You know, I've been thinking a lot about this topic. Why do I play the characters that I play, do they represent me or my tastes or something else entirely, etc. For me, I think, it's a weird mix. My characters are kind of what I lack, kinda what I'd dream to be (in terms of personality characteristics and maybe partially appearance), kind of what brings me catharsis in media, so you know, like Melon said, filling in the gaps.

But they are also an empowerment fantasy, in a way? Built on top of what's already there?

Like, not to expose myself too much here, but I have this fun combo of, on one hand, being stubborn and confrontational and having some mild anger issues, BUT, on the other hand, being an anxious wreck with rejection sensitivity dysphoria or whatever that's called. Put in simple words - I'll be angry about something, I'll be seething, I'll have the harshest opinions on how the situation should be dealt with - but then I'll be too anxious or irrationally afraid of emotional backlash to actually EXPRESS all of that. (Unless, of course, I'm especially fed up, or am explicitly on my turf, but I think that one's universal).

So what are my characters? Well, they wary, 'cause their stories are different and different personalities make sense in their plots, but, you know. They are strong, they command respect (or fear), they are warriors (I play exclusively close-combat wherever I might. In your face, punch-punch). A lot of them are angry, explosive, some of them (shall it be appropriate to their story) can be downright cruel or completely dismissive of law and authority. A lot of them are anti-heroes who do good stuff while taking no crap from anyone, too. It's nice to temporarily get out of a body of an anxious angry crier who was raised too much a decent person by their parents and mercilessly punch imaginary people through walls instead for a couple of hours.

(that's also why I often play on easy mode - I don't want a challenge, I want to feel like a force of nature ehehe)

Like, I don't think if you'd remove the aforementioned anxiety and other factors from my life then I'd immediately become a destructive criminal or whatever, but as the case is now - yes, my characters fill in gaps, but these gaps aren't really opposite to everything of me. Rather they are a manifestation of some deeper hunger for certain things I am unable to express.

Also a lot of these characters have, like, you know. An apartment and a career? And a relationship. Now those are gaps to be filled!

Speaking of which, now, a lot of my in-game romances I think are very indicative of something. Not nessecarily of a particular personality or appearance I'd like in a partner (I have a feeling I'd be too intimidated by them and they'd be too bored with me), but rather a certain dynamic of a relationship development. Eh, maybe one day

(OH and my characters are definitely highly representative of my personal gender expression. I mean look at them.)

I very, very rarely play fighting games or other genres where you choose from a pre-made cast, so I can't exactly pull the same experiment as you. But I do play a lot of games with custom character creation, and I do in fact have a collage of my characters, and it's, well.

Pretty telling, I think.

(Just because it's been a topic of confusion before, I have to routinely disclaim that none of the characters pictured are men x) )

https://files.catbox.moe/5fnbx4.jpg

I've recently bought a cheap DVD player and started burning some of my favorite movies and TV shows on disks.

My family teases me about it, but hey, to each their own. It was very funny though when I put on a DVD disk for the first time in a while and my first reaction was "Wait, where did the quality go?" before I promptly realized that there's a reason why DVD-rip torrents are always in worse quality than direct WebRips of newer shows or why the HQ multi-GB versions of 2000s movies do not exist (unless re-released later) Our memory sure does smooth the rough edges!

That being said, it's hardly a big deal breaker when you're watching on TV from a considerable distance away.

Which, tragically, I've lost the habit to do so. So burning my physical DVDs is one thing - now I've gotta remember to actually watch them!

Same for music CDs. I have some bought and I have some burned, but like. The habit of just putting your headphones on and turning on your mp3s is so strong! (At least I've mostly moved on to mp3s over streaming though. Although I do miss the bonus of 'recommended' playlists and finding new music that way.)

I do concur though, the whirring and flashing and all such quirks of physical media are joyful in their own way. I've reanimated our old point-&-shoot camera recently and the little whirr it does when pulling the film forward after every click makes me so happy! (Now I just need to happen to have it on hand every time a photo opportunity presents itself. Which, you know... a lost damn habit again)

Congrats on taking the leap and I hope your transition will be kind to you in all regards. I've seen how happy living their truth can make a person, and I wish that on you with all my heart

Okay so you know those website adopts where it's just lovingly drawn lil guys who you can put on your site in your lil adopts collection with a link back or sometimes even without? I mean, that's a rethorical question.

Well, if you're one of those people who collects adopts like those, then hi, I've just put up a page on my website with personally drawn adoptees for you to potentially pick from (should you want to, of course). Nothing fancy, not exclusive or interactive, just cute kind fun.

The whole concept behind the page is somewhat personal to me, so I've been wanting to do this for a while You'll see what I mean.

  Here's the link!

Oh I am horrible with criticism. In part for the same reason that you've described, but also because I'm stubborn as hell, and I'm almost never able to get over myself.

It all, of course, depends on a subject. Like, when someone points out some part of my website coding that sucks - that's fine, 'cause I'm perfectly aware of that and I agree.

But if it's, say, about my English, which is part of my profession, or my art, which, while I'm no master, I still take a certain amount of pride in, then it gets complicated. Like, sure, I can take criticism. If I specifically asked for it. From a person I fully and consciously accept as superior to me in skill and/or experience.

But asking for it is still a requirement. I can't tell you how many times I'd get stubborn and angry in response to a critique from my literal teachers. 'Cause I didn't ask for it. I was content with what I had and then someone presented me with the fact that it's not good enough. Like, did I ask? That's not a proper reaction, I know, but it's a knee-jerk one. Even on a group project like you described - I would either shut down in pure spite, as in "if you don't like that I have then I won't participate at all, eat that", or try to insist on my idea regardless. Depends on how much I like it myself I guess.

There were multiple instances in my life when people who drew better than me tried to give me advice and I refused to take it 'cause it pissed me off that that implied they were better than me. Which they were. And I knew that. But I didn't like them acknowledging that fact. Only a couple of times I actually managed to force myself to listen and I use that advice to this day. I wonder how better I could be if I listened more often.

But I'm prideful, stubborn and determined to get things done my own way, so usually, unless I asked, I dig my heels in and refuse to change or improve. Until I get to the same thing, but, like, five years later

The worst thing is that this reflex is so strong that it doesn't matter how aware I am of it being bad, it blocks all my braincells when it kicks in. Still a long way to go

That all might be a response to the fact that I was criticised quite often as a child. I couldn't get a lot of things right for different reasons as a child, so apparently my psyche decided that an angry "Well, actually, YES, I am not perfect at some things, so WHAT" would make for a nice defence mechanism.

Tumblr is more of a microblog, as in it's focused on sharing pictures and brief texts and reblogging others than it really is writing about yourself (or whatever you want to write about). So I guess in a sense it's more like Twitter with MySpace-esque page layouts?

I think this one REALLY depends on which side of Tumblr you are on. Meaning, like, fandom, aesthetic, etc. etc.

'Cause the amount of long-reads on Tumblr is considerable in my experience. Especially if it's fandom meta or angry rants on social issues or excited infodumps on favorite topics or history posts or 'science side of Tumblr'... And there's also a whole genre of posts like these, whatever they'd be called (link is from a random blog I found when looking up the post sorry). There's also writebr, aka the side of Tumblr populated only by writers posting snippets of their work or taking writing prompts and such. And so on and so forth.

That's to say that I think a lot of people actually do use Tumblr like a proper blogging platform and comparison to Twitter is not an exactly fair one, in my opinion.

Also, as far as "sharing pictures" goes, yes, gifsets are Really Popular, but also... You just can't do a Tumblr style gifset on another platform. One gif/four images per post only? Blasphemy!

Oooh, I've been on Tumblr since 2013 and I've been steadily active on there the whoooole time. I'm kinda sad that it decided to glitch and put me into shadow jail, which forced me to create a new blog. My old one is turning 10 this year, come on!

I also had a roleplay blog, tried to run an art ask-blog (never really took off, but that's my own fault too), a fan blog dedicated to a certain character (you know, the "f-yeah-character-name" style), I've accidentally said a slur because of being bad at English at the time and almost got a heart attack when I got the subsequent pushback (luckily back then people quickly believed my panicky remorse...), I've made friends, lost friends...

I'll say it's the only 'social media' I still use frequently, and it's not very, uh, social to begin with. Maybe that's the charm. The ability to customise everything is the charm. The ability to write long-reads in the charm! The navigation... Yeah that thing is broken and it only gets worse with time I think. ALTHOUGH the general tag system works and it's not messed up my the algorithm, so your posts can be found years later and they have equal chances to be seen through the search. Twitter WHO?

In terms of broke-ness I think I, as well as most of the old school Tumblr users, see it kinda like, uh, you know. That old computer which will overheat if you run more than one app on it, but you still love it. That old cellphone where you had to type messages l1k3 th1s because a key wasn't working. Like my neck which will hurt like a birch if I don't crack it sometimes.

Like, yes, it's broken, but we know the funny ritual dance to make it do what we need it to do. We also have bug races, talking crabs and an elaborate movie that has never existed but which everyone watched.

Yes, the Tumblr toxicity is certainly a meme, and yes, it seems like after the nsfw ban the epicentre of that culture moved to Twitter. Those who stayed on Tumblr are now angrily biting the "Twitter refugees" who try to bring that ish back, lol.

But I also think that, well, a good chunk of Tumblr users are the same users who used it since the early tens, and we... Grew up. I'm pretty sure that's also a huge contributor to the fact that the atmosphere chilled slightly. We're joking about cracking knees and bying washing machines now.

That, however, doesn't mean that the negativity is gone whatsoever (I mean, which social space nowadays does not deal with transphobia, for example), but I do actually think that regulating your experience is much much easier when there's no algorithm. It's admittedly harder to do in a fandom, but I'll be honest, I usually find like two or three people whose views are clearly up my alley, and then the rest of the fandom content that gets to my dash through them is usually safe 'cause they vetted it, ahah.

Okay there's actually been an attempt on algorithm, aka the "For You" page, and... It's been working surprisingly well and chill for me personally.

If I am venturing into a character's tag in the wild, though, that means I'm DESPERATE.

...oh wait the question was why people are not keen on Tumblr, right?

My guess - the stigma for sure, the fact that half the Internet believes that Tumblr is dead, also for sure. The lack of the proper algorithm, differences from other social media make it harder to settle if you're not used to it. The treshold of getting active on there can seem high (the secret is that to be active on tumblr you just need to lurk and reblog everything you like, it's a website of hoarders. antisocial media), etc etc.

The side of tumblr where I exist is currently very much "We're cringe and we're free~" and that's honestly THE energy I claim.

On the other side, there's apparently a tradwife hardcore catholic segment of tumblr and we've never ever crossed paths and we never will. Love the range.

BTW I think on the topic of settling in on Tumblr and some weird unspoken ettiquette we all follow - Strange Aeons has truly described it all the best, if anyone needs a genuine guide:

Are you sure it was not this thread?

Goddammit I looked through other forums for threads on the topic so that I wouldn't post a double but it Did Not Occur to me to look in the games section

Thanks a lot, personality quizes here I come

I've been seeing people creating separate pages on their personal sites to fill them with quiz/personality tests results.

But, as my luck goes, now that I actually made a website of my own, I can't for the life of me remember which sites inspired me (and subsequently can't go there and spy some quiz links).

U-quiz and buzzfeed make it sort of harder to look for these old-school quizes, so, while I'm doing my own research, I thought I'd ask:

Anyone got any favorites? Or maybe you're one of those people with quiz results pages and you could let me snoop around?

I've recently had a fellow webmaster on neocities email me to ask about how one of my pages was coded

It felt somewhat exciting, I don't think I casually talked to anyone over e-mail (for not-work-related-reasons) since the 00s and it felt nice

And seeing as I often get tired of the constant stream of messages on modern platforms (they're good sometimes, especially when you're engaged in a quick and active conversation, but otherwise it's either a background noise making me anxious or people seeing when I'm online and immediately expecting an answer, whack)

I have an e-mail button on my website, maybe that will bring me more emails one day!

Not being afraid to seem a totall noob, which I am, I'll admit I'm still at the part of "putting stuff together like lego bricks instead of coding it myself" and there's no guarantee I'll ever progress much further than that.

So as far as I'm aware my art gallery (which I wanted to work in a specific way) and my comic reader (aka rarebit) are both running on scripts, but I'd be hard pressed to tell you how much strain they put on a user's browser and which end they are running at...

A lot of artists selling commissions are basing their prices on the amount of work instead of the time it'll take them. Portrait/waste up/full height, number of characters, the amount of coloring, the type of the background, additional difficulties like, say, detailed armor, etc etc etc.

I honestly prefer that approach myself, since time=value is a tricky concept. On one hand, what's stopping me from lying about the amount of time I spent on the piece? (Besides me being a decent person, of course, but we're talking hypotetically here).

There's the other side of that same coin, too. I work with texts for a living, writing them and translating them. The thing is, I'm a really quick writer. Not bragging - I won't estimate the quality of my own work here - but as far as speed goes, I'm fast. I think fast, I type fast, and if the work in question is interesting then I'll also be doing it in one go. If I measured the value of my work by time - I would be paid sheer cents.

In that regard I agree with Melon - when you're skilled at your job and you do it fast, then the time that counts here is not only the one you've spent on the piece itself, but also all the time that took you to get to this level.

And that's kinda hard to explain to some customers, which is why I prefer the workload method of calculating the cost. In terms of texts, it's usually about the amount of words or symbols. With art, well, see the beginning of this post.

I actually think that the concept of time spent adding to the value is sort of fair - if you spent N hours of your life doing something for a customer, you'd want to be paid something roughly equal to at least a paying wage for that amount of hours. Otherwise, in this economy, you're putting yourself at a disadvantage.

Now, the question of "Is anyone willing to pay you that amount of money for your work?" is a whole other matter entirely...

(P.S. I guess this falls back into the realm of "Should the worth of art be judged with capitalistic measures" which was brought up in another thread some time ago, and like... Oh, believe me, if I wasn't a hopeless optimist putting my art and self-expression above what's "profitable" or "sustainable", I wouldn't be perpetually broke )

If it is okay to ask tarraxahum, what type of Windows software did you want to keep?

I think at the moment of considering Linux the biggest contender was Clip Studio Paint, which I've heard is possible, but not quite easy to run on Linux, most likely through Wine you've mentioned (and I'm aware there are alternatives available, but CSP's toolset for comic/manga making specifically, as well as the library of assets is fairly benefitial to me

As far as games go, for example the infamous Cyberpunk 2077 is very dear to my heart and every source I've read claims that it runs very clunky on Linux even through Wine (while on Windows my hardware allows it to more or less fly with no bugs even)

...Now I'm actually curious if my parents have thrown out my mom's old Chromebook after it started being very slow from age.

Do you think installing a new system on it would help the poor thing work better again?

I've been eyeing Linux systems for a while now, but I'm not ready to commit to converting my main PC to it. Some crucial games and software I would really rather not lose do not seem to be doing well on Linux, or so my research have shown.

Now, having a separate little machine to try it out does seem fun, though...