#external hard drive my beloved

[chaos-and-recover]

re: your tag on the cd burning post I think you need the cable trick to burn files that are drm protected. so like if you have a music subscription you can’t burn those songs to a cd even if you can download and listen to them offline, but supposedly you can using the cable loophole

Ah that makes sense. I'm an Old(tm) so the last time I actually burned a CD it was all songs that were ~obtained~ from drm-free sources lmao.

[sherrymagic]

we (alpha enthusiasts) are eating so well this week finallyy <3

this ep had SO MUCH Alpha i was honestly taken aback, Sasa how is it that we've been winning so much recently? is this a dream? is it the power of love? did we give away so much we finally get to receive? whatever it is hope it never ends, our girl got so much screentime and proper depth and some actual backstory on what her hopes and dreams and plans for the future are, i feel blessed AAAAAAAAAA

[bloodfreak-boyking]

i'm only three episodes in and i'm already losing it. the longing stare, the private little smile, god just fucking kill me already

[shebpaw]

This is why you hang onto your raw files and organize your folders, kids. You never know when you have to come back and change stuff around a couple years later.

Get an external hard drive and/or cloud storage <3

[msbarrows]

Signs of how much my computer storage has grown over time... I just bought my 3rd passport drive. The original is a 2TB I bought out of a Christmas gift card back in Dec 2014; at the time it was twice the size of the disk drive in my PC, ditto my laptop, which meant I could swap it back and forth to backup files from both on one device.

That old PC is now kaput, and the only thing the old laptop gets used for is to on very rare occasion watch a movie while I do something on the much newer gaming laptop. The original passport drive was still my backup device of choice, though it’s good I’m doing a selective backup (using a robocopy batch) as my current laptop has 4TB of SSD space installed, so twice its capacity. I also have a second passport drive (also 2TB, bought a year ago) that I backup stuff to monthly and keep in my emergency go-bag.

Note that was. A couple days ago I finally got around to buying and installing Cyberpunk 2077, in all it’s 70-ish GB of glory. Which tipped the old passport drive from coping to noping.

So I’ve bought a 3rd passport drive, since so far I’m pleased with their performance. There was a mere $10CAN difference between getting a 4TB and a 5TB, so naturally I’ve gone for the 5TB. Hopefully it’ll be another almost-a-decade before I again have way too much stuff trying to backup to that (though I’m not going to be surprised it it ends up less).

Meanwhile, I’m kicking myself for only buying a 2TB drive last year, since obviously it’s going to run into the same not-enough-space problem the next time I go to do monthly backups at the beginning of August. I figure I’ll have to take my existing backup batch and copy it off into two different batches, setting up one to backup all my media (music, movies, ebooks, and manga scanlations) to one drive and the other to backup everything else (mostly games and personal documents) to the other, and keep two passport drives in the go bag. And moving forward edit two batches any time I need to add a new line to the main backup batch (such as where to find the save or mod files or screenshot locations for new games, since those end up all over the place and not necessarily within locations already covered by the batch).

[soupthatistohot]

A rant about why BSD is hard to enjoy right now (in my opinion)

Originally posted this on twitter but I think tumblr folks will sympathize, as well. So, here goes!

The stakes are simultaneously so ridiculously high and also nonexistent. I can't shake the feeling that everything is going to return to normal after this arc is over (everyone we care about will be alive, the world will have been saved), so why should I care about anything that's happening?

To that point -- no one (I care about) stays dead!! So what if Kunikida "died" in the chapter today? I'm sure he'll be back. Dazai also didn't die in Meursault, neither did Fyodor (who actually literally CAN'T die!!). Akutagawa is now alive and well, too! As much as I hate excessive MCD (like in JJK), you need to actually kill off characters sometimes if you're gonna threaten it so often, because then every death lacks emotional impact. I've been, like, numbed to it atp.

There are so many characters I do not know enough about to care about. Who even are the hunting dogs? Bram? Sigma? Asagiri hasn't put as much time and care into characterizing them as the main cast, so when things happen to them I kinda don't give a shit long-term. They were introduced in the middle of a convoluted plot that has taken such precedence over the characters who are supposed to be driving the story.

BSD originated as a character-driven story, and that's what drew myself and so many others to it in the first place. It was bizarre in a charming sort of way. It was about the characters growing and developing as people as much/more as it was about the external conflicts going on. It almost feels like Asagiri has been trying to be too clever about this that he's lost the core of BSD: it's heart.

Similarly, there's a reason this is such a ship-heavy fandom, we live for the character dynamics! But our beloveds have been scattered to the winds for literal years in our time that we've lost most of that interaction we love so much. Give us back our found family dynamics!!

Kind of back to the point about the convoluted plot -- it eels like the characters' intelligence has outgrown us and Asagiri, to the point of seeming impossibly ridiculous. Like what do you mean Chuuya was faking it the whole time and then stopped a bullet from entering dazai's skull and got away from it because of the security camera angle?? what do you mean Fyodor dying by a vampire's hand actually means that he subsumes bram and then he sets off a tripolar singularity to create god and this was his plan all along????

Obviously I don't speak for the whole fandom and these are just my opinions. I'm not saying you have to agree with me or even that BSD is horrible. I just feel like it's kinda lost its way the past few years and I miss the animanga I fell in love with :(

[kde-plasma-official]

also share your names with me I'm curious :3

down below is a heartfelt sob story about my favorite hard drive and also reason why I did the poll

For the longest time I only had one external drive containing everything. It was an old 256GB drive that I just named "BACKUP".

When I got my SSD I took out the old hard drive and used that as my main backup source. Because it had more storage I named it "BACKUP EXTENDED".

That drive got corrupted when I was in rehab because some guy named Kevin borrowed it for movies and used in a micro usb phone cable instead of the real one that was right on top of the drive.

So BACKUP EXTENDED was no more. A few months later I tried some usb partitioning tools (GParted my beloved) because I had some computer issues and thought I try to revive that old drive again and it fucking worked. From that day on my backup drive was known as "THE UNDEAD" (I've also been a huge Hollywood Undead fan at that time).

That name stuck with me, even after I accidentally formatted the whole drive when installing Arch, It persisted through each repartitioning session.

When I fucked up my partitioning table so hard it took several tries of fiddling to get the drive to work again, I renamed my trusty old drive to UNDEAD REVIVED because, well, I had to revive it again. Is it really undead at this point? Or is a revived thing alive again. What is a revived zombie, really? Maybe that's something for another poll...

A few weeks ago I got a few terabytes of storage for cheap and the biggest drive I got right now is 3TB. It's my new backup drive and I called it "UNDEAD EXTENDED",

But I've reached a point where having only one partition for everything isn't enough anymore. I have a macbook for work which can't write to NTFS partitions, so I had to create an exFAT for shared storage. That doesn't allow me to symlink things though, and I still need to have a Windows backup that I can just attach to any PC and boot from it, so I also need an NTFS drive. But Windows does things to the NTFS drive so that sometimes I have to sudo mount the partition which is really annoying and kinda sucks. I only use Linux on my main machine and just want to keep some of its files somewhere without other systems interacting with it at all so now I also have a ext4 partition for system backup and some games.

So, my trusty UNDEAD* hard drive that I lovingly kept and revived and extended and revived again, which stores everything that I own and love and need is now cut up into pieces and none of the partitions feel like the drive that it once was that makes me sad.

I grew very attached to that hard drive and to that name but even when the physical drive is still next to me it feels like I've outgrown it. I've had my Undead drive when I was at my lowest and it was a part of my digital life up until now. I've had iterations of it for almost half of my life. If that thing could talk, it would scream.

So, how did I name my partitions instead now?

I've named my exFAT partition "CYBERSLUT" the way it plugs into any computer and gets manhandled by it, it made me smile when I made the tough decision to retire the undead naming scheme.

My NTFS drive is called "WHYDOS" because I always ask myself why I still keep up with Windows sometimes, and I just recreated my ext4 partition that I named "PLAYGROUND", because it's only used for Wine bottles and some steam games so far, so they don't take up most of my limited SSD space.

[ana-chronista]

Bojere/Jance double date fic set during the Nordic Tour ???

👀👀👀🙏🙏🙏 yes please

Double date fic my beloved! So this is from an anon prompt I got ages ago. It was three paragraphs or so from completion when my external hard drive crashed and I lost everything 😭 So I have been reconstructing it based on what I remember and what I have handwritten in my notebook, because I loved the premise. In short, Bojan doesn't realise it's a double date until they're actually there, because surely Jan and Nace are Just Good Friends:

“I invite them as couple. You know, er... double date.” Bojan blinks at Jere and hurriedly bites his tongue against the laughter he can feel bubbling up in his throat. It’s not his fault, of course. Jan and Nace’s weird push-and-pull dynamic has only grown stronger over the summer, and for someone who hasn’t spent all that much time around them in person, it would be easy to mistake it for something more. “Jere, Jan and Nace aren’t together.” he says gently, smiling. Best to keep things light hearted – they can all have a laugh about it and move swiftly on before anyone feels too embarrassed by the mistake. But suddenly Jan is frowning. “Wait, what do you mean we’re not together?”

I've had three asks about this fic, so the snippets are slightly shorter... 👀

Ask me about my WIPs!

[yourmomsmedium]

reading for AUGUST = theme: LET’S GET REAL

(New Moon Leo 4/8 - Full Moon Aquarius 19/8)

general vibe: facing biggest heartaches, the core of the onion, childhood trauma, current drama BUT in order to free yourself of what stops you from being curious, and fun, and easy going, what stops you from living in the flow of life, in what ways are you controlling the ways of the universe, what stops you from doing what you really want

ARIES: mama take a step back and ask yourself - why am I putting so much mental effort into things that don’t serve me? waves of opportunities pass you by and you’re not jumping on them out of fear, anxiety, and low self-esteem. this time calls you to stop being a little bitch about things that matter to you and just take it - PHYSICALLY AND METAPHORICALLY. just take what’s yours because everyone else will go for it and you’ll be left with nothing on your plate. you need to start using your gifts for yourself not against yourself or for somebody else.

TAURUS: your beloved coins are coming your way. you’ve worked hard as always, and this one is no brainier. you deserve it and you make it happen and at this point of your journey you can sit back and enjoy the rest of the ride. you got this diva. new job and new opportunities are coming your way. financial stability is happening right now, and soon you’ll be able to bask in the life you deserve. thank yourself for all the effort you put in.

GEMINI: okay girlboss. ur slaying all the way right now, so don’t even think of getting into your head, doubting yourself, feeling not good enough. use this time to shake ANY NEGATIVE SELF-TALK and fly like the fucking butterfly you are my angel. prosperity and financial abundance are blossoming in your life and it allows you to take care of others, to create a safe space for them to fall back on. your nurturing, organisational skills are shining, showing others the way like a lighthouse. and you’re loving it, so really let yourself love it.

CANCER: okaaaaay. bad vibes only mama. some people are after you, there’s some drama going on, something is not right. whether it’s external or interior you’re not feeling good at all, you’re filled with bitterness and exhaustion. remember this is just a state of mind and nothing is as it seems. if you haven’t eaten, been outside, or drank water, maybe try go do that before you go off at somebody or you secretly harbour resentment against them in your bedroom. this is definitely a period of endings, good byes, retrospection. you will realise in which ways you’ve failed, what you’ve done wrong, and you’re gonna hit some walls in order to see what you’re unable to cope with. just remember this is for your own good - it’s better you face it and let it go than you live with it forever.

LEO: you’re exploring parts of yourself you haven’t seen before, those you don’t often have the space to exude, nor opportunities to act in the particular roles you’re being put in right now. it’s a bit of a test but guess what ? you’re slaying. you’re tender, patient, and caring, and even though at points you don’t understand things and you get confused and irritated, you are managing your fiery impulses as you discover the extent to which you can be so different than what you once thought. you’re on your way of becoming what you’ve always dreamt of, so carry on and act like it. embrace the softness.

VIRGO: your belief system is drastically changing and it’s best you just let it. soothe yourself as much as you can and hang in there because there’s no way of analysing what’s going on with you right now and if you try it might drive you insane. which habits, traditions, systems don’t serve you? what do you settle of out of a sense of duty? it’s time to add a bit of freshness, a bit of zest to your life and get out of some of your more conservative ways. outside the box thinking on, negative judge self-talk off.

LIBRA: you’re on a mission and you know where you stand. you know where you wanna go and the timing works in your favour. nothing is certain but there is definitely a lot of potential in the air and if you really put yourself to it, a lot of beautiful things can materialise for you soon. use your passion and creativity to discover new places and new people, but don’t lose sight of your goal and what you stand for. make sure your values permeate your actions and get adventurous. be brave and believe in yourself - if you do that you will definitely succeed.

SCORPIO: you’re fucking exhausted mama. I’m so sorry. you’ve been pushing forever and right now you’re fucking done. you need a rest like yesterday. but this time shows you just how much perseverance and courage there is in you, and just know that thanks to that and exactly who you are the success is on the way. it is thanks to you and nobody else. you may feel guarded and expecting the worst, but I’m here to reassure you that you’re at the end of this crazy ride - that’s why your ass hurts so much. this too shall pass and you’ll be so gagged that YOU DID THAT. 4+4.

SAGITTARIUS: anything can happen right now. the choices you’re making are really difficult and carry a lot of weight. but not in a bad way. this is actually a really good sign, it’s definitely a good luck card BUT it does have this karmic vibe to it. like it’s fate, but this fate unravels in sequences of actions, showing you the way. expect a lot of changes and a lot culminating moments.

CAPRICORN: the vibe kind of sucks. you can expect bad news and delays and creative blocks. there’s no enthusiasm nor motivation, everything is slow. these days are showing you how you’re wasting your own potential and what you decide to invest your time into. there’s a vibe of wasted potential in the air, you may feel bored or stuck. life might not be too much fun right now but you have to remind yourself this is all dependent of your own perspective and you have the power to change this. what are you waiting for? see where you wanna go full speed and where you wanna tone things down to shake up the stagnation.

AQUARIUS: it’s time you enjoy the fruits of your labour as you’re frolicking on the hills with your loved one(s). love is in the air, platonic, romantic, from every direction, and especially from within. it’s a great time to be present, let your hair down, and enjoy the bliss of every moment. you deserve to be here and you’ve worked hard to understand and accept yourself, and can now generously give that to others. you feel love, you give love, and your transformative energy makes this world a better place.

PISCES: you may get a little sad, but that’s not bad - allow yourself the time to grieve, to dwell, and to evaluate what’s been taken away from you. notice what you take for granted, and which habits short-circuit fuelled by shame and low self-esteem. are you looking at what you have or at what you don’t have? you may feel regret, disillusion, and apathy, but this will not be a long phase. rather a short yet intense portal into your true happiness. you need to shed your skin and go through a transformation, leaving behind what causes you remorse and depression. this is not easy, and it might be a time you will seek more help - whether it’s family and friends, therapy, or alternative healing practices, this all may lead you to take concrete steps towards creating a better mental space for yourself and face the trauma that’s holding you back from getting what you want and experiencing more positive feelings. be gentle with yourself, meditate, but don’t let yourself daydream and miss opportunities for great things in your life for the sake of toxic routines and past conditioning.

[azuremist]

Hello! After seeing your helpful addition on the backup tutorial, I had a question. How much does the archive made from the backup weight, in relation to the amount of posts? I've been trying to find this information for months and never could, so I thought I'd ask someone with backup experience. Have a nice day :)

It says this information in the doc, but I’ll copy-paste it for you!

“The blog with 16 posts that took 57 minutes and was 19MBs in size from Tumblr Export, was 5MBs in size and took 10 seconds to process and download on Tumblr-utils. This difference can scale.”

So, loosely speaking, 16 posts is about 5MBs in size, which is significantly downsized from the official tumblr export.

Regarding storage space, I personally use a 5 terabyte My Passport external hard drive for storing my and my beloved’s tumblr archives, and the tumblr-utils data itself.

[astrxlfinale]

1. What made you pick up this character? 6. What’s the worst thing about the fandom? (I know you answered it already, but give me the 2nd or 3rd worst!) 16. What is your personal ship bias for your canon character? 17. Are there any ships you can’t stand, why?

Look at'cha giving me an even spread. (Even though I know you're eyezooming hard at those salt related ones I bet. :p)

That said Sae, let's get cracking!

1.What made you pick up this character?

Sweet and simple reason? Delinquent energy.

For my whole RP stint, (Say sans the exceptions of Sora and Thoma, but even THEN, I'd say they have the fine makings if you pay attention to those details.) that's naturally been the archetype that I've gravitated towards. I love the wild sense of freedom, a brazenness to clash firm against the status quo, a heart that's rowdy but authentic, time and time again I just find myself magnetized to this concept. And in kind? I see it in Caelus in spades. It made me want to devote to that core while gaining a firm understanding of the external and internal veins that truly make him stand out.

I have to say it's been a fun journey! All it took me was some solid time of just playing the game, seeing firsthand that kind of fire that lurks within them that I'd love to make better recognized. While it has been recco'd to me (to try the game) prior, it's only when I hop into matters myself and really embrace my immersion do the answers proceed to click for me.

So Caelus is certainly is here to stay as a beloved muse of mine.

6. What’s the worst thing about the fandom? (I know you answered it already, but give me the 2nd or 3rd worst!)

No see for this I always come prepared. (Lord what does that say about me. LMAO.) If there's one thing I believe that singlehandedly send Fandom experiences to high hell?

Keeping the need for validation unsanctioned.

This right here is where it gets personal from where I take it, where the ego gets involved, where the lines blur between what someone enjoys and how respect should naturally be taken into account, yet it never does. This has been a core reason that things like Ship Wars exist or why there's prolonged, extended arguments (dives into translations, etc etc) to have some point proven and never to be argued against. Why you'll see people take content and turn it into online gang wars, moreso just to drive out 'dissonance'. Sae, this is one of the top things that make me tired in fanbases.

People will choose not to respect spaces appropriately, the fight to prove something as 'canon' is not any pursuit of truth, it's simply to pat themselves on the ass for crushing any ~nonsensical point~ they found themselves personally detesting, for it hurts their feelings, it annoys them, it's an itch that cannot be ignored.

And it's often why when I catch some 'angles' of how people behave similar to this certain root of fandom behavior, that I intend to avoid them like the plague. It's a lack of respect and a desire to be obnoxious in lieu of trying to keep their own 'sanity' intact that things proceed to become unbearable. That said, I've noticed it's not even often based on any root to genuinely consider, rather, it's just to make them feel good.

Which if you WANT to look at it that way? Sure, by all means. Just understand that the World is big and that a baseline of respect can go the longest way for someone not making themselves look like a fuckwit. I primarily see this going for when people get their Favorites then proceed to say this character exist ONLY in one (their) way, in a fictional medium, where possibilities are meant to be explored to begin with!

16. What is your personal ship bias for your canon character?

Oh I came prepared for this one! See there happened to be an ask that also held curiosity on this matter. So! Lemme link that HERE for some insight!

17. Are there any ships you can’t stand, why?

When it comes to shipping? I'll go on a limb and say for Star Rail and Genshin there's no ships in themselves that incited ire and/or annoyance in me. Rather, it's the sheer level of hell they can respective attract (shoot, characters in their solitary can do the same) that proceeds to make me dive my face directly into a bundle of salt.

It's the artform of shipping in itself that I often seen get horrifically messy. Primarily in the realm of character bastardization, and in my opinion, how it's a far cry from what can actually be some fun, in-verse possibilities. That happens to be my core annoyance when it comes to things I'd enjoy. The base is always vested in the fandom flanderized alternates of said characters. I feel like I'm never getting a core, an idea where I can be like 'damn I never considered this before!' and more like 'Wow, it's the 200th time I seen a story of Thoma stuck in Ayato's basement. It's like they're the 50 shades caricatures AGAIN.'

So then I accept that reading is a dying art.

While I'll realistically understand that indulgence is what motivates things, everyone has their taste, and I have my damn right to say when I'm looking at some hot hell firsthand.

I'm someone who can be pretty reasonable with a wide range of ship possibility myself, and am down to explore bright pastures to wildly chaotic scenarios. That however, depends on the execution.

@araneitela

@kauma-kardia

[rubberbandballqueen]

that post where i remembered how downloading and installing a 1 GB game took one hour was kind of a monkey's paw curling bc i'm sitting here in this hotel, trying to get my beloved font collection back, but since i forgot to put it on my external hard drive backup, i have to download it from my google drive, and since it's 1.5 GB, it's gonna take. an hour and a half to download.

[philtstone]

Writer asks! 3, 6, 10, 16!

im soooo late to replying to this but. thank you beloved and here we go

#3 What’s your favorite fic that you’ve written?

this is such a hard and mean question but here are some top contenders:

"easy, easy (my man and me)" - claire and jamie build a treehouse in the backyard. it came to me so effortlessly and i am still proud of the prose. also i sent it to my beloved high school english teacher and he loved it which makes it special! i don't think he realized it was fanfic lol

"hopeful." - sam and bucky accidentally adopt a bunch of super kids in the sort-of apocalypse. not prosaically perfect necessarily but my first ever completed chapter fic! i put a lot of myself into this one and it got me through a pretty tough year emotionally, and on top of that im actually proud of it!

"my daddy was a prominent frogman" - frodo baggins and his friends try to save their hippie summer camp from the evil industrialists. listen. this au is evergreen. 5 years later i have been inspired to write for it again, because it was just that good.

#6 Are there any fics from others you reread all the time?

Yes! of course!!! a staple of the genre! i say this and immediately forget every fic i've ever read!

I think the true brain changing fics are ones that i reread once a year or every few years. alternatively, i'll read one fic 10 times in a month. i read "let our joys so multiply" by @fallofrainblog 5 times in a week once so that gets a shoutout. every so often i have to go back and read irnan's star wars fics for personal reasons. also, the legendary anne fic catching moonlight which i go back to about once every 2 years. hilarious how 2 of these are ancient ffnet gems but there u go

its weird bc a lot of fics i'll forget about for years and then suddenly be like "oh yeah that one changed my brain irreversibly. i wonder if it holds up" and then i go find it again and am generally confirmed that it does, indeed, hold up.

#10 Is there a fic that got a different response than you were expecting?

Hmmm! many of them, frankly. there are some fics i write as throw aways with no expectation they will get traction, like "shut your mouth, hold your breath" or the very silly ponniyin selvan road trip au. there are others which I know are niche but still wish they had more traction so i had more external drive to finish them, because in theory i love the concept but just don't have the internal juice to see it through to the end. the force sensitive claire au is one of those i think. there are still others which are for huge fandoms and i am left wondering why they feel totally lost to the void. but that's all part of the deal, i guess, and quite often more related to my own ignorance of what is currently trendy

#16 At what point in the process do you come up with titles?

it really depends on the fic but very very rarely is the title conceived before the story. maybe for original fiction -- actually exclusively for original fiction do i do that. for fanfics i write the fic and then in the seconds before i post on ao3 i hail mary a title out of whatever divine inspiration is in that moment directly beamed into my brain from the heavens. usually in the form of song lyrics.

[girderednerve]

okay these are workflow notes that i made for myself! they are about making podfic

record the thing. try to do it in one go somewhere that has consistent background noise, or break it up naturally—if breaking it up as chapters, drop in a label track & mark them out. leave ten or so seconds of contiguous silence in there. remember to put the pop filter on!

immediately export completed audacity recording **pre-editing** as a flac or whatever & dump it in some kind of labeled folder on the external hard drive ("[short title] raw")

normalize to max -1 or so. noise reduction using silence sample, then apply to whole recording. if you have individual tracks in one project for some reason normalize & reduce noise separately, then combine.

sync-lock the label track

edit that sucker! correct flubs/make a final decision on multiple line reads, silence or trim out loud breathing/background sounds/weird mouth noises where possible, check for timing, adjust volume. 3 seconds of full silence at section breaks & before new chapters. save at each section break or interruption in work or suffer disappointment

export a flac when you're done ("[short title] edit")

add in sound effects or music if you're doing that, being careful to match volume; remember sync-lock & track muting. retain credit info. also this is when you should make cover art

last-pass stuff (must be done on windows to use my beloved fish fillet plugins, whose retro interface is so charming): use envelope tool if that seems appropriate after primary editing -> de-ess using spitfish (remember to toggle 'listening' off before applying) -> compress using blockfish (quick speed, high volume, low saturation). listen through a couple different chunks of audio before applying to the whole piece, because it's slow as hell.

save, export flac/s ("[full fic title as it ought to appear in metadata]") & mp3/s. archive flac/s on external hard drive.

for smaller mp3s, update ID3 to include cover art using itunes or puddletag or whatever, upload to gdrive/mega & IA (also upload cover art), update metadata as needed, proceed to ao3 post.

[do on desktop, not laptop] for larger/multipart works, chunk out mp3s as appropriate & chapter-by-chapter (we love options! we love audacity Shift+Ctrl+L!). also export chapter-by-chapter flacs with detailed metadata ("Chapter # ChTitle"), rename files fictitle1.flac etc., save into a folder together with cover art, then break out m4b-tools in terminal. command structure: m4b-tool merge -vv --jobs=6 --audio-format=m4b --audio-bitrate=96k --audio-codec=libfdk_aac --audio-channels=2 "INPUTFILEDIRECTORY" --output-file="DESKTOP/FICNAME.m4b"

upload m4b plus maybe a zipped version to gdrive/mega/IA, editing metadata as needed. time to Post

for ao3: lazily copy html from one of your other fics, remember to apply private workskin Podfic1 to work, then update all the links to go where they're actually supposed to, add notes as desired/appropriate & invite polite criticism, preview & fix errors, post!

edit file names as needed, look through remaining project files & move to HDD or delete. do not keep that huge .aup on your internal drive you will not need it

m4b-tools works great but it took me so much trial & error to figure out the command structure that works for what i wanted to do, & i couldn't initially get it to install because one of its dependencies is archived code & so not available as a package, & i couldn't figure out how to make it work with the actually live fork of mp4v2. so thank you to my beautiful girlfriend for figuring that one out. i found very little guidance online about how to make an m4b with user-friendly FOSS options (like sure okay there's someone on the archlinux forum who thinks we should all just use ffmpeg! okay dude maybe we should but i'm stupid!); there may be better ways to do this than the one i chose but i'm happy with the result.

[silverjetsystm]

01 and 08 for the journal meme, please!

Diary Prompts | Accepting

01. the first entry they ever made.

Voice recording saved onto an external drive. Originally from a cassette tape, labeled with 3 January 2010 and the #1. Chucked in a box labeled "Cases 1" and put into storage. The voice is vibrant.

"I've kept journals before. Diaries. I would be remiss if I didn't start a new one for this brand new life. Recording cases seem easier than writing and so, here I am. This new direction I -- or we? -- are taking. Identity is a slippery thing. Now there are four of us. Myself, Ste.ven Grant. Jake Loc.kley, the cab driver and source of the 'word on the street.' Moon Kn.ight, our newest and the way forward. And the past, Marc Spe.ctor.

We have a base in Long Island. Purchased by myself. Built in the 20s with enough space to host and hide our secret identity. Continuing the whole illicit activities but for good, no?

Hired a housekeeper, Nedda, and she recommended a butler, Samuels, to maintain the property.

Duchamp put together a lovely helicopter so Moon Kni.ght can fly back and forth. It won't look out of place with the others flying in and out. The injuries from Bushman have healed. We're stronger than ever.

Marlene-" There's a giggle, a whisper of 'so serious~' followed by the sound of kissing and additional laughter. The tape ends.

08. entry made featuring their day/night at work.

Old small journal that once lived in the beloved cab's glovebox. The Yiddish is transliterated for convenience. The writing is small, using the steering wheel as the surface.

21st Adar 5770 [7 March 2010]

What does Grant even do? Host? Look at spreadsheets? Shake hands? Liquid lunches? It's the 21st century and he acts like a throwback. In the margins is elegant cursive 'and you aren't?'

Feh.

Early evening, Grant switches to me, Lockley, and I drive my cab as far away from his ostentatious (learned that from playing Crawley at Scrabble) mansion. What kind of guy names a house after himself? Schmendrick.

I can't be too hard on him. He did grease the wheels on getting me a medallion.

Job pays enough so I have my portion and give Gena good tips. It isn't about the money. Grant pays Crawley for his troubles. It's the principle of the thing.

If it's a Moon Kni.ght night, he clocks in with the tools in the trunk. Better him than me, flying around. If not, I go to Gena's around dawn and then go back to Grant's.

[ciitrinitas]

the saddest thing about getting a new laptop is that this new one only has a single drive inside of it. my prior one had three, and i obnoxiously gave them all urtv theme names (because including my external hard drive, it was a total of four, so i got all of my beloved variants).