Blaugust 03

Another day another dollar.

The weather has cooled 10 degrees this week, and it's not oppressively sunny. I'm hoping to get some gardening stuff done because of that! Namely moving all that mulch I'm always talking about. I've been making a circle of mulch around our laundry line, which is very nice so I don't have to mow that part. And I want to mulch around my HugelKulture so it's easier to walk around them :P

Today we picked 10 little cherry tomatoes. I also transplanted the gigantic elephant leaf that was overtaking my peppers near our front door (like it was TALLER than the peppers that had a month's headstart), so they can greet people warmly if they survive. I don't know that much about transplanting or gardening yet, but the one video I watched said I can just pick the elephant leaf plants out and they'll propagate. Cool.

The mint is dying out, and Shane told me to clip them and replant the tops in the same planters. Okey dokey!

I also want to start thinking about what to plant for fall/winter. I really want sunflowers, and to try lettuce again now that it's cooler. Potatoes are dirt-easy - I just stuck some in the floor and they grew to a good size. They do terribly in planters though, they stay tiny. Really want garlic and chives and green onions….

Overall, I'm very happy to have picked up gardening and gained a base level in it. It's been invaluable for my mental health to have something to work on every day that isn't computers or art or job. And getting fresh air and sunlight is important for my own health too. That's one of the things about exercise, I can NOT find interest in going to the gym and doing reps for an invisible purpose (health?? 😵‍💫). But I will lift 40 lb bags of mulch back and forth for hours because I know I'm taking care of plants. Sorry, I got that RPG brain that wants visible results! That object permanence debuff…

Based on Samifier's sns page, I wrote an outline of what I'd put in my socmed intro.

https://wiki.scumsuck.com/socialmedia:intro

This is one of many “about” type pages I've written, but I find these very helpful to have multiple versions of. The /about on my main site is aimed for people who are looking to hire me for work, or found me via a live event. The about on this wiki is for people who may have found me via some of the resources I archive on this wiki. And the social media intro is useful for those who found me via art I made on social media, and trying to learn a bit more about me before pressing that daunting “follow” or “block” button.

My social media presence on fedi is art and fandom based, so it makes sense to talk about what I'll post, and what interests I'm into. Especially with character/link limits on socmed, I'd rather have a nice clean pinned post that people can choose to read if they want. No “read pinned byf!!!” just click it if you're a smart, cool, sexy, well-read person who actually susses people out before following randomly based on one post.

I'm scratching my head trying to word the “content warning” part adequately. I don't owe anyone content warnings, but I do want to be politely assertive that “hey i'll post this and if you don't like it just block and unfollow”. I've seen a lot of people recently express distaste for, example, tagging your art as “dude with a vagina” rather than solidly asserting the character as “trans man”. I want to just say that's what I use for my tagging on the /intro page. And then link to this wiki's likes page for further explanation for WHY I do that, if someone needs to know more.

I don't care for BYF or DNI stuff. I don't care to police what other people post or how they express their distaste for things I may post. I just want to explain myself (ADHD problem of overexplaining so you aren't misunderstood but it happens anyways) so people don't get mad at me LMAO. Like I ain't joking, people will follow me for years and then suddenly one day be like “are you A NASTY PROSHIPPER???!??!?!?!?!?” “umm isn't that ship INCEST?!!?” or something silly. Like ok. I know these types of people aren't known for reading, so it's a bit of a hopeless task writing an intro for them. But then we have to rewire our brain, so we can write our intro to 💗attract💗 the types of people we DO want to talk to.

I want to transplant the outline on my wiki to my main site, so I can style it accordingly to my html/css whims. But the wiki is such a great way for me to start writing, so I don't worry about styling when I don't mind if my wiki looks messy cuz my brain is messy and my wiki is my brain.

Read this post in the #blaugust tag: https://anarchaeopteryx.bearblog.dev/cheap-blog-hosting-in-2025/

It's a comparison of blog hosting with pros and cons. And I'm fairly aligned with their opinions!

This paragraph in particular stuck out to me:

And, as I have mentioned earlier, static site generators require re-generating the site every time you make a change. As somebody who reliably edits their posts a dozen times after posting it's just an absurd workflow.

Same on editing my shit a dozen times and feeling torment if I have to recommit my git shit. I know SSGs are pushed as the standard of making personal sites, but it's just way too heavy for my work process. I've said this before and I'll keep repeating myself cuz I have the brain of a 90 year old, but the wiki format works so much better for my brain. I can easily link to stuff I've already written, make backlinks to refer to myself, quickly edit a piece on my phone if I remember I got something wrong at 3am, and organize things fairly quickly! All without having to learn a new coding language or remember command line prompts. I am always complaining about not having enough time to do things I want. And I don't particularly have fun with languages or memorizing quotes (yes I did terribly in school). So I'd rather spend my free time doing something that IS pleasant to me, like writing inane walls of text or playing with drawing buttons and icons and backgrounds for web design!

But yeah. SSGs def work for some other people! But I'm really starting to grasp that it isn't really the right solution for me right now, though it's pushed as the standard! I am a bit nonstandard in everything and have different likes and abilities. I like to make each page on my site look different because I like to play with design, so the templating of SSGs wouldn't particularly help me right now. I do think it would help a lot with Fujofans eventually because that IS meant to be a static shrine that's updated sparsely, and I think that Astro directory template would really help me Just Get It done (though I'll still want to spend 500 years on the CSS styling cuz every template is like. White corporate bootstrap and tailwind hell.

I drew more scsp on request of my lovely man-wife.

Current story is Ollie being a BIG fan of Basile's band. ACID PUSSY? the WILD CORNDOGS? And trying to make it backstage knowing that Basile's a bit of a snortaholic. He's totally not a groupie. Boys aren't groupies. Right? But if he manages to catch just a WHIFF of that spuss… well… it happens! I'm having fun trying different designs for the stage bodysuit! The base of a dirty bodysuit is simple, so how do you make it look cooler? Add a damn snake. Thinking about Ace Frehley's bodysuits and the silver space loops… And of course Alice Cooper's leopard print boots that haunt me forever. Add a little more of the fetish edge for my own tastes, so give him some leather harnesses around the crotch as a cute little strappy threat. Yeah!! I love character design.

I found a 7×10 sketchbook meant for ink under the bed, and I really like this size. The paper is smooth and easy to do sketches, and it's portable without being so tiny I cramp my hands while drawing. I would like to do a “commission special” for this type of ink sketch on this paper, maybe $50 for b/w and red ink in this style.

I've been raising the prices of my digital commissions steadily to try to persuade people to get my traditional art LOL cuz my hands hurt less with traditional inking. And also everything is inflating in price and I need to afford the current price of food and water. But I think people get the digital one even though it's more expensive just cuz they like the red background color. I mean, I can do red spot color with traditional ink too!! I just need to get some examples done and I guess find some thick markers to fill in big areas :P

Watching Kaiji got Shane's brain working on our scsp 70's music AU, and I'm glad he feels motivated on these characters. Enough to write a little story about them :D I've been wanting to draw a full comic based on a script or fic he writes (especially that Gorl Scout Kidnaps Basile story!!), and print that as a zine. You can figure these illustrations out as “concept art” though I'll always tweak their designs every time I draw them cuz I get bored drawing the same thing over and over (woops that's bad for comics and other sequential art if you want the characters to look consistent).

That's all that's on my mind for now. Still gotta work on work. Getting to it!!! I want to use the remaining weekend to relax. Maybe for tomorrow's blog I can talk about my current set-up for blogging with Dokuwiki. I should download that tags extension…

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