scrawnytreedemon

So uh,

Yeah!

Took an unintended hiatus. Life got very busy and mental health was not (and still isn't) in the best shape, but! That aside, to answer the question my last post implied:

Yes, the laptop works great. Everything runs so buttery smooth, it's mad. Sims 2 loads so fast. Stardew Valley isn't crashing. I can actually play Minecraft with shaders. Would ya believe it?

I installed Linux Mint on it, as intended. When it works, it's an absolute dream. Seriously, it's so nice to update when I want, to not be dragged this way or that by Microsoft's meddling (cough Onedrive cough Recall COUGH I DON'T WANT WINDOWS 11 LEAVE ME ALONE--); it's so snappy and responsive, the customisation options are superb, I love it. THAT BEING SAID... When things go wrong, it can take days to troubleshoot and solve the issue. Linux Mint (setting aside the Debian edition) is based on Ubuntu... and searching for things, for Ubuntu... Man, so. much. bloody. cruft. I genuinely wonder how some of the people pushing hard for Linux Desktop for low-to-middle-tech users expect people with jobs and lives and other commitments to put up with this on a semi-regular basis. I do, because I like tech and am patient, but come on.

Regardless, I'm happy with the results, and will continue to push forward in my Linux endeavours. I do wish that most of the people within the community acknowledged that actually using Linux beyond a platform to Browse Web and Store The Family Picture™ grandma style is a proper skill that takes tech literacy, patience, and time that a lot of people don't have. Still, I'm just glad I can finally move away from the privacy-violating bloat-ridden nightmare that is windows. Wish I could do the same for my Surface Pro 7 (which I am writing on now as I'm out of the house), but support for that isn't great, and I do need it to do my digital art.

All in all, pleased with the results :)

I'll plop the GanZant rant over from my tumblr in full beneath the cut, as it's pretty recent and I feel no need to edit it. Is it unhinged and does it fly off the rails at the end? Yes. Is that also very much the mood for this ship? Oh buddy you bet.

( Proceed at your own peril. )

 

If you've managed, congrats on getting through all of that, lol <3 To reiterate the tags on that original post, the Hat Man must have possessed me once more. Wretched little shit! Make your own account.

Jokes aside, I think the way pair these two really highlights where I diverge from my peers in characterising them. I'll have to save that for another post, as it is getting late (seriously, getting the pasted text to remain under the cut was hell and I had to resort to wrangling the HTML and it STILL fought me--). I have just, so many thoughts on the matter, so I'll leave this as it is for reference. Some psychic damage for the fine people of Dreamwidth (: You have been warned. Expect more.

So,

I've been off Tumblr for several months, only checking back occasionally to see how things were going, which only confirmed that, yep-- I can't stand this place anymore. It's a shame, too, because I like Tumblr's functionality, buggy as it may be at times. It's the community, Tumblr's biggest charm and second largest problem (thanks, PhotoMatt), that's ultimately pushed me off. I just cannot stand how people conduct themselves there, even when they have something interesting to say or a good-to-okay point to be made. So many of those discussions are poisoned with moral superiority and a willingness to label people as cause-traitors for stepping out of line for the mildest of infringements.

So then I checked Cohost... to find that it went read-only at the start of this month, and that it's slated to shut down at the end of this year. I commend the devs tremendously. This was a huge undertaking, and they did everything they could to stick to their guns. It's hard to stay afloat in a business where your competitors make their living with algorithms crushing people's souls, robbing them of their privacy, and driving them to extremism.

Which leaves Dreamwidth!

I really like how the format of this website prompts people to give thought-out entries that are often more personal than ones posted to other websites. You don't really have to worry about your posts making their way onto the timeline or tag-scroll of random people who might not appreciate it. If they're finding it, they're looking for it. That's comforting, for someone who has Many Thoughts™ but is often too chickenshit to share them, lol. It also means that chance encounters are less likely... But, hey! Less likely is not zero 😆

I'm in a hectic time in my life right now, so regular posting is unlikely to be a thing in any case, but I do want to put something out here. I think the low-stakes environment of this platform is pretty good for that. I want to do more to make this place a bit livelier-- Unfortunately, some of the things I want would involve me creating and thus running communities here, and as much as I want to be the change I see in the world, I am admittedly very scared of royally messing this up. I can be absent for days, weeks, months at a time, and that habit a good moderator does not make 😔

In any case, I could probably start by rewriting some old posts I had on my tumblr. As much as I love the core of some of them... Hoo boy my writing style had a frenetic, vulgar quality that did not make for great reading and I think often undercut the point I was making. It's something I'm very much working on now. One of my friends has described as seeming like a "nervous little dog" at times (said very much with compassion), and I think that came out in some of those old posts, lol.

Who knows, I might even write down my thoughts about Zant and gender that would get me eviscerated on Tumblr <3 Anything is possible!