an-awkward-ghost
Bisexual // She/her // Fantasy writer // Cat lover
161 posts
Latest Posts by an-awkward-ghost
This year's Inktober is out, and so the topic of it, the Redactober.
An inktober based on the SCP Foundation
As last year, I value creativity over quality. And thus year I include photography as a proposal so u don't need to know how to draw
Every SCP and topic here can be found in YouTube videos to summarize it, u don't have to have a deep lore underatandin', just willin' to be kidnapped by memetic hazards
The price for this year is as last one, a full rendered draw of whatever u want, and this time I will make a highlight list of all ur draws!
W/ no further delay, I announce the second A.C. Luna's Inktober contest, REDACTOBER 2024
I’m sorry for the forever absence, im gonna be more active now that I have my life and sh** together
happy annoy squidward day
oh yeah have i ever told yall of the academic war i have been an unwilling soilder in for the past two years
Show up at work like hi boss sorry I'm late my I was helping my mother track down one specific 90s dungeon crawler for the purposes of obtaining a muffin recipe the developer hid in the files
I announce this year's Inktober!
The #Mortober!
Based on analog horror series and ARG's And YOU can do it too!
Mortober will be my first contest! I will evaluate creativity, not your technique Winner gets a full rendered draw of whatever they want Have fun~
Two job-hunting resources that changed my life:
This cover letter post on askamanger.com. A job interview guide written by Alison Green, who runs askamanager.
Thanks for the tag!
1. Three ships: Twiyor, kiamei, yukamitsu
2. First ship: I don't remember actually, huh... I think it was in the MLP fandom tho!
3. Last song: Wildfire | HSR
4. Last movie: D&D Honor Among Thieves
5. Currently reading: Literary Translation: A Practical guide by Landers (yeah, fun. For uni)
6. Currently watching: A playthrough by my fav youtuber, Welonz!
7. Currently consuming: Minute Maid Cranberry juice
8. Currently craving: ceviche
9 people you would like to get to know better
Tagged by @aroaceblackhole thank you!!!
1. Three ships: Narlie, Wesper, firstprince
2. First ship: Reddie babbbyyy
3. Last song: Started from the Bottom by Drake (its stuck in my head from a show)
4. Last movie: Indiana Joes and the Crystal Skull
5. Currently reading: Just finished the Woman in the library, haven't started something new
6. Currently watching: Futurama! And Disenchantment, plus some trashy reality tv
7. Currently consuming: Coffee
8. Currently craving: Cooler weather!
Tagging: @hoot-hoot-ashley @ultimatetrashgoblin @brangwen-ao3 @fandommindpalace @lizpaige @the-glacian @yojfull
So You Need To Buy A Computer But You Don't Know What Specs Are Good These Days
Hi.
This is literally my job.
Lots of people are buying computers for school right now or are replacing computers as their five-year-old college laptop craps out so here's the standard specs you should be looking for in a (windows) computer purchase in August 2023.
PROCESSOR
Intel i5 (no older than 10th Gen)
Ryzen 7
You can get away with a Ryzen 5 but an intel i3 should be an absolute last resort. You want at least an intel i5 or a Ryzen 7 processor. The current generation of intel processors is 13, but anything 10 or newer is perfectly fine. DO NOT get a higher performance line with an older generation; a 13th gen i5 is better than an 8th gen i7. (Unfortunately I don't know enough about ryzens to tell you which generation is the earliest you should get, but staying within 3 generations is a good rule of thumb)
RAM
8GB absolute minimum
If you don't have at least 8GB RAM on a modern computer it's going to be very, very slow. Ideally you want a computer with at least 16GB, and it's a good idea to get a computer that will let you add or swap RAM down the line (nearly all desktops will let you do this, for laptops you need to check the specs for Memory and see how many slots there are and how many slots are available; laptops with soldered RAM cannot have the memory upgraded - this is common in very slim laptops)
STORAGE
256GB SSD
Computers mostly come with SSDs these days; SSDs are faster than HDDs but typically have lower storage for the same price. That being said: SSDs are coming down in price and if you're installing your own drive you can easily upgrade the size for a low cost. Unfortunately that doesn't do anything for you for the initial purchase.
A lot of cheaper laptops will have a 128GB SSD and, because a lot of stuff is stored in the cloud these days, that can be functional. I still recommend getting a bit more storage than that because it's nice if you can store your music and documents and photos on your device instead of on the cloud. You want to be able to access your files even if you don't have internet access.
But don't get a computer with a big HDD instead of getting a computer with a small SSD. The difference in speed is noticeable.
SCREEN (laptop specific)
Personally I find that touchscreens have a negative impact on battery life and are easier to fuck up than standard screens. They are also harder to replace if they get broken. I do not recommend getting a touch screen unless you absolutely have to.
A lot of college students especially tend to look for the biggest laptop screen possible; don't do that. It's a pain in the ass to carry a 17" laptop around campus and with the way that everything is so thin these days it's easier to damage a 17" screen than a 14" screen.
On the other end of that: laptops with 13" screens tend to be very slim devices that are glued shut and impossible to work on or upgrade.
Your best bet (for both functionality and price) is either a 14" or a 15.6" screen. If you absolutely positively need to have a 10-key keyboard on your laptop, get the 15.6". If you need something portable more than you need 10-key, get a 14"
FORM FACTOR (desktop specific)
If you purchase an all-in-one desktop computer I will begin manifesting in your house physically. All-in-ones take away every advantage desktops have in terms of upgradeability and maintenance; they are expensive and difficult to repair and usually not worth the cost of disassembling to upgrade.
There are about four standard sizes of desktop PC: All-in-One (the size of a monitor with no other footprint), Tower (Big! probably at least two feet long in two directions), Small Form Factor Tower (Very moderate - about the size of a large shoebox), and Mini/Micro/Tiny (Small! about the size of a small hardcover book).
If you are concerned about space you are much better off getting a MicroPC and a bracket to put it on your monitor than you are getting an all-in-one. This will be about a million percent easier to work on than an all-in-one and this way if your monitor dies your computer is still functional.
Small form factor towers and towers are the easiest to work on and upgrade; if you need a burly graphics card you need to get a full size tower, but for everything else a small form factor tower will be fine. Most of our business sales are SFF towers and MicroPCs, the only time we get something larger is if we have to put a $700 graphics card in it. SFF towers will accept small graphics cards and can handle upgrades to the power supply; MicroPCs can only have the RAM and SSD upgraded and don't have room for any other components or their own internal power supply.
WARRANTY
Most desktops come with either a 1 or 3 year warranty; either of these is fine and if you want to upgrade a 1 year to a 3 year that is also fine. I've generally found that if something is going to do a warranty failure on desktop it's going to do it the first year, so you don't get a hell of a lot of added mileage out of an extended warranty but it doesn't hurt and sometimes pays off to do a 3-year.
Laptops are a different story. Laptops mostly come with a 1-year warranty and what I recommend everyone does for every laptop that will allow it is to upgrade that to the longest warranty you can get with added drop/damage protection. The most common question our customers have about laptops is if we can replace a screen and the answer is usually "yes, but it's going to be expensive." If you're purchasing a low-end laptop, the parts and labor for replacing a screen can easily cost more than half the price of a new laptop. HOWEVER, the way that most screens get broken is by getting dropped. So if you have a warranty with drop protection, you just send that sucker back to the factory and they fix it for you.
So, if it is at all possible, check if the manufacturer of a laptop you're looking at has a warranty option with drop protection. Then, within 30 days (though ideally on the first day you get it) of owning your laptop, go to the manufacturer site, register your serial number, and upgrade the warranty. If you can't afford a 3-year upgrade at once set a reminder for yourself to annually renew. But get that drop protection, especially if you are a college student or if you've got kids.
And never, ever put pens or pencils on your laptop keyboard. I've seen people ruin thousand dollar, brand-new laptops that they can't afford to fix because they closed the screen on a ten cent pencil. Keep liquids away from them too.
LIFESPAN
There's a reasonable chance that any computer you buy today will still be able to turn on and run a program or two in ten years. That does not mean that it is "functional."
At my office we estimate that the functional lifespan of desktops is 5-7 years and the functional lifespan of laptops is 3-5 years. Laptops get more wear and tear than desktops and desktops are easier to upgrade to keep them running. At 5 years for desktops and 3 years for laptops you should look at upgrading the RAM in the device and possibly consider replacing the SSD with a new (possibly larger) model, because SSDs and HDDs don't last forever.
COST
This means that you should think of your computers as an annual investment rather than as a one-time purchase. It is more worthwhile to pay $700 for a laptop that will work well for five years than it is to pay $300 for a laptop that will be outdated and slow in one year (which is what will happen if you get an 8th gen i3 with 8GB RAM). If you are going to get a $300 laptop try to get specs as close as possible to the minimums I've laid out here.
If you have to compromise on these specs, the one that is least fixable is the processor. If you get a laptop with an i3 processor you aren't going to be able to upgrade it even if you can add more RAM or a bigger SSD. If you have to get lower specs in order to afford the device put your money into the processor and make sure that the computer has available slots for upgrade and that neither the RAM nor the SSD is soldered to the motherboard. (one easy way to check this is to search "[computer model] RAM upgrade" on youtube and see if anyone has made a video showing what the inside of the laptop looks like and how much effort it takes to replace parts)
Computers are expensive right now. This is frustrating, because historically consumer computer prices have been on a downward trend but since 2020 that trend has been all over the place. Desktop computers are quite expensive at the moment (August 2023) and decent laptops are extremely variably priced.
If you are looking for a decent, upgradeable laptop that will last you a few years, here are a couple of options that you can purchase in August 2023 that have good prices for their specs:
14" Lenovo - $670 - 11th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, and 512GB SSD
15.6" HP - $540 - 11th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, and 256GB SSD
14" Dell - $710 - 12th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, and 256GB SSD
If you are looking for a decent, affordable desktop that will last you a few years, here are a couple of options that you can purchase in August 2023 that have good prices for their specs:
SFF HP - $620 - 10th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD
SFF Lenovo - $560 - Ryzen 7 5000 series, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD
Dell Tower - $800 - 10th-gen i7, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD
If I were going to buy any of these I'd probably get the HP laptop or the Dell Tower. The HP Laptop is actually a really good price for what it is.
Anyway happy computering.
website
Welp, here we go.
A – A Star of Hope Rises in the Blue Sky, Touhou HSiFS OST
N – No More What Ifs, Persona 5 Royal OST
A – An Accent Beyond, Portal 2 OST
W – Wired for Worthless by Citizen Soldier
K – Kill the Lights by Set if Off
W – Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing by Set it Off
A – Acquainted by The Weekend
R – Rivers in the Desert, Persona 5 OST
D – Dream On by Aerosmith
G – Gata bajo la lluvia by Rocío Durcal
H – House of Memories by Panic! At the Disco
O – Out of Time by The Weekend
S – Soul Phrase, Persona 3 Portable OST
T – Toxic by Bridney Spears
Anyone who sees this can join in! :)
spell out your name or url with songs !!
P - Prom Queen (Beach Bunny)
I - I’ll Make Cereal (Cavetown)
G - girls (girl in red)
E - Empty Bed (Cavetown)
O - Oh Ana (Mother Mother)
N - No Surprised (Radiohead)
tagging: @angerycat @ast3ria-blue @swiftieannah @melancholy-melomaniac @melancholypessimism @whyybesocial @i-have-no-idea-111 @the-literary-anything-blog @underappreciatedtomato @livelaughlovebillzo @charlie-is-missing @chronic-stressed @v4nillaskies @nonsensical-space-ghost @alm0std34d and any other mutuals or people who want to join in !!
[photo taken at Huntington, West Virginia] - [5:43 AM] "Whenever it goes, tragedy follows. His red eyes lurk in shadows, ready to mark the next anchor of disaster" [At 6AM, on the city of Huntington, a buildin' caught fire, raggedly killin' every resident inside. Possessions where recovered by familiars where they found a film camera w/ a video before the events] Luna's CRYPTID ARCHIVE's ---------------------------------------- Cryptid of the day: The Moth Man
Love how tumblr has its own folk stories. Yeah the God of Arepo we’ve all heard the story and we all still cry about it. Yeah that one about the woman locked up for centuries finally getting free. That one about the witch who would marry anyone who could get her house key from her cat and it’s revealed she IS the cat after the narrator befriends the cat.
actually im just gonna make my own post about it: please read more webcomics. please try them. every time people make posts about “aw man i wish SOMEone would WRITE about FLAVOR OF QUEER THING/TRAUMA OR ABUSE BUT IN SPECIFIC WAYS I CAN RELATE TO/WHATEVER” and then it gets reblogged into a giant thread of people agreeing with it and demanding Content i die because whatever it is is definitely being painstakingly created by an indie author who would really like for people to consume it and every time i point this out people suddenly can’t read lmao
it is out there it is free it is being made from firsthand experiences by people who care very very deeply who would be DELIGHTED to hear that it’s resonating with anybody at all, please throw some of that enthusiasm and support at people who will actually appreciate it
if you’re an indie comic person and any of this applies to you i encourage you to reblog this with a link to your comic and a short synopsis so people can browse the notes and find shit they’re looking for. or make your own post on your own blog if you don’t want to fool with other people i don’t care this is a sign from the universe that you should be louder about what you’re working on because people can’t fucking find it apparently.
i’ll go first i make kidd commander and it’s about an ensemble cast of queers on their way to kill god, they live on an airship and they’re all too pissed off to die. it’s free to read and it’s in the middle of its third arc right now. it lives here http://kiddcommander.com/
go go go
“This reads like fanfiction (it feels like it was written by a preteen, and most of such things posted publicly are fanfic)” vs “This reads like fanfiction (it has a focus on character and relationships, like the style of a lot of modern fanfic)” vs “This reads like fanfiction (it keeps referencing people and events with the assumption that the audience is already familiar with them, like how fanfic doesn’t need to rehash the source material)”
I got this comment on a story from my Other AO3 Account this morning.
(Info redacted because I prefer keeping these accounts separate but no one follows me on the side blog I have for that account.)
The story was posted almost a year ago and is relatively “popular” by my average statistics even though it has tropes and themes that are big turnoffs for a lot of people (hence separate accounts). This popularity is undoubtedly because it’s a Marvel Loki story and that fandom is massive.
So there is obviously an algorithm or a bot scrubbing ao3 statistics and leaving this comment on fics that meet a certain metric with the main character of the fic inserted into the comment.
I had a little time to kill this morning so I decided to investigate further. And y’all this is so predatory. Come on this journey with me. It made me mad. It may make you mad.
First, if you go to Webnovel’s website, you HAVE to choose between male lead or female lead stories before you can go any further. WTF?
And that’s weird, but this gets so much worse. This is basically a pay-to-read site that has different subscription models. Which… okay BUT! The authors don’t get paid! Look at that comment again. They’re promising a supportive and nurturing community, but zero monetary compensation. It’s basically, “post your stuff here so we can get paid and you can get… nice vibes?” I mean look at this Orwellian writing:
Using the phrase “pay-to-read model” in the same sentence as “qualitative changes in lifestyles for authors” deliberately makes you think that you can get paid and maybe even make a living on this website. But that’s not actually what it says and authors will not receive one red cent.
Oh but wait, the worst is still to come. In case this breaks containment (which I kind of hope it does) this is where I mention that I’m a lawyer in the US.
I don’t do intellectual property or copyright law but I do read and write contracts for a living. So I went to look at their terms of service. It was fun!
Highlights the first, in which Webnovel gets a license to do basically whatever they want with content you post on their site. This is how they get to be paid for people reading authors’ writing without paying them anything.
Highlights the second, in which Webnovel takes no responsibility for illegally profiting off of fan fic. This all says that the writer is 100% responsible for everything the writer posts (even though only Webnovel is making money from it).
Highlights the third which say that by posting, the author is representing that they have the legal right to use and to let Webnovel use the content according to these terms. So if a writer posts fan fiction and Webnovel makes money from people reading the fan fiction, and the House of the Mouse catches wise, these sections say that that’s ALL on the writer.
So that’s a little skeevy to start off with but the thing that is seriously shitty and made me make this post was that these assholes are coming to ao3. They are actively recruiting people in comments on their fan fiction. And they are saying they are big fans of the character you’re writing about and that they share your interests.
They are recruiting fan fiction writers and giving every impression that you can make money from posting fan fiction on their site and hiding the fact that you absolutely cannot but they can make money off of you while you try, deep in their terms of service which no one but a lawyer who writes fan fic and has some time to kill will read.
I see posts on here regularly from people who don’t understand how this stuff works, don’t understand that they (and others) can not legally make a financial profit from fan fiction. And there are tons of people who will not take the time to dig into the details.
Don’t deal with these bastards. Fuck Webnovel.
*¼ through a fanfic* wait i’ve read this before
*2/4 through a fanfic* lol no i haven’t wtf is hapenning
* ¾ through fanfic* OMG I’VE READ THIS BEFORE
Heads up hoes; the GShade dev has gone off the fucking rails and turned the damn program into malware. If you're using it for The Sims, FFXIV, Guild Wars 2, etc, it's a good time to uninstall it, after this recent update.
source: gideon
If the program detects it has been modified in any sort of way, it reboots your PC.
source: perchbird
one day I woke up and realised all the waiting and yearning was actually me living my life and it’s happening right now and it’s still good even if it’s not perfect and there is no moment when all your dreams get fulfilled and everything makes sense. like… this is it. this is life. you’ll waste away your youth waiting for some imagined future if you don’t love life for what it is now and make the most of it
Reblog to have something lgbt happen to you this summer
Writers. Could you reblog this if you edit as you go. I'm trying to see something
youre nb but you call yourself a bitch (bitch is a FEMALE dog btw) why???
i am on the FLOOR
