yamneko

[yamneko]

one of the more bleak things to acknowledge is that if you pirate literally all of your music and then set aside a spotify subscription's worth of money each month to spend on a single pay-what-you-want album, it would almost immediately amount to you supporting those musicians more than streaming does

[yamneko]

Do not set your card up to easily pay for pulls.

You end up with thousands in debt without realizing it. And you get nothing for it.

The problem isn't the over designed twinks or the silly horse girls or the goofy cookies it's the gambling. You guys know it's the gambling right? I need to you all to know the problem with gatcha games is that they're just normalizing gambling addictions to younger generations.

[yamneko]

Welcome to danmei! We have:

- Guy who’s in love with his pet fish

- Guy whose boyfriend has been dead for 16 years

- Guy whose boyfriend nearly committed genocide

- Guy whose boyfriend actually committed genocide

- Luo Binghe

- Guy who accidentally fell in love with the dude he intended to manipulate into villainy & evil

- And more!

[yamneko]

trying out making patterns

[yamneko]

Ive been planning a Xie Lian plushie and got the embroidery done today! Designing it was a huge lesson.

Now its to design the hair!

It wont be that bad, im using the chibi doll pattern from Choly Knight and it has most of it already

The clothes and then doing Hua Cheng will be the bigger challenge

[yamneko]

you wanted the Behr paint rant, @say-duhnellee and I hate those fuckers.

So first, you gotta understand that all paint has three necessary ingredients. Pigment - the part that makes it a color; Binder - the part that makes it stick to stuff; Solvent - the part that makes it liquid/not a solid

Pigment is the most important part for this rant. And the most expensive part in almost any paint. There are pigments that are very opaque by default, and pigments that are very translucent. The most expensive, and tbh, gorgeous, colors are single transparent pigments. Alizarin crimson and quinacridone and the pthalos, for instance. So, when you buy a student grade tube of quinacridone violet paint, it has (making it up) 15% pigment by volume. And when you buy an artist grade tube of the same color, from the same company, it has 50% pigment by volume. That means the color is richer, covers better, extends farther. It's just superior in every way. Here's winsor newton heavy body acrylics in their professional line and their student line. The stripes are Heavy application, single streak, and mixed with white.

It's why student paints either take a ton of layers to get full coverage, or the colors are weaker, there's just not enough pigment in there to be opaque or to overpower an opaque you mix it into

Even something cheaper and easier like a raw sienna shows it

Or, Mars Black, which is consistently opaque, but you can still seen the weakness in the pigmentation when you cut it into white

But Strife! you're saying! that's artist paint, not house paint. I know, but you needed the primer and you asked for the rant.

One of the preferred paints used by scenic artists, aka, halfway between fine art and house paint, is Rosco Off Broadway, it has a ton of pigment in it. It's gorgeous, pure pigments. You can extend it crazy far.

A gallon of Fire-red is 100$ :)

I'm using red as the example because red is notoriously hard to get opaque in a pure hue. You can get opaque earthy reds, or if you skew towards orange to get more opaque, but true reds are hard. Its why that barn red color you can imagine? That's pretty neutralized, it isn't a true deep tone.

But in house painting, one of the things they like to market is how quickly it covers, right? 'one coat coverage' shows up a lot. And next to it is a price tag for like, 60 bucks. The upsell for why you should get that one, and not the 30/gal option is that Oh! You''d need multiple coats with that one, so this is actually cheaper overall! That's not untrue.

But there's always a little asterisk next to the One Coat Coverage. It has to be in one of the colors they have on cards for their brand, and for that exact type of paint. None of this scan to match stuff. And the colors available are all fairly neutralized. You're not getting a Behr Dynasty can of fire red.

Look at this shit:

Those are the ones they show as being one coat. They can do other colors, but it won't be one coat.

For instance, here's the 'purest' options of those same colors

Those are 1, not going to be One Coat, and 2, are not actually going to look like they do on your screen. They'll be duller.

However. All that is just business sense, right? The people want one coat, they offer one coat things, and they cover their ass on not claiming a purer tone will do that too. Business.

So. Why was I talking about plumbing?

There are three necessary parts of Paint.

Pigment. Binder. Solvent.

But pigment is the only thing in there that would make it opaque. And pigment is expensive. Thus.

Filler.

Sometimes called 'solids' sometimes lamp shaded as 'additives to prevent mold/stain/whatever' but still. It's extra stuff they tossed in there so the paint has better coverage in a single coat. It fucks up the color saturation, which is why those guaranteed ones are all so fucking dull, but yes. it does make for better coverage. As you go to their cheaper brands, they use the same amount of pigment, but there's less filler, which is why it takes multiple coats, but, you can get more intense colors from it.

hOwEvEr

You, random person painting a room, wash up after you paint, right? You wash your hands, the brushes, the tray, the roller cover (btw don't bother doing that ever, just your hands) And that washes the excess paint down the drain. And yeah, yeah, you know its not great, so if you have a wash room, or a work sink in the garage you use that instead.

You know what we have in full scene shops?

A Paint Trap.

Same principal as a grease trap. It's a bonus section that lts the water from the sink that you're unnecessarily scrubbing a roller cover in flow down into. The outlet is up higher, so the water and solids can separate, and the water that flows out is cleaner. You have to occassionally open up the trap, which will smell like death, and scoop all the accumulated gunk out of the bottom and properly dispose of it. It sucks, it can clog, I've cleaned these dozens of times, it never gets better, but I still throw a tantrum if there isn't one installed. This is actually a picture of a grease trap, but its the same system

Your house doesn't have that. Your apartment building? the initial pipes bringing water to the sewer? they don't have that. Depending where you live and how you dump paint water, there might be nothing like a paint trap between you and the ocean/river/drinking water.

Now, this is true of basically all house paint, I'll admit. After they got rid of VOCs and started bragging about opacity, everyone does some version of this.

Behr is the worst offender. (I have not directly checked if they're using exactly the thing I'm about to describe, but they did for a decade)

When you buy paint, you choose the type, you give them the paint swatch, and you may have noticed they grab different gallons for different colors. White, deep base, medium base, etc. Those are saying how much pre-added Dark Opaque Stuff is in the gallon before they add the tint (that's the color goo the machine squirts into the gallon, its made of just pigment and solvent and if it gets on your clothes, just throw them out bc it will stain everything forever)

You know what's a really good, solid, opaque thing that is naturally available in different neutral colors, is cheap, and is already made of very very fine particles

Fucking Clay.

Clay.

They use goddamn fucking clay as filler in their goddamn paint that is specifically marketed to DIY folk who don't know shit about paint. They literally have you washing clay down your goddamn sink, and since most DIY folk are idiots, I have watched folk straight up pour the rest of the gallon down a house sink. At best, they're cleaning things in a bucket, and then dumping the bucket in the sink. That's clay. You're pouring clay down your sink.

You don't have a paint trap. You have an S trap or a P trap under your sink, neither of which can stand up to that kind of bullshit. Look at these poor babies, they can't handle this

And then they have the aboslute nerve to act like its this decadant goddamn product and you should feel so luxuruious about it. They are out here convincing people that all the actual stylish colors are neutral, they aren't those gaudy intense colors, how gauche. Cause then, you're cool with it being the ugly ass neutral fucking green bc you want to be stylish, so you think hey, i'll buy the expensive paint. But also, you're a DIY guy so you're an idiot, and probably have to do multiple coats anyway, so now! Now you're washing goddamn clay down the sink Twice! Which is actually worse! Because the bit of clay that settled during the first one is still fucking there. and it's not going to easily wash away, its going to just pick up another fucking layer.

They also use chalk btw, but clay is the one that makes me insane because!

That paint trap I mentioned? We had a 30 gallon one. And the show budgets were tiny, so you had to base out with house paint a lot, or a project was entirely house paint, so the trap would absolutely fill up. I'm talking 3 cubic feet of paint goo, filler, and whatever grossness got washed down with it. And they first few inches on top are squishy, its actively rotting, but its soft. You dig that out. Then you get into the heavier stuff. Then. at the bottom, We'd straight up have trowels, bc the clay had sedimented down and was compacted by the weight above because its goddamn clay that's what it does.

'oh look at me, my behr paint on the roller feels so heavy and its super opaque and expensive so it must be high quality and luxurious, just look at how fancy the labelling is' fuck yourself Behr, you added clay dust to it and you're making worse colors for more money and you're fucking up everyones plumbing.

[yamneko]

[yamneko]

most recent windows 11 update is wiping SSDs

there's been multiple reports of people's computers not booting properly after the windows 11 24H2 KB5063878 update due to it essentially wiping the hard drives (specifically SSDs) on computers and laptops. users have reported their SSDs aren't able to be read/recognized and unable to be seen in bios settings either.

sources: - https://www.windowslatest.com/2025/08/20/microsoft-is-investigating-windows-11-kb5063878-ssd-data-corruption-failure-issue/ - https://www.nichepcgamer.com/archives/windows11-24h2-issue-with-writing-to-the-ssd-is-this-caused-by-kb5063878-kb5062660.html

it's safe to assume all SSDs can be potentially affected by this update, so if you haven't updated yet turn off autoupdates

the bug caused by this update is seemingly triggered by installing/moving/deleting large files (50+ gb), which as simmers is what a lot of us do very pften

if you're unsure what windows version you currently have:

go to settings > system > about (at they very bottom) > and scroll down to see the current OS version

if you do currently have windows 11 24H2:

in settings, click 'Windows update' > 'Update history' > and under 'Quality Updates' check to see if the KB5063878 update is in the list of recently installed updates

don't panic, you can uninstall this update!

while in 'Update History', scroll to the very bottom and click 'Uninstall updates', and click 'Uninstall' for 'Security Update for Microsoft Windows (KB5063878)'

from there, give it some time to remove the update and after pause updates for as long as possible (5 weeks is the longest i think), but it will force an update if there's a big/official update for the fix

if you've already been affected and your computer is not starting or giving errors regarding your hard drive, i recommend visiting small pc repair shops to try data recovery as some have reported placing their SSD in an enclosure seems to work to recover the data

hopefully this is helpful is any kind of way! friendly reminder to back up your data to an external drive routinely!

[yamneko]

I've sold some stuff and made like 120$ and im trying to hard to tell myself I cannot spend any of that money on some stickers

[yamneko]

Welp. Google's AI horseshit has arrived. And I'm not complying. They can pry my ID out of my cold dead hands. I will simply go elsewhere. Remember folks, DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR IDs. Do not comply. Resist, fight it, use other browsers or sources beyond youtube and google controlled services. Call them. Email them. Make noise. Fight back.

[yamneko]

Yay, my hualian animatic is finally done!

It took me about 4 months and ~140 drawings to complete, I'm pretty happy with it and it was a huge project to work on (next time if I decide to color the animatic, please hit me with a stick lol).

Thanks a lot for the support you've shown when I was posting my WIPs, it really helped my motivation.

I'll appreciate you watching and sharing the animatic :3

Credits for the animatic idea to this post by @smoreboi

[yamneko]

Related tangent- if you wfh and even if the company does not offer you a laptop, you should get one for work only. They are snoopy mfs and you should not give them access to your personal stuff.

excuse me, i'm borrowing a work laptop and there's a wall to stop me from going to gaming sites. do you or anyone else have any suggestions to bypass the wall?

I would strongly recommend not trying to get around blocking rules on your work laptop because your work is almost certainly logging what happens on the laptop; if they check those logs at the very least you will no longer be allowed to borrow the laptop, and possibly you won't continue to have a work to borrow a laptop from.

Also, depending on how huge a deal anyone wants to make of this, it may be actually illegal to do this on someone else's computer (and even if they lent it to you, that is their computer, and what you are discussing is sometimes described as "unauthorized access" and is a no-shit crime; people also don't think that logging into an ex's email that they had the password to is a crime - it is. Don't do this shit)

You can do whatever you want on your own computer and your own network. If you are on somebody else's computer you have to follow their rules. This is annoying, but unless you are certain that you are good enough to do this in a way that will be completely undetectable to your employer, you shouldn't do this.

If you work someplace that provides you a computer for work, you should ONLY use that computer for work. Assume that your boss can see everything that you do on that work computer and act accordingly.

[yamneko]

Introducing Master Goat Sohn, Shaman Moon and Mask Maker Mahn. Shaman Moon and the Mask Maker will appear in the next story of my comic! :D

[yamneko]

i feel like people forget that sometimes characters in fic are written like that because it's a reflection of real life.

people have sex without setting boundaries. people have unprotected sex without talking about their sexual histories or producing recent sti tests. people play with kink without discussing it ahead of time or establishing a safeword. they have anal without 'enough' prep or lube—they may even prefer it like that.

and none of this is really a fantasy. it's all pretty normal. you can feel that it's inappropriately normalised, and you'd probably be right! but it is normalised: one study found that 58% of female undergraduate students on the campus studied had been choked during sex. 20% of those students said that they'd never been asked if it was ok; another 30% said they'd only sometimes been asked if they consented. fully half! (non-paywalled journal article on choking during sex here, including these numbers.) despite a rise in stis of all sorts, condom use is declining. (pdf link to the full text of this study about declining condom use in the us; aidsmap article about an australian study with similar results.)

even when people do talk about things—sex or anything else—they communicate imperfectly. 'yeah, but don't go too far' is consenting and setting a boundary, and also relying that the person you're talking to has the same metric for 'too far' that you do. for some people, 'the trash needs to go out' is a neutral, factual observation; for others, it's a request that the person they're speaking to take out the trash.

even when people understand each other perfectly, people react unpredictably to things sometimes! we behave irrationally! people laugh uncontrollably at funerals, or get angry at the straw that broke their back rather than the enormous load they were already carrying. they get scared and lash out at people trying to help them. when hurt, most people do not instinctively reach for therapy-approved grounding exercises and 'i feel' statements.

pretty much any bad choice that characters could conceivably make is a choice that people make in real life, on purpose, all the time. people do things that can have catastrophic, life-changing effects because it felt like a good idea at the time, or they're leaning into the vibe, or they just didn't think about it all that much, or an infinite number of other reasons.

fiction isn't intended as a guide on the best, safest, and most responsible ways to live your life, and fanfic isn't any different. it's not a narrative flaw to let characters do things that are messy or harmful or downright stupid—it's a reflection of what people are actually like, and not something that authors should feel they have to apologise for.

[yamneko]

Curled so tightly you wouldn't think it was mid-70s in the room

[yamneko]

floating in a coffin with my boy best friend. feeling pretty normal about this (lying)

[yamneko]

The sunporch roof has a bad leak, which we're going to be fixing shortly. I'm moving plants into the den so they're not underfoot for that.

However. I've also been staging hobbit gear in there. And now it looks like I'm prepping for a gotdam jungle expedition