Multi-fandom, OC positive blog. Supporting people's personal art and writing projects is extremely important to me. If it is to you too,
Seven Cities is mine.
forget about touching grass, i need to touch THE SEA I NEED TO GO INTO THE WATER I NEED TO DIVE INTO THE SEA!!!!!!!!!!!!
I NEED TO GO IN THERE ⬇️⬇️⬇️‼️‼️‼️
Lol. Everyone in the notes freaking out like ‘I live by the sea, don’t jump in, it dangerous’.
Like, guys, guys, listen, you don’t understand. They don’t mean… They want to be… Listen, ok, I grew up on the sea, I’ve been through hurricanes on trawlers and gale force 9 storms crewing tallships. I’ve seen enormous waves absolutely destroy boats. I’ve been caught in riptides while scuba diving and felt the complete powerlessness of it. The sea will absolutely annihilate you, consume you, never give up your body, and not even notice.
I know the power of the sea better than most, however, I know exactly what they mean. Sometimes you see it churning with unfathomable power and all you want is to just get in the sea and have it absolutely fuckin blast you clean. Like sandblast your fuckin soul. Fuckin powerwash your bones clean. Ya know?
Can confirm, getting beat up by the ocean is a religious experience.
I’m in a really tight spot right now, so I’m offering a few of my flower portrait commissions to help me stay afloat. Anything helps, if you’ve enjoyed my art, please consider dropping a tip on kofi or commissioning a piece from me! There are 3 open slots for now, 🔗 here!
what if i decided to love you anyway. what if i decided to love you on purpose. what if im so damn stubborn that you cant stop me from loving you even if it kills me.
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:
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:
I got curious about this. I almost always make a completely new character, but I have had one guy I’ve tried to bring into a few campaigns, and I think he’s jinxed because it never ends well. He’s been retired to just existing in my head now.
It’s me, I’m back again with FFXIV Write prompts that I never posted. I’ve been chipping away at a different thing and this one caught my attention again.
Prior to her foray to the events of Shadowbringers, Tritchet and her big sister Wickit had what you might call a teensy tiny bit of an explosive fallout, and Tritchet spent a not-insignificant bit of time afterwards traveling alone. That changed during the events of post-Stormblood MSQ, but they never really made up before Tritchet and their other sister Onion got swept away pre-Shadowbringers. This is set a day or so after they are finally reunited, after what is a few days for Wickit and six months for Tritchet.
~800 words, set during the beginning of the Shadowbringers expansion
—
It was the yawn that gave her away.
She had been holding out, so far. Kholusia wore even the most capable adventurer down eventually, blighted as it was by Light and despair in equally staggering measures; but Tritchet was a capable adventurer with six dreary months of experience under her belt, and she thought she should have been able to hold out for twenty-four measly hours. For her sister’s sake. For her own.
“You should get some sleep, Tritchet.”
She sighed; right on cue. Alphinaud had been telling her the same thing for the last four hours since she had woken him for his watch, and she had spent the same amount of time casually brushing him off. The yawn had apparently tipped him off that he was finally wearing her down. She frowned and scrubbed at her stinging eyes.
“I know,” she admitted finally, pressing back against the rough wooden wall that was the only thing keeping her upright. “I just… I don’t want to.”
me, having deeply fallen out of the practice of writing poetry: I can’t write any more, I am now a Talentless Hack
the voice of my 11th grade journalism/12th grade creative writing teacher who rly did know everything: if you stop writing for a while the words will build up and stagnate. to clear the water, you will have to open the dam completely, and accept the fact that what initially comes out will not be palatable
This. This is so true. Starting again is more important than what you actually write. You are rusty. You’ll build up momentum again. All you need to do is start.
