out. i get where she was coming from, as if it was natural, but she was also the figure who never brought up these sort of conversations. the woman who made me feel a sense of crushing burden when i felt a sense of anger. i just shrugged it off, and never gave my views on the matter. i think if i had the confidence, i would have said something along the lines of "it's because we live in a society where showing who you really are needs courage".

i think i did tell her i was pansexual when i was younger too, this was during a mist of things where id say random bullshit to them as a joke, hoping they'd want to linger nearby. i haven't said a word yet.

gender was another thing that puzzled me, which still does. i never really thought much about it, i just thought you were female, male, or non-binary. that's it. no more options, just three buttons and you could click one. i used to lie awake, my mind thinking about issues for me to go 'holy shit am i trans??' which obviously still happens; why would i be writing this out otherwise? i dipped into being demigirl to nonbinary to immediately agender and i sort of sat there, sticking a label on it like they have to me with other diagnoses. i go from wanting big tits and being the epitome of feminine beauty to wanting to have top surgery and going by a new name. i know gender is a spectrum, but some part of me knows everyone around me wouldn't accept me, thinking im more mentally ill than i am.

i don't know why i decided to type this out either. maybe to give myself clarity instead of chastising myself for what's happened in my world.

ive only ever dated afabs. one cis. one somewhere between demigirl and nonbinary and the other transmasc. i know i hurt them one way or another, and so did they. i speak to one of them a few times now and again but for the other two, i apologised to one of recent and it's stuck to my mind. the other i fucked up so bad it hurts to look into a mirror. i think amabs scare me and i don't know why. i attach myself to older guys in films and loosely to other people, remarrying shane in stardew over and over again. one minute i have a preference and then it drastically changes.

my friend once said that people who are lgbtqia+ must have some evolutionary default in them, which i believe heavily. i have autism and probably some other stuff undiagnosed (my autism is clinically diagnosed yall) so that checks out. i saw a survey a while back that most people who are lgbtqia+ are diagnosed professionally or self with something along the lines of adhd, autism, and other mental disorders. but that's all we are. disordered motions, grasping onto conclusion.

maybe one day i will find somebody and it will make perfect sense. maybe i won't find anybody. for now, i know that i can only try, and when i try i collapse in tears wondering why nobody likes me.

[idealspawn]

throughout my journey on growing as a person somehow the only thing i still havent managed to resolve or find the deepest true cause for is my insecurity regarding my intelligence. every single evidence from outside authorities is screaming in praise and approval of my level of knowledge yet i am filled with such anxiety. i dont know how to not let my high standards lower my self-confidence. i think its good that i do have high standards too in a way but not the anxious perfectionism that comes with it. ive thought maybe im unsure about my competence because i feel like i dont belong. in university since ive had an unconventional route, i sort of lack like a group of coursemates (ive changed universities and now im in like an exchange programme so i havent had and dont have the same curriculum as anyone). so i dont know what i should know and what i shouldnt. like what prior knowledge others have. i dont know where i place in the context. i dont know what is stupid to bring up and what isnt. google also told me that maybe its like the dunning-kruger effect where the more you know the more you become painfully aware of how little you know. i guess thats true. i also in general am like programmed to seek for irregularities (i study philosophy and have a background of doing a lot of things requiring close analysis and pattern recognition) so maybe thats why i only see whats wrong in my work or opinions even if that actually forms a small portion regarding the whole. usually my professors dont even pick up on those things i think are massive logical fallacies and am afraid will fail. i literally only get praise and they are so so so credible too, its not that i get approval from people who dont know any better. i dont know. i have all these explanations in my head but not one of those hits the nail on the head. ive gathered that what relieves my anxiety regarding.. well anything.. is just acknowledgeing it. like cracking the code as to whats the underlying deeper cause that projects itself in this belief, insecurity. but i cant seem to ever get it. i wonder is this too small of a problem to go to a psychologist. right now its not too bad but i actually get like weird intense uncontrollable nervous anxiety twitches and breakdowns from the pure thought of how little i know and what others think of me. im most afraid that they think that i think im smart when in reality im so painfully aware that im speaking on matters i feel i dont have proper knowledge of (yet i must because its an assignment). though i think its pretty apparent that im insecure, at least during presentations or speaking in seminars because of the way i speak (hesitantly). i know that to wait until i truly know sth before i speak is a lost cause. you cant ever fully know anything. and its like. so what if im wrong. nothing happens if im wrong but im so terrified of it. i guess ive tied my intelligence to my identity quite a bit but i dont know if that is it either. i guess you could say i should care less abt what other ppl think but in other areas im so confident and sure of myself i dont know why this is manifest only here. i know im actually quite capable at least compared to some people and there are periods where i do get my feedback on an essay or task and i feel really sure of myself but its a very very small slice of the time. i know comparison isnt proper but its also so necessary and inevitable in my field of study, i cant seem to avoid it. ive genuinely resorted to paying a lot of attention to my looks and makeup that makes me look cute and kind in order to hopefully cause the halo effect that when im silent or say something stupid i get the benefit of the doubt.......... its stupid. but im that afraid :/ of coming across narrow-minded.

[fictionkinfessions]

@ 723442836237844480

chi i still dk how you can even say that genuinely but i miss the hell out of you too. i really really do

to be honest ive been going through it lately, confused and struggling to come to terms with some shit or whatever... think your post made it a little clearer for me though actually. guess i should know to expect that from my best friend. so nice timing and uh. thanks for reminding me im tired of being a coward. the least i can do is face myself now even if im not ready to face other people yet. maybe i will be again someday. look me up then.

also ki says hi and the same to you too. hes lettin me use his phone for this (never thought id say that lol). "You definitely are our favorite programmer gal!!"

💜 m

.

[clearlightwired]

so i've been using my corne for the past few weeks and it has not been the silver bullet i've wanted it to be (though there's a lot of tweaking that i haven't done yet) BUT

as im typing this (on a keychron k8, my hands like variety) i gotta say i dont think i will go back to non-programmable external keyboards. the quality of this is really nice, but if i can't hit a singular button to look at unread messages on discord, what's the use? and that's not even getting into the fancy stuff, tap-hold combos and whatever

i can definitely see keyboards being a hobby i get actually Into... the corne was easy to build, but i'd really like to try more soldering, maybe even handwiring. there's a lot of electronics projects i really want to work on..

i'd really like to build a keyboard that runs off QMK (tragically, this forces it to be wired) so i can do a mouse emulation layer. i might try something like warpd in the meantime, but i want to build the ultimate device that makes the entire computer appear easily at my hands

[voyeur-clairvoyant]

i try but it seems to fail me bc i think is this all there is these days? am i meant to be a screen addicted person for life? the problem is i did try to get off all this crap yet i only found it more isolating not being connected online not having something fun to read, watch or do on a platform.

so even when im away from the internet it then gives me fomo and boredom but when im on the internet i get severe existensial crisis or further boredom. nothings helping these days either bc we are overusing all our devices so not really relaxing just consuming hoping to relax. recently we just had to upgrade our telly and i absolutely am bored stiff of tv too bc we watch it all the time the same stuff. people dont do traditional board games anymore bc gaming is more relevant, its even laughable when ppl are on their phones whilst "watching" the telly. like we cant disconnect long enough to watch one single programme or have longer conversations.

Dude I love you, but even I have a rant limit (at least for a day, I'm not kicking you either ahshas).

If you are mad no one is playing boardgames for example, then move your ass to the park with a game. Like, I get you but if you want change sometimes you're gonna be the one doing it. Now, I don't want to see you here at least until tomorrow or unless you want to play a game of Volto ahshahsa

[bobisusu]

when you get this ask you have to answer with 5 of ur fav songs :)

here are the songs as for today! and please enjoy me briefly Yapping about them, thanks for the ask~ ^_^

it takes over you by victory suns!!! super underrated song that was originally recorded for national geographic channel, and the band disbanded after the recording sessions. found it when i was so much younger (maybe around 10 years ago?! damn..), watching a programme bumper on the channel and boom suddenly that short song is my all time favourite ever. now THIS is what you call a one hit wonder...

river song by dennis wilson! the whole pacific ocean blue album is amazing i consider it my favourite album ever!! finding out about this album has reconciled me with the beach boys and they're now my favourite band ever. this song in particular has a special place in my heart. dennis and carl really put their hearts in this song when they wrote it~ love the beach boys' demo version as well! <3

this whole world by the beach boys!!! it's really tough, even impossible to make a definite top 10 beach boys song list but my absolute top 1 is this song haha, wholesome, fun and real catchy! brian was able to make a rich and exciting tune i such a brief time, bless his heart and i will always be thankful for his genius and immense musical talent... the sunflower takes personally are my favourite of all time beach boys songs!

every little thing she does is magic by the police! i am more into sting's solo career songs but this is my fav from all the songs he wrote. for me sting songs peaked at his ten summoner's tales, but this is the individual piece that got me into him. tastes sooooooo bittersweet yet satisfying. the chanting at the climax is so so so good.... one time a guy sent me a video of this song and he became the guy of the month LMAOOOO

beginnings by chicago!!!!! chicago's rock songs never disappoint! they have insane horns, mad rhythms, complex and really cool melodies, etc etc... and beginnings sounds just as what robert lamm is trying to say through this song! big fan. anyways im a rather new and budding chiccy fan hahaha and as for now the chicago transit authority is still my fav album from them, let's see how it goes in the future!!!

turns out it's pretty easy for me to make this list.... but i want to also include the Honorary Mentions to ventura highway by america, the dying of the light by noel gallgaher's high flying birds, and under rain by nobodyknows+ hehehe because i have to ^_^

[jacobfiel]

Course Reflection

Throughout this course I followed along with the steps and guidance and guidance Toby provided to the class to learn and practice skills in Photoshop (PS) Adobe Illustrator (AI) and InDesign (ID). I would not only learn the basics of these programmes as well as key features, tools, shortcuts and workflow methods in the moment but would also document and annotate these learnings on my online Tumblr blog. This means that I can look back into my blog anytime in the future and will be able to remind my self of any skills/ minor details to preform skills that I may have forgotten. I see this blog coming in very handy as I already found myself using it throughout the course to look back on as well as for projects in other classes.

Before I came to Polytech and started the fundamentals class all I knew from school were some of the basic tools in Photoshop. So I came into the fundamentals course with very fresh eyes.

I found programmes like AI and ID very difficult because I naturally was use the the processes that take place in photoshop. Things such as holding shift when transforming items in AI was super difficult and frustrating for me to get use to. I also found it hard to understand how curves and handles work and every drawing would encounter a lot of COMMAND + Z's before I could get curves and shapes looking somewhat how I like them. Worse of all the pathfinder just made no sense and I would kind of just randomly click icons and hope they did what I wanted. I think Im also still having a little bit of trouble which frames and images in ID as well as how to use things like fill and stroke or the swatches tab in this programme.

I don't think my ID problems are fully resolved but Im on my way there. I think the way to fix these simple misunderstandings with the programme is to just go through the motions with them and practice. I find now that I naturally use the transform tools correct in AI and can draw shapes just how I want them nearly every time, I can break points, move them around and add new ones. I even find I now know what a couple of different icons on the pathfinder tool do and can confidently cut shapes out of one another with some sense of ease. I feel I achieved this by using AI as much as possible whether it was in fundamentals, DT1 or even on some personal projects. I also think if I do the same in ID and just keep practicing I will be able to fix the problems I have now is well.

During the course I learnt how to use programmes such as ID and AI and well as much better tips and tricks for my workflow and better ways to do things in PS. I learnt heaps of shortcuts and could confidently jump into any of these programmes when needed and could contribute to a body of work.

I was influenced during the course by Toby and Alexia especially if I had any questions to ask they were able to give me one on one support and guide me through anything I needed help with right when I needed it.

I hope to improve on my core skills in ID and would also love to explore more in depth about AI as from what i've learnt while being here, it's the core design programme in the Adobe Suite. I am interested in all the things the pathfinder tool can do as well as some stuff involving gradients which I saw a person using on a youtube video.

I Touched on this earlier but I feel I will definitely be looking back on this blog semi regularly 100 percent over the next few years and possibly even more so into the future. I found some techniques really stuck with me and I can do them very instinctively while others I may not have entirely understood at the time. Yet because everything in annotated in detail on my blog I think looking back and finding the 1 or 2 steps I may be missing to achieve a certain look or complete a particular task will be super helpful and make some of those little mental blocks easy to work through.

My favourite parts of the course would definitely have to be when we did the 'AI flex' as I got to put all the skills I had learnt into 1 quick project on something completely self directed. The result was a drawing I was really happy with and is something I think is quite cool. The other thing would have to be getting to print off the booklet at the end and be able to physically see the work I made and also use it as a little gift for some of my family members.

Throughout the project I used the Moodle, teams and my own blog to help me complete projects throughout the lesson. On top of the lecturing and sometimes personal help that Toby and Alexia provided.

I think I did well to document each thing we did in the course and have a really good beginner to somewhat intermediate form of user manual on how to use the 3 programmes we talked about over the course, (AI,PS,ID). Yet in doing this sometimes I didn't test my skills to the max as I was focusing a lot on workbook meaning throughout some of the projects my work may have came out less detailed or extravagant as my classmates.

I think using this process of documenting your learning somewhat in the moment as you do it is a super good way to learn as you may not directly soak up 100 percent of everything once you walk away and think about the next thing. Yet you will have the base and the key ideas as well as a few extras that stuck with you but because you documented it you also have everything else right at your finger tips and can look back on it when needed in the future.

My goal going into the course were to learn as much about the 3 programmes as possible. I think this goal stood true throughout the process. When creating something one of the most frustrating things is having a vision but your fundamental skills are holding you back and this is something I wanted to prevent from happing to me in the future. So really just soaking up all the little details was a big focus of mine throughout this course.

A challenging moment that stands out for me was learning how to draw with the pen tool in AI. Even when drawing the most simplest of shapes on the first few days I couldn't make them line up properly or just look right in general. Then moving on to drawing more complicated shapes and moving them round and I was completely lost. I think a turning point in the right direction when I finally started sorting out how to use this tool was when I asked the question of how to 'break a point' and once toby explained this to me properly and I learnt about tools like holding down OPTION or COMMAND the whole process changed and I was finally able to start making the tool do what I wanted it too. This would then flow into editing anchor points and handles once the shape was completed and well as actually trying to stick to the idea of holding down SHIFT and trying to as much as possible pull out handles on the vertical and or horizontal axis.

Personally I think the most important thing I learnt was the same as the most challenging thing that I learnt above. Learning how to draw with the pen tool and make it do whatever I see fit opens doors to so many opportunities and I find myself using it nearly everyday. weather it be in other classes for course, Fundamentals itself or even just on a personal project it's become a commonly used part of my tool kit and I really can't believe I designed stuff for quite sometime without navigating this tool.

The only thing I can really think that got in the way when learning my skills was past habits and muscle memories I had learnt in PS which I really had to unteach my brain when moving into programmes such as ID and AI

I think again that I helped myself greatly by keeping my Tumblr blog well detailed so I had everything just a couple of scrolls away whenever I needed it.

I felt other people in the course helped by asking questions and making mistakes as commonly I had done the same thing or was wondering about a similar question when asked. This meant when Toby and Alexia would resolve these problems, commonly for the whole class to listen to I was able to fix where I had gone wrong and not have the lesson start to get to far ahead of me while I was stuck a couple of steps back.

Overall I really enjoyed the course and felt like every lesson I was learning so much all at once. I think a course like this is something I would recommend to others and also 100 percent would do something similar again.