My apologies that I have been absent in the art posting department for awhile--perhaps three weeks at this point. This was something I had no control over, as...........well, my laptop got hit with malware. I was unable to open my anti-virus program whatsoever and without that I was going NOWHERE NEAR the internet. I tried using my anti-virus' malware cleaner, which seemed to work for about two days before I was unable to open my anti-virus again. So, I was suspecting a really tenacious bit of malware. The thing was, if I wasn't able to open or run my anti-virus, I would never have known anything was wrong--everything else about my computer seemed to be running just as normally as ever. But without an anti-virus protecting me--who knows what would happen if I tried to go on the internet. It was better to be safe than sorry.

After struggling with finances and everything else in my life right now in the holiday season (most of which nonsense has been beyond my control), I took it to a professional computer place. They did a scan and stuff and said that it would be best to simply replace my hard drive entirely. Honestly, it was only about $30 more than the tune up thing, so I'm like, okay..........sure. So, my laptop was in the shop for a week. They replaced my current hard drive with something called a solid state drive--I don't know much of the difference, but as long as I do consistent backups, it won't be a problem. As much as I understand is that if an SSD goes, you can't recover from it, where a normal HDD you can sometimes salvage from the drive, even if the computer won't work anymore (which is what happened with my previous laptop--they had to salvage from my hard drive, even though the computer would no longer power on). I do tend to do weekly or bi-weekly backups to a separate drive, so I usually keep up on things that way. In the end, I am thinking of the future of my computers and what I will do when this one goes--although with a brand-new hard drive, it should last a few more years. In the end, a little over $200 is probably a better deal than $700-1000 for replacing a computer entirely--and having none of my data but for a backup drive save before I took it in (which I worry may be infected with the malware). shrug

While offline, I worked on some drawing in the more traditional manner. Revamping or redeveloping some of my worlds--so you may see some characters' folder changes over on Toyhou.se in the near future. As well as possibly seeing drawings of characters I've never drawn together in the same picture starting to occur more often. I also did a lot of grinding on video games--I've been playing "Digimon Survive", which is an interesting hybrid of visual novel and tactical RPG. It's quite a dark storyline, which I really wasn't expecting--since I kept myself in the dark on the game itself, in order to enjoy it more when I played it. I will probably do a NG+ playthrough, to see if I can save everyone, since you CANNOT save everyone the first time around.

I hope everyone has been well and taking care of themselves. I hope you're all getting ready for the holiday season and will be able to enjoy it with the people you love. Christmas is my absolute favorite time of the year, because it's all about giving presents to people, which I love to do all year round. :)