Humans are packbondy creatures. I mean, there’s just no arguing it. They packbond readily, and quickly, and unbelievably strongly. Once a human has packbonded with a thing, they will do anything to help and protect that thing.
There’s a downside to that, not often mentioned. It uses up a lot of their time and energy to build those packbonds, maintain those packbonds, and most especially to do the work of helping and protecting those with whom they have packbonded. It doesn’t leave them a lot of time and energy for helping other beings.
If you want a human to help you – if you want to reliably get their best effort – you have to packbond with them first.
“Yeah? So?” So you’re probably going to be working with humans for most, if not all, of your career. No matter how good or bad you are at your job, there will come a time when you need someone else in your workspace to help you with something, whether that’s manning the fry station for 2 minutes while you pee, sending over those numbers from marketing, or dropping everything to teach you how to do a thing that your boss told you to do or else you’d be fired.
Not to mention the big things. They don’t give promotions to just their friends – at least not so much any more. Promotions go to the people who’ve completed big, visible, important projects. It seems fair until you consider,,,, who gets the big, important, visible projects assigned to them in the first place?
Humans give boosts to the people they’ve packbonded with. They mention packbondee’s accomplishments to the boss (or the boss’ boss). They cover for the mistakes of people they’ve packbonded with.
“That’s not right! It shouldn’t be a popularity contest! It should be about who does the best –” Listen to me. Listen.
You may be right. You may be the most correct creature to have ever spoken since the beginning of galactic civilization.
It does not matter
Humans packbond. It’s what they do. I can’t stop it. You can’t stop it. No power in the ‘verse can stop it. This is how the human do.
All you can do is work with it.
If you want a human to help you – if you want to reliably get their best effort – you have to packbond with them first.
“Look, I’m introverted and scared of people and I have social anxiety so I really don’t know how to –” Hey, my pal, I feel you. I, too, am introverted. And I have social anxiety. And I have PTSD that actually – and I recognize that this is bizarre – has ‘business networking’ as a trigger.
For you, I have good news: Humans will packbond with anything.
Like, you don’t really actually have to do anything. You kinda just have to… exist. In their presence. They kinda do the rest.
If you can talk with them, that speeds things up. But it doesn’t have to be, like, good conversation. Like, it can totally go
You: boy, sure is hot out! Human: Man oh man, can you believe it? You: Wow, yeah Human: Totally You: …. Human: ….
This conversation – as awkward and uncomfortable as it felt to you, has caused this human to packbond with you a little more. If you repeat it weekly, you will get good results.
THE TAKEAWAYS
You need to packbond with the humans you come in contact with
Taking time to do that is not only justifiable, it is an important part of your job, and should be treated as such
That is to say that, as much as you hate it (and believe me, I understand), you have to take time away from actual work and dedicate it to packbonding with your fellow workers
Tips
Plan out your packbonding time. It’s easier if you can initiate than if a human springs packbonding-time on you all unexpected. In an office job I like to use Friday afternoon, but adjust according to what makes sense to you and your situation.
Keep some packbonding-time questions handy. My go-to list is:
(If it’s Monday or Tuesday) How was your weekend?
(If it’s Wednesday) How’s your week been so far?
(If it’s Thursday or Friday) Any big plans for the weekend?
How’s your day been?
You don’t have to care about the answers to these questions. All you have to do is remember that if the human is answering questions, they are not asking you any questions. Therefore questions are your friend. If you ask follow-up questions, you may be able to get through the entire packbonding time without having to do any of the talking
Learn to disengage from packbonding. You can use basically the same sentence (or variants on it), but you’ll want to practice it so that you can make it sound natural. I use “Awesome! Well, I gotta get going. Have a good one!”
I know it feels overwhelming, but a few minutes of packbonding, once a week, is all you need. Once you build it into your habits it can be no more annoying than doing dishes or showering.
So we’re just not gonna talk about how OP is an alien anthropologist investigating the human species before infiltrating huh
So I just read up more on what the actual fuck is going on and what this means for NSFW content creators and this twitter thread really explains everything and why no amount of petition signing is going to change the direction tumblr, and inevitably twitter, is going
While a lot of artists went the ways of newgrounds and HF and mastodon and whatever else, a lot artists (myself included) just moved to Twitter because we were all mostly there already. But I’m not just bringing this up because I care about twitter, twitter definitely sucks, but because NSFW creators are very quickly running out of options.
Seems to explain the things going on with Tumblr lately.
I don’t make a living on nsfw anything, but some of you guys might?
I’m not a huge fan of censorship, so this is just plain worrisome anyway. I’m not entirely sure what to do other than help spread the word. =/
Are you fucking kidding me
Hey remember this post from a few days ago?
Well if you too think that’s bullshit, I advise you to check out this site right here.
I’m leaving tumblr soon, but having learned about SESTA & FOSTA recently, it’s got me a bit worried about the safety of NSFW creators in particular on major social media outlets.
By conflicting with
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, this set of bills can make entire websites responsible for the content of it’s users, putting them at legal risk if a user posts something the law doesn’t like – so the safest course of action is to play it safe and prohibit users from posting ANY remotely risky stuff – like NSFW content (thanks tumblr). It’s a bit like the EU’s Article 13.
It’s a bill that, on the surface, looks like it’s supposed to do good, but I’m not under the impression that it’s doing much more than harm – and it’s a step closer to the censorship of sexual expression, which I’m not really cool with, especially right after what’s happened to tumblr – effectively disrupting the livelihood of creators and purveyors of anything NSFW. Like you and I.
Maybe it won’t be an issue, MAYBE it’s an overreaction… but it’s currently on my mind and it has me worried. So perhaps, if you were previously unaware of the circumstances, you should be made aware.
Because after Net-Neutrality’s Repeal, Article 13, and tumblr metaphorically shitting on us, I’m not particularly optimistic…
So perhaps you should get in contact with your representatives and, like… Set them straight.
I don’t like talking about these big, world-changey politic-analogous stuff on my tumblr, but since we’re going to be burying my tumblr soon, I guess there’s not much of a point.
Apparently concentrated Kool-Aid can be used as a pretty effective leather dye.
I was making a drink while cutting the snaps off some new straps for my pauldrons and I got curious, so I tried it, thinking, “ok even if this works, it will just wash out.”
Nope.
It took the “dye” (undiluted) in about 3 seconds. After drying for about an hour and a half, it would not wash off in the hottest tap-water. It would not wash out after soaking for 30 minutes. It did not wash out until I BOILED it, and even then, only by a tiny bit and it gave it a weathered look that was kind of cool. Add some waterproofing and I’d wager it would survive even that.
That rich red is only one application too. Plus it smells great, lol.
So there you go, cheap, fruity smelling leather dye in all the colors Kool-Aid has to offer.
WELL THEN!
this may be important to some of my followers *and certainly not just getting reblogged because of my costuming and my boyfriends desire for leather armor*
When I was in middle school we used to use it to dye our hair. Potent stuff.
If you’re dying anything with kool-aid it’s best to use SUGAR-FREE ones otherwise the thing you’re dying might get all sticky
the flavor only packets where you are supposed add sugar are the best. they will dye any natural fiber: leather, wool, cotton, hair, flax, jute, silk and so forth. heat the dye water so it is more potent. let dry then rinse excess out in cold water. there’s a whole system to this.
Oh my god
This will prove very useful for any future cosplays I wanna do.
Krita is a painting program that has been around for a while, and in the last few years, underwent major changes and improvements. Because of these improvements, many artists are using it not just because it is free, but because it offers amazing features. These are by no means all of the great things Krita has to offer, but simply some of my favorite features of the program.
1. The Brush Engines.
Yes, engines. As in plural. There are many. And they all do different things. There is no way you could possibly capture all of its possibilities with one screen shot, but here are just some of the possibilities. Along side standard round, square, and shape, and textured brushes, there are brushes that smear, blend, and create interesting abstract strokes. There are brushes for filters, and one of my favorites, the Experiment Brush, which is basically a pre-filled lasso tool.
Brushes also support weighted smoothing, or brush stabilizers.
This is incredibly useful for line art. And while I do not usually use this feature, it is something that I feel many programs are lacking, such as Photoshop.
But its brushes aren’t the only thing about Krita with variety.
2. Color Selector Customization.
Whether you prefer something basic, or something more complicated, Krita will likely have what youre looking for. You are not likely to find yourself missing your other program’s color wheels. There are even more options than this, and other color selectors.
Gotta love that customization.
Krita also has some great naviation tools.
3. On the fly rotation, zoom, and brush sizing.
With krita, zooming, rotating, and brush size scaling are all smooth, and dynamic with the use of hot keys. These are features I miss when in other programs. To zoom, Ctrl+Middle mouse button, hover over the screen to zoom in and out. The same with shift rotates (press the ‘5’ key to reset rotation). Holding down shift and draging your brush on the canvas dynamically changes its size, allowing you to see the change, and get the exact size you want without brackets. Brackets also work, if that’s what you are used to. Krita also has highly customizable hot keys.
4. The Pop Up Pallet
The pop up pallet is a set of your 10 favorite brushes (which you can edit), and a built in color wheel that appears when you right click on the canvas. It is incredibly useful for switching between those few brushes that you use in almost every picture.
5. Real time, seamless tiles creation.
Pressing the W key in Krita will infinitely tile your canvas, and allow you to work real time on simple to complex tiled images. You can zoom in and out to see how your tiles work form a distance, and paint freely to create seamless artwork easily, without having to check using filters and manually tiling. Very usefull for patterns, backgrounds, and games.
6. The Symmetry Tool
This one goes without saying, Krita supports both horizontal and vertical symmetry, along with a brush that is capable of radial symmtry with as many directions as you like.
Go nuts, kid.
There are many more reasons why this program is awesome. And it is only going to get more awesome. And the coolest thing about it, is that it is 100% free. So go check it out! There’s nothing to lose. Krita isn’t for everyone, it can be hard to get the hang of, and it is not meant for photo editing, it is a program completely focused on digital painting from start to finish.
Give it a go and see if Krita is the program for you.
