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izicodes · 2 years ago

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Coding A Simple Firefox Extension

Hiya! Today I want to share my experience creating a simple Firefox extension. I was a bit intimidated by the idea of creating an extension, but I was determined to give it a try! Been on my 'projects to-do' list for a long time! 😅

I found that the process was actually quite straightforward, and with some guidance from a couple of YouTube videos, I was able to create a working (temporary) extension in just an hour. My hope is that this post will serve as a helpful guide for anyone who is interested in creating their own Firefox extension~!

What exactly are we making?

We will be making a simple temporary extension - an extension that only you have access to e.g. end-users will not be able to use the extension. This is a way to test if your extension works and find issues. I might make another post on how to actually upload it for other people to use, but for now, this method is for you to use the extension.

This is the link to the official Mozilla Firefox 'Temporary installation' Guide' for extenisions - LINK

Now, for the steps into making the extension:

Setting up the development environment

Creating a manifest file

Adding a pop-up window

Attaching JavaScript functionality to a button

Load your extension in Firefox

Let's get started~!

Step 1 - Setting up the development environment

Obviously, you will need to have Firefox installed on your computer. You will also need a code editor, such as Visual Studio Code or Sublime Text, to write your code. I'm going to use VS Code.

In your code editor, create a new folder where you will store your extension files. You can name this folder whatever you like. For this example, I will call it 'Firefox Extension'. I also recommend adding the following files in the folder:

index.html (or in this case popup.html file)

icon image in .png or .jpg or similar formats

manifest.json - talked about in the next step

script.js

Step 2 - Creating a manifest file

The most important file I believe when creating an extension is the manifest JSON file. This file will contain metadata about your extension, including its name, version, and permissions. In your new folder, create a new file called "manifest.json".

This is the general structure of the file. The icon size you need to have is 48x48 pixel size image and then you can have others to be responsive to screensizes, I just added one extra. The 'browser_action' part includes the default icon image that will display an icon in the Firefox toolbar and the popup html file. In 'scripts', that is where we will add the JavaScript code to run.

Step 3 - Adding a pop-up window

The code simply displays the text "Hello World" and a button in the center of the window. I assume you're good at your HTML and CSS so I won't go into too much detail here but the CSS is in the style tags within the head tags and what we can see also is what is between the body tags - the 'Hello World' and the 'Click me!' button.

Don't forget to include the script tag at the end of the body tag so it'll link to the script.js file in your folder AND include "scripts": ["script.js"] in the manifest.json for the javascript code.

Step 4 - Attaching JavaScript functionality to a button

Again, I hope you very basic JavaScript. This code basically adds an event listener to the button with the ID "myBtn" (which is the button with 'Click me!' on it). When the button is clicked, it changes the heading 1 text from 'Hello World' to 'The button was clicked!'.

And that it! Done with all the coding part and now to upload it for you to use~!

Step 5 - Load your extension in Firefox

Open Firefox and type "about:debugging" in the address bar. This will open the Firefox Developer Tools page. Click the "This Firefox" section to the left of the page, then click "Load Temporary Add-on". Navigate to your extension folder and select the manifest.json file.

The extension is now loaded in Firefox! Click the icon in the toolbar to see your pop-up window!

Whenever you make changes to the extension, back on the Firefox Developer Tools page, click the 'Reload' button on your extension section and changes should show up!

I hope that this post has been helpful to you and that it has inspired you to create your own Firefox extension! 👩🏾‍💻💗 Remember, the most important thing is to have fun and experiment with different ideas - play with the colours or sizes or the javascript code! Don't be afraid to try new things and explore!!

Extra links that helped me learn:

How to build an extension for Firefox in less than 5 minutes [video]

Temporary installation in Firefox [webpage]

Thanks for reading 🥰💗

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marshallpupfan · 3 months ago

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Hopefully this isn't too weird or invasive a question, but I'm curious what draws you to Paw Patrol as an older fan, and also what your experience has been like in the fandom and as a collector? (I'm assuming you're an older fan and probably close to my age from the non-Paw Patrol media you share haha).

I am indeed one of its older fans, and I can think up a few reasons that keeps drawing me to it.

One I can say right away is the fact I have a big love for canines, thus I tend to gravitate towards anything with dogs (and wolves, depending on if they're heroes or villains). They make up plenty of my favorites characters, as some of you seen in one of my previous Asks, and I generally tend to enjoy things more when they're involved (a friend recently recommended an older game to me, which I enjoyed all the more because you got to travel around with your trusty dog).

Funnily enough, not too long ago, I took an interest in the Asterix and Obelix franchise because of its dog character, Dogmatix... and I was quite thrilled when I heard he was getting his own spinoff cartoon! Of course, it was only available in French at the time, but much to my luck, the first half of season one got dubbed in English and [officially] posted on Youtube, free to watch! I gave it a go, and I thought it was pretty good! If anyone's curious, click this link to check it out. And yes, this might've been a thinly-veiled attempt to talk about this cartoon somewhere, since there aren't many English-speaking fans. lol

Arquebus/Musketix is the best character.

But yeah, the pups are one of my biggest draws to PAW Patrol, and unlike some fans, I rather like it when other pups get added to the cast. Boomer and Claw both certainly helped renew some of my interest in the franchise, particularly during a time in which I felt things were going downhill. Hey, I just love dogs!

Obviously, Marshall's easily my biggest draw to PAW Patrol. I'll admit, I tend to take a far bigger interest in an episode when he actually gets some good attention... and it's why my interests start to wane when he doesn't. The dude's legit my #1 favorite animated character, so I suppose it's no surprise to hear I often tune in specifically for him. That's not to say I don't get enjoyment from the other pups, but I'm just so crazy about that spotted pup!

Another aspect that draws me to PAW Patrol is just how fun it tends to be (or used to be, but the modern seasons still have their moments). I don't want to go too deep into this because I don't want things to get too serious, but let's just say... life can be quite rough anymore, and it never seems to get much better. I often look for something that can help me escape that for a while, even if it's just for a half hour at a time. I found that PAW Patrol does that for me. It's cute, colorful, fun, doesn't try to be complex, and by the end, everything turns out okay. And if I need cheering up after a bad day, a certainly clumsy, spotted pup often always puts a smile on my face. Some days, I need that.

----

As for my experiences with the fandom, I'd say it's been largely positive. I do tend to meet a lot of friendly people, many of which tend to be supportive and/or cheerful when I need it, and I generally enjoy interacting with most of them right back! I certainly don't regret being a part of it for the last five years or so.

With that said, I've had encounters that certainly weren't pleasant. I think everyone knows about my copycat by this point, so no need to retread that old ground. There's one infamous user out there who just seems to hate everything (unless it involves Everest), and he often turns hostile if you don't agree with his opinions. The same dude even tried arguing and verbally attacking those who work on PAW Patrol... including their families, too! Crazy guy. I've also encountered some fans who seem to make stuff up, believe their headcanon to be fact, and then become angry when people don't agree with them. I once had someone tell me Ryder is "gaslighting" Rubble, and... I don't even want to know what that means or why they believe that.

And in-regards to being a collector, the reception I often encounter has been quite positive, too. Most fans really seem to enjoy seeing my collection, even if it's just out of curiosity to see just how much merchandise they made of one single pup. I still get compliments on it all the time, from both fans and non-fans of Marshall, and I've even seen other folks who just think it's legit cool.

Surprisingly, I've only had one negative encounter so far, and it was, believe it or not, from someone who used to be a fan of PAW Patrol. She became one of those folks who encountered bad users, got tired of them, and then decided every fan must be awful... and of course, she tore into me because I "talk too much" about Marshall and deemed me a "freak" for collecting so much merchandise. Most of what she said was largely laced with swears and insults, and I'm sure she believes she put me in my place or something... though in truth, I was laughing at most of her replies. Why she felt the need to throw such a temper tantrum on me, I'll never know, but she didn't succeed in even the slightest to discourage me or anything. lol

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psychiclounge · 10 months ago

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I don't see a whole lot of fanmission discussion on here, which is a bummer considering they're such a huge part of the classic Thief community and why it's endured so long. With some of the Black Parade hype recently, I think now is the perfect time for this- here's my personal list of TDP/TMA fanmission recs! Not in any particular order (aside from the first 3-5 or so for each game, which are my personal all-time favorites) these are just taken from my highest rated fanmissions in FMSel. Each one links to a Thief Guild page where you can find the mission briefing, screenshots, and downloads.

Thief Gold: Ascend the Dim Valley Endless Rain Rose Garden The Scarlet Cascabel The Black Parade Catacombs of Knoss Alcazar Chalice of Souls Making a Profit The Sound of a Burrick in a Room Whispers Below the Cobblestone Between These Dark Walls Dirty Money Falling, In Love Autumn in Lampfire Hills

Thief 2: Compulsory Egress Into the Odd Bad Debts, and its sequel Disorientation (part of the Talbot series by Melan, along with TG FM Rose Garden) The Violent End of Duncan Malveine Feast of Pilgrims Ominous Bequest, and its sequel Broken Triad Rose Cottage Behind Closed Doors The Turning of the Leaves King Abedzen's Tomb Legacy of Knoss (sequel to TG FM Catacombs of Knoss) The Ties That Bind (the first FM I recall ever playing and, imo, a cute introduction to FMs as a whole) Old Habits and Dead Wives Vanishing Point All For a Night's Sleep The Last Lighthouse Keeper Cracks in the Glass Bloodmist Tower Finals at the Academy Heist at Hilbert's Highrise Hotel The Sun Within and the Sun Without Malazar's Inscrutable Tower Ravensreach Coaxing the Spirit Keyhunt

Here's a TTLG thread on how to set up both games for playing FMs. I personally don't use any fancy loaders, FMSel will be what you get by default, it works perfect and is all you need. TTLG overall is just a great place to be, it's good for FM hints/walkthroughs/recs and general Thief/Looking Glass discussion.

Ideally you have T2Fix already installed, but for setting your game up for FMs, you should do a quick reinstall and make sure that two options are ticked: common script modules, and T2FMDML. T2FMDML is a collection of fixes for Thief 2 FMs that wouldn't otherwise play nice with NewDark, and the scripts as I understand are for FMs that need them but either come packaged with older versions or without the scripts at all- there's a lot of older FMs out there that will be broken for you if you don't have both installed. You can just rerun the T2Fix installer for this, you don't need to reinstall the game or anything.

Thief Guild is where all the links lead, and it's a great site for finding FMs. You can filter by genre (city, thieves' highway, cathedral, etc.) or look through the usermade collections- for a start, I'd recommend looking at the collections specifically to find classic/early FMs, a category that I know I'm not hitting on much in my list here but is definitely worth checking out if you're at all interested.

Bonus Dark Mod rec: The Dark Mod is a fanmade, free, Thief-inspired stealth game. I haven't played nearly as many missions for it as I have for Thief, but it's still absolutely worth checking out to see if it clicks for you. If you only play one TDM mission, though, my personal rec is Iris.

If you have any, add on with your own FM recs also! Feel free to send asks or dms about anything FM-related, as well ^^ I'm always looking for more to check out, and always open to talk about them if anyone wants.

#thief the dark project #thief the metal age #thief gold #hi if you saw the first list i just prettied it up and added individual links/a few more related links #hopefully posts with links aren't still being hidden in tags because wow is this one loaded with them #if any of them are incorrect lmk and ill fix it it was just. So many to do #enough people were interested in the original list that it makes me think this might be a Thing people want and not just like #me giving my unsolicited opinions in the main tags #if that's how it comes off then Oh well LMAO #ive played. many more fms than this list and i could have kept going but i wanted to keep it to ones i really loved or found memorable #or fun or a good introduction to fms in general #if you're playing fms for the first time hi have fun you've got So much more thief ahead of you. there's so much out there and it's a blast

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theneighborhoodwatch · 10 months ago

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Found this welcome theory video that i found interesting: https://youtu.be/9Lz6OcILeSc?si=tcPnCX3QC4JmAyC-

Thoughts :3?

(functional link to video)

i tend to avoid youtube coverage of welcome home because i'm petty, but fuck it, it's a new year and i've never actually heard of this youtuber before. i'll give it a shake. liveblog under the cut:

"y'know if it wasn't for the unsettling mysteries, the feeling that somebody is always watching you, and the mold.... i'd wanna live in the neighborhood" that's exactly why the mold and paranoia's so scary babeyyyy

"update number two" Tch.

i'm less inclined to call the writing in this update character development so much as it is just character establishment. especially since before the july 22nd update (bc that's what this video is about) all we knew about the other neighbors was what the WHRP was willing to tell us. i feel like i'm preaching to the choir though.

ok i laughed at the grindset alpha male howdy joke

"now i wanna move onto eddie bc i wanna make a connection between [eddie and howdy]" :D OH DO YOU NOW.

i do love the energy in this video, very infectious. i too have recommended people welcome home solely on the basis that they would have the hots for eddie and y'know what i haven't been wrong yet.

I WAS GONNA SAY SOMETHING ABOUT HOW LIKE. almost all of the characters have that backstory element of having coming from somewhere else before settling down in home, but i see the point about howdy and eddie specifically dealing with stuff that comes from someplace else as like, an actual job. putting a pin in it.

i'm not Sure how i feel about the idea that the world of home/the world in which home exists is Within our world? pretty much from the beginning i assumed it was running on re:creators/deltarune dark world rules (i.e. it is a world that was born from human thought and its existence is dependent on/influenced by our world, but at the end of the day it does exist on like a separate plane of reality) and i still stand by that. barbieland in barbie 2023 is a more apt comparison though.

"possession route" Tch.

ok actually i can't tch at that because i have talked about it in my own posts. TL;DR: i think possession/haunting theory could work but only if it's anything other than actual literal ghosts. as soon as you try to make it FNAF 2 i sleep.

don't have much to say about Real Poppy Lover Hours except emphatic smiling and nodding. although i will say i have seen people use "oh she's more like a mom/aunt/etc.!" as an excuse to sideline her in fanwork bc for some reason some folks think that her having a motherly personality means that she can't be shipped with anyone? even though all of home's residents are adults who aren't even related to each other? that's a gripe for another post, though.

THE CONCEPT OF SALLY BEING AS BIG AS POPPY IS KILLING ME. I PROMISE SHE'S SMALL SHE JUST HAS A BIGASS HEAD. she would want to be big though wouldn't she.

...actually now i want big sally. note to self to draw that later.

i do like the examination of whether or not sally referring to the audience is meant to mean anything. personally i think it's just a bit of wordplay/red herring action but You Never Know!

i misheard "girlboss bossgirl slay" as "girlboss boygirl slay" for like a split second. still fits tbh.

IT'S FUNNY THAT THEY MENTION THINKING THAT THE WHRP IS A SINGLE PERSON bc i do have an ask about that right after this. i'll save my thoughts for that response though.

it's funny that "was the majority of the gang being some form of queer/disabled/nd/etc. planned in-universe" is a question at all bc at the risk of sounding like an asshole it feels so obvious to me that it very much was not. the interview is definitely playing into those themes though.

"them <3" yeah

again. extremely refreshing to see a welcome home video from someone who actually likes welcome home instead of the clicks that covering it will give them.

BARNABY-SANS COMPARISON IS... DISTRESSINGLY APPROPRIATE.

he always knows when to show up, huh.... huh.... i've been trying to break away from being so self-referential ever since welcome home and consequently this blog blew up but. huh...

do i think he's a service dog? i think to answer that question we would first have to answer the question of whether or not he's even a Dog or just Shaped Like A Dog. the laws of his reality say he is a dog, but we can at least guess that even even those can't be trusted. i think it's possible that he may see himself as in service to wally, that he worries about what will happen if he doesn't butt in, but i don't know if this is an objective truth.

"[wally] being so mysterious i don't think is like, him wanting to be mysterious. [...] there just may not be that much about him." and then relating that to how typically protagonists in puppet shows have more subdued personalities than their co-stars so they can be more relatable to the audience. Teehee. (this is positive)

oh there's something kind of poetic about the idea that each bug video ends bc wally's snapped out of his dissociation by one of his friends calling his name when paired with the idea that he's disassociating in part due to his connection with the audience isn't there. being reminded of one's own personhood through your connections with others, and how that has the potential to become more bittersweet the more wally continues to risk it in the process of regaining a sense of purpose as The Audience Surrogate. oogh. that's just me waxing poetic though.

oooh that whole passage about the idea of remembrance and the pursuit of a "correct" story and tying that back into how welcome home in-universe has been almost universally forgotten and the themes of living as a disabled or mentally ill or queer person. beautiful connection.

"hmmm, how much agency do you have in your life actually" AHEHEHE. HEHEHEHE. HEHE.

conclusion: Good Video. thank you for sending it.

#anonymous #ask #welcome home #wh speculation

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mgnifiqueyoo · 1 year ago

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— "old friend."

requested by: @lluvjjun pairing: zb1 taerae x fem!reader song recommendation: hello (adele) lowercase is intended…

— a/n: so i'm back again with my second zb1 oneshot! (which is so angsty and honestly, pretty realistic this time btw but oh, well- luv me some angst T.T) and i just wanted to clarify that i'm a multi so y'all can always request for other groups as well such as p1harmony, xikers, boys planet trainees, etc. + also, u might really not care about how i felt about this oneshot but damn, i had tears in my eyes so i hope you all enjoy it! </3

[ total words: 2.5k ]

click here to support me on ko-fi! ☕ click on this g.form link to request!

───── ❝ ❞ ─────

“... oh?”

opening the front door of your home after hearing a knock or two, you found yourself a little confused when you were met with your seatmate’s gaze. it was christmas eve and the simple dinner between you and your family had just ended, which meant you were returning to your normal life, asking yourself if santa could even give you what you wished for. — maybe a different way of living where you could afford anything you’ve laid your eyes on.

but even the elves would think that’s more impossible than riding a bunch of floating reindeers.

“merry christmas, i guess?” taerae chuckled, still holding out a neatly wrapped present in both of his hands. the box’s red cover shone under the dim light above the two of you as he continued to encourage you in taking it from him.

you never expected anyone to give you a present, especially since you’ve never gotten one after your father passed away. “... what made you think of… doing that?” you shyly questioned his initial ideas about this as his eyes looked up at the ceiling, probably searching for an answer as he bit his bottom lip, his fingertips tapping across the sides of the box. “well… i saw the way you looked at chaehyun last week and i thought that maybe i could make your christmas a little better.”

“you didn’t have to-”

“oh, but i wanted to,” he butted in quickly, not letting you finish your way of denying the present as he even pushed it further, waiting for you to just take it. “and i really do want you to open this in front of me.”

“why? i mean, isn’t that weird? it’s the middle of the night,” you retaliated, making him chuckle as he didn’t seem convinced with your excuse. “... but if that makes you feel better, then i’ll do it.”

you had no other reason for you to not take the gift as the anticipation slowly grew in you, tearing off the wrapping paper from the box. carefully, you lifted its lid as taerae’s eyes were soon fixated on the way your eyes widened at what’s inside of it. — it had a clutch-sized teddy bear; perfectly sewn to fit in your arms without it having to feel either too big or too small as you put down the box on the floor, holding the stuffed animal closer to you.

"... so, how does he feel? how does mr. ted feel?" taerae's eyes glimmered in excitement, eager to know what you'd tell him about the teddy bear his own hands created. in return, you chuckled, tightening the way you hugged the toy. "he feels like christmas." you answered, smiling back at the boy in front of you as he stared at you with belief; with so much fondness that no one could ever explain in words.

"merry christmas, taerae."

and now, you're staring into the distance, disappointed at how messy your room is. it's been six years since you took that christmas gift. to this day, you still knew that specific christmas eve stood out from the rest.

because somebody actually thought of giving you at least one thing.

“mom, please, i don't really have the budget right now," you pleaded, gripping your phone tightly as you continued to still clean up your room. you're looking for something you could get money from. being a waitress at a local, small coffee shop is not quite the answer for situations like this. "... i'll call you back once i get paid, okay? i just have nothing at the moment."

while you're at seoul trying to survive in a shitty apartment, your family is left stuck with raging debts after your father died. — you could tell that it really wasn’t the best decision for him to not even give your mother a chance to work for the family; there was always an insecurity laying beneath his motifs.

and now, you don’t even know what to do. your mother had been asking you for extra cash and your sister had been switching odd jobs here and there. the most surprising thing was the fact that you were the “stable one” compared to the two.

it’s disheartening to think of it.

a waitress being the stable one in the family.

“... ah, shit.” you muttered a curse, burying your face in your still dirty, unwashed palms in frustration. you were your family’s only chance in surviving such a poor life.

heading towards the cabinets, you pulled out a few more boxes. it baffles you that you’ve been living here for two years already and you’ve never even finished arranging your belongings but that’s not so surprising. you didn’t even finish school.

as all of the packed, still taped up boxes were taken out, you decided to look into them with questions circling your head. — what are the ones that’ll make everyone interested? which ones would make up for your rent? so many questions, so little time.

but while you took a few things out of the box, you were suddenly hit with a blast from the past; like a gust of lonely wind.

he’s there.

mr. ted was still here with you.

you backed away from it, taking a better look at it from afar rather than too close. you could already feel your eyes itch just by seeing it, the allergies worsening the longer you stared at the now dusty, slightly gray care bear that used to be so full of life before.

but it all had to end someday.

and it already did.

"... huh…" you tilted your head to the side, pulling it from the box. you almost couldn't remember how you kept it there, let alone how long it stayed there. nonetheless, it was a pity that two people from a memorable, almost a decade of friendship would just fade to dust… just like the ones that covered the bear’s golden fur in years.

you asked yourself, was the choice you made the right one? was it for the better, just like how you told yourself, your other friends, and most importantly, him?

younger you would’ve stood by her choice.

but this is the present and you know that you’ve taken the wrong route.

puffing your cheeks out in frustration, you picked up your phone from the mattress of your bed, which felt so used and replaceable already but somehow, you couldn’t afford to change it. you’ve been sleeping on that bed since you were nine. people around you would advise that maybe spending a few cash wouldn’t hurt and sometimes, you thought they were right.

yet in the end of the day, you always tell yourself that you just can’t. — why? because you just had nothing. not even a shoulder to lean your head on. not anyone but yourself. and people with everything in their soft, soaped palms won’t get that! they can’t even bring themselves to realize that people like you are just trying to make living life feel a little less miserable.

now, you’re here.

you’re walking in circles, staring at nothing but the bright yet cracked screen of your old iPhone 5 as you read his name over and over while trying to come up with a choice. another choice that’d decide your fate.

‘kim taerae… kim taerae? can i talk to kim taerae?’ your inner voice was almost as monotone as ever as you found yourself still lost in the sea of choices again.

can you talk to kim taerae? that question can be answered easily: yes, you can. but here comes a much more difficult situation – should you talk to him after everything? you’re not even surprised that he has someone sitting next to him with a bright smile on her face, maybe as bright as his. an unfamiliar girl but an obvious message for you.

he’s moved on.

good for him, right?

“can you promise me something?” taerae spoke, the uncertainty was in his voice as he seemed to be fearing the next few things you were about to tell him. it disturbed you. it was the first time he’s ever sounded so serious about something.

something you’re not ready to find out. “friends will always keep each other’s promises,” you cluelessly said back, even smiling back at him so cheekily that taerae had a glimpse of hope. — that maybe everything will turn back to normal if things don’t go his way.

“i think i’m in love with you, y/n.”

you didn’t know what even was real and not. were these words really coming out of taerae’s mouth? did taerae, your best friend, just tell you that he thinks he’s in love with you?

and the first thing you asked yourself was how.

how did he even think that?

“i know it sounds crazy but,” taerae quickly gave an excuse for it as he approaches your hands with his, his thumb pressing against your soft palm. it almost convinced you into smiling back at him but all you did was stare, visibly terrified over what he just told you. “but it’s what i feel… it’s what i feel about you-”

“what?” you weren’t thinking straight that time. you weren’t sure if you liked him back or not but he was always important to you. always; to the point that you were scared of this happening as if you’d already expected it. “... i don’t get it, what do you mean?”

the second time you asked him, he just froze like radio static. your confusion started getting to him, haunting him with the single-worded response that he’d hate to hear from you – no.

“it’s nothing.”

“taerae, i-”

“let’s just,” taerae cuts you off, tightening the strap of his backpack as his eyes dared to never look back at you ever again, “let’s just forget about all of this, okay?”

well, you tried.

but that day kept on repeating in your head that it was impossible to not at least think about it and from the looks of it, he felt the same. the distance between the two of you was just getting farther and farther until you couldn’t even remember each other’s birthdays. yet at the same time, you were always in each other’s minds with one wish.

wishing to be called by the other once.

“taerae!” you shouted from the crowds and he barely even heard you. the rest of your classmates were waving goodbye at him, excited for him to take in the trophy after an international talent competition, where everybody expected him to take home at least one gold medal from it.

and there was another call… and another.

oh?

and another as you watched him get into the bus, not even looking back at your direction. you told yourself that maybe he just didn’t hear you. maybe your voice just wasn’t loud enough. — in the end, at least you tried to patch things up even though you had no clue that it was the last time you’d ever see taerae in person.

“hey, maybe i shouldn’t!” you blurted out in the middle of your room, breathing deeply as you just couldn’t control yourself from scrolling down his posts; by now, he’s gotten five golden medals from differently, yearly major vocal competitions overseas. you could never say it in words or a bunch of facebook posts how proud you are of him.

you wished you were there with him, helping him accomplish these goals he once had pinned down on a bulletin board from third grade. you wished that you were the one who sat next to him, giving him a pep talk before he came up that stage to steal the show from every other singer around.

you wished you’ve touched the skies that hovered above him.

but you were too far down.

forgotten.

“... oh, who am i kidding? he’s not gonna respond anyway. he’s too far up there now,” you told yourself, letting out a groan before jumping on your bed, torn between asking him how he’s been and just letting him live his new life; the life where you never existed at all. “god, this is all my fault…” regret was starting to take over again. it was like you couldn’t call a normal day “normal” if you hadn’t considered regretting anything.

you could tell that your life was already a few steps away from being a complete failure… well, that was until you looked back at your phone.

widening your eyes, there was a flood of terror, humiliation, and regret (yet again) in our mind as several airy curses come out of your mouth. you weren’t sure if you should start throwing a fit or start planning in deleting your facebook account. — who uses facebook anymore these days, right? well… you.

and apparently, taerae as well.

“what the fuck? no!” you belted out as if you were a soprano, burying your face once again in your palms after seeing a blue thumb on one of taerae’s older posts.

great job, y/n.

you just liked his post after six years of not even mentioning each other’s names.

“why… why did i do that?" this was the moment where you actually wanted to dig a hole in the ground, live in there, and never ever come back. — and well, in the real world, you can’t really do anything as extreme as that, which isn’t as embarrassing as the fact that you just accidentally liked one of your ex-best friend’s posts from last year. “ugh… i just hope he ignores it… god, this is the worst.”

ping!

you took in a deep breath, letting out a mixture of both a groan and a sigh as you accepted your fate; he saw it… and god, why did he even respond?

and in just a span of ten minutes, that conversation ended. you knew deep inside that none of this was easy to take in. he’s already living his dream life, he’s got tons of people who’d support him no matter what, and he even has this perfect girlfriend who wanted to meet you for the sake of getting to know who taerae is… and who he used to be.

you clutched your phone close to your chest, laying on your back as you stared at the dull ceiling of your room. you wondered how your life turned into something like this. — why did the circumstances bring you down lower than before? why did it turn so different from taerae’s? what was holding you back?

even though you wouldn’t admit it, you always knew the answer.

and it was the fear of that big change that held you in your place.

“... maybe this is it,” you told yourself, sitting up from the bed as you stared at the dusty boxes that were still left unopened, “maybe it’s time for me to change things for the better.” saying those words felt like a foggy evening was clearing up as you took in one last deep breath, ready to face anything without having to look back.

this was it.

you’re ready for change.

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candied-cae · 1 year ago

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Support For Palestine - No $$$ Needed!

Firstly, I highly recommend This Site, That Will Donate With One Click! (Seriously, no signing up, no inputing information, no costs, just press the button, I used it myself and you can revisit it every 24 hrs! So try to bookmark it or keep the tab open!)

And secondly, I recommend contacting your representatives in government and advocating for the millions of innocents currently facing danger in the Gaza Strip.

Joseph Biden, in a recent address, acknowledged that the "overwhelming majority of Palestinians had nothing to do with Hamas". I believe this time, right now, is our chance to try and break through our decades long, wrongfully given, support of the Ethnic Cleansing of the Gaza Strip. So I urge you, anyone with even just the time to spare, to try. Plead. Demand. At the worst, you tried and lost a little bit of time. At the best... maybe some people don't die.

So, I wrote a twt thread with instructions/advice for American Residents to reach out to their local representatives as simply, easily, and quickly as possible, and I wanted to share that same info here. I promise I only wants a few minutes of your time.

You can use this White House Contact Page to send one message to Biden and another to Harris. Just fill in your info and you can either write your own message, or feel free to copy and paste mine (it'll be at the bottom of this post)! The focus is first demanding that the US withdraws its support of the Israeli State.

Next, you can use this Common Cause page and instantly get all the information to reach out to your local representatives, it even tells you which committees they sit on! Just put in your address and it'll use that to find which jurisdictions you're in and provide links to all their contact pages. Again, fill in your info, some of mine also required a Topic, so I selected either "Foreign Relations/Affairs" or "Civil Rights and Humanities" and put in my message.

I clicked through all of mine, sent in my messages, used the exact same ones for all of them, only adding an additional note for my most direct representative as I grew up in the same town and wanted to express that to hopefully assist in drawing on his humanity, and it only took me about 30 minutes to get through.

Personally, I wanted to scream and rage and throw my whole beating angry heart at them and their gross, racist bigotry that allowed them to not only neglect the issue of the Israeli Occupation, but fund it. The US has been aiding Israel in their ceaselessly cruel genocide against the Palestinian people, and I'm sure it lights a white-hot fury in many of us. But, I wrote this plea with as much restraint and grace as I could bring myself to allow, if only for the sake of them possibly listening instead of tuning it out.

My statement -

Subject : We Cannot Support a Genocidal Ethnic Cleansing

To the Office of _________ -

I am pleading with the governing powers in place to help the people of Palestine. The government in Israel has said not only with their actions, by committing multitudes of War Crimes and breaking the Geneva Convention repeatedly, but even in their own words that they intend to entirely decimate and wipe out the citizens of Gaza. They have already killed and injured thousands in only these last few days - to say nothing of the past 7 decades they have spent doing the very same - and this devastation is a human rights violation like something we have never seen to this degree being supported and under-reported. Especially by the American Government, which has always held its citizens to the belief that they are a good and just organization that stands for humanity wherever it can.

We have already lost so many innocents in Palestine, but there are still so many that can be spared and saved if our government can withdraw its support of the Israeli Occupation. If they can inform their citizens of the truth that has been happening for so, so very long.

The U.S. has been wrong in its history of supporting and ignoring the cruelty that has been taking place for so long. But only by righting ourselves, by admitting and accepting that the financial aid we've sent has, at this point, become a sunken investment without the extermination of the Palestinian people. It hurts to lose so much money, it hurts to admit we've been on the wrong side of history, but the only way to stop the damage from growing exponentially worse, is to address it honestly now.

This is not about Judaism. This is not about Jewish people by ethnicity or religious affiliation. This is not about Nazism or Antisemitism.

This is about the colonizing power of the IDF that has been ignored and allowed for almost a century.

Please. Try to save some of them before it's too late.

This comes from a concerned citizen who is feeling extremely devastated by the state of things currently.

As a human being, who I hope cares for the lives of fellow human beings, we cannot allow this to happen. Least of all with our seal of approval.

-[Your Name and any Salutations]

#Please Repost #If there are any other questions do not hesitate to ask for help!#I will offer whatever I can to assist in making sure we can get as many voices to ring #From the River to the Sea Palestine Will Be Free #Free Palestine #All my heart goes out to the people of Palestine #To the people currently in Gaza and to their friends and family who cannot help them right now #And though many of us don't have the spare money to donate to their aid #and many of us might not be in areas to attend protests #and many of us know it's difficult to get the people in power to listen to helping the most people if it doesn't bring in money #And the US has already put in so much of an investment. It's going to take a lot of voices to get them to accept that loss.#But we have to try #I believe we just have to #Palestine #Palestinians #Pro-Palestine #Palestinian Support #Politics #American Politics

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thegraysquirrel · 1 year ago

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Title in Progress

(Foreword: Hi! (^.^)/ I got semi-challenged into writing some sort of Fanfic Dissertation since I've been dropping large comments on AO3 that kind of count as an essay but in my opinion not quite, so I tried my hand at an actual essay on a topic of my own choice.

This is for the fandom Genshin Impact (Video Game) and in particular for a fanfic about the pairing Childe/Lumine that had gripped me and still has a hold on me. The following below is 3.5k words in which I try to take someone along for the journey of reading said fic.

If you don't know anything about the fandom in question but feel curious to read my insights anyway, there are links in the body of the text and me pointing out when to read it. I do dive into more general theory on why I picked this subject in particular for an essay that's not exclusive to this fandom. Otherwise, feel free to skip past it.)

What is the first thing you make note of when deciding if you’ll read a fic? What can make or break clicking on a fic for you if all the other parts were the same? There are a handful of things I focus on when deciding to read a fic:

The title

The summary

The tags

There are more factors, of course. Some people factor in it being recommended by others, amount of bookmarks or kudos or comments, but all of those are influenced by fandom while the title, summary, and the tags are solely the choice of the author. They are the representatives of the fic itself, and some are diplomatic and serious in their duty for it while others are a reflection of… being close to the people in how unhinged it can get (I say this with great affection!).

For today’s fanfic dissertation, I want to take you along to tackling one of my most favourite parts of a fic when thinking about what to comment: the fic title. I could ramble for a long while about various differences in fics with titles for their story, their chapters, or lack of a title. Perhaps you are thinking of a particular fic which title you hold close? Did it have meaning to you prior to reading or did it only get that after you read the fic?

Let’s dive in:

no amount of fear will keep you safe by dovelious

What’s your first thought when reading this title? What kind of themes might it tackle and what contents might the story keep its focus on? Since the title isn’t the only representative of the fic, I’ll hand you the summary and the tags as well since I had them when diving in:

There will not be a peaceful ending to their story. Their final confrontation will test every limit they have. This is the climax of his story, and it is just another chapter in hers. But in this world nothing is ever for certain, and they can only hope it will end with their hearts intact. (Lumine thinks about what circumstances will lead to childe’s final fight on teyvat.)

With this extra info, it’s time to type out a first thought on the meaning of the title and, by extent, what the author considers an important part of the story.

The story title is something that you could find in a fluffy fic of learning about bravery, especially if the perspective of the title is from Lumine (who holds the perspective in the summary). With the death tag, however, it’s prudent to look at it through an angst-y pair of glasses. I’ve done the legwork for us and added something that might have been kept silent for both our characters:

About Childe: No amount of fear will keep you safe (from dying) About Lumine: No amount of fear will keep you safe (from grieving)

I have a big reason to think of it as being from Lumine’s perspective beyond the argument of the summary being from hers, too. Childe doesn’t seem afraid of dying to the point of throwing himself into battles with anyone strong. The only fear he might seem to have is fear for his family’s wellbeing, which might likely extend to Lumine as they grow closer. That, however, feels like a reach but it would become:

No amount of fear (from me for your wellbeing) will keep you safe

It’s still a possibility, of course. What is a given here is that there is a major character death and it won’t be Lumine’s. Whether it’s Childe’s or that of another important character remains a question phrased with desperate hope, I’d wager that the title is important to the two main characters—they’re the two main characters, after all! So, the angst-y pair of glasses will do its work: Childe will die in the end. Let’s bring in the first chapter title to continue this discussion:

allies or enemies? this will be the death of me

It doesn’t matter if Lumine and Childe are on the same side or opposing sides, Ajax will meet his end. As enemies, I can see it clearly too; Lumine survived with two elements against Childe in the Golden House (who admittedly didn’t go all-in from the start, but the point remains that he failed to finish the fight). At the end of her journey, she will have seven elements and have fought and won against more gods and harbingers than Childe has. If they fight as enemies at the end, Childe will lose. If Lumine were an ally, though? The fate of the world is balancing on this and there will be bloodshed to ensure a better world—apparently, Childe will be unable to keep up with Lumine and lose his life in a double battle.

About Lumine: Are we allies or enemies? I’ll survive this, but I won’t come out the same on the other end. About Childe: Are we allies or enemies? It doesn’t matter which, this will be the death of me. Literally.

This is something Lumine would ponder; the Big Thoughts™ on Childe’s inevitable fate compared to the inevitability of her own long, long life. Whether this will be the death of her in the fluffy sense of Childe working on her nerves with his cheer or in the angsty sense of making her care about him and then dying, Lumine will live on with the memories.

I won’t copy paste the chapter, but if you’ve been discovering this fic as you’ve been following along with me, this is the moment to progress to reading that first chapter.

Lumine knows she’s important to Childe because she has eyes. Lumine thinks further ahead after Childe sought her out to spend time adventuring with. She’s going to be a big part of his story, while he remains contained to one chapter, and that difference in scope? It might creep up on Lumine just how far Childe is willing to go for something as short-sighted as “fighting to the death” with a comrade. She might not even be aware of Childe being the death of her, in a way.

Maybe you knew already, maybe you didn’t, but when you search for the fic title on the internet, you’ll find it’s a lyric from Keep You Safe by the Crane Wives. The same can be said for the chapter’s title: Allies or Enemies also by the Crane Wives.

Of course, the title has a bigger chance of remaining important to the overall story while the chapter titles are usually contained to one chapter, so let’s start big again with the story title and then wind our way down to the chapter title.

Listen to the song, open up the lyrics and see if there are things jumping out to you. I did the same and can offer you this:

When I watched my friends/ Rise to the tops of the trees/ With the risk of fall

When Lumine watches her friend Childe rise to the top of the world with the risk of death, she isn’t ready for it. No matter how strong Lumine is, she never wants to rise to the top of the world; she just wants to find her brother.

Time is not your friend

“Though we need not rush, sister. I have more than enough time to wait for you. We have always... had enough time.”

Time had always been a friend to Lumine or worst case scenario: a stranger. There are now people Lumine will care about who do not have enough time to wait for her and there will come a time when it’s impossible for her to wait for them (because they are long gone). If she takes having time for granted, it will stab her in the back in due time. It’s neither friend nor stranger but a secret third thing: an adversary.

The older I get/ The more fears I collect/ I gather them from/ All the people I meet/ Their stories reveal/ Regrets their smiles can’t conceal/ I carry them/ I carry them with me

There is a reason Childe is a chapter in Lumine’s life. She will carry him with her, as the moments with him were enough to be worth a chapter. Childe will be the death of her, and Childe will give her a fear she did not have before meeting him.

What if the steps I take turn out to be mistakes?

What if when she flips the coin in a decisive battle, it lands on the wrong side?

“Come what may.”

This is something Childe has long since mastered. If he dies, he dies. If he doesn’t, he’ll find a next battle. If they spend the night together at the beach, come what may, Childe will make the best of it.

Title: no amount of fear will keep you safe

No amount of fear will keep Lumine safe from continuing on in Teyvat, and then it might just be Childe who will, come what may, brave the risk of falling down, down, down.

We took a look at the song behind the fic’s title, so what about the song behind the first chapter’s title? Play it in the background, open up the lyrics, whatever floats your boat.

Instead of picking out lyrics as I did with the previous song, I’m asking a question. What do you consider among the most important things to have happened this chapter?

I have multiple things I notice. Childe makes Lumine promise they will fight one final battle together (as allies? Or as enemies?) before she leaves. Though Paimon was hesitant to take Childe up on travelling together temporarily, Lumine had little problem with it. Why? Because meeting Teucer gave her a new insight. Childe hearing about Lumine’s brother gives him a new insight. I propose that the song is not a reflection of Childe and Lumine’s current predicament. Instead, the song is a reflection of a character most impactful to the chapter and in this case, it’s Aether.

Aether and Lumine are at the end stage of the song, being together as kids and now not knowing if they are allies or enemies. It's the crux of this chapter—yes, it's great that Childe and Lumine are travelling together and that Lumine confides in Childe with her reason for getting stronger, but that's the centerpiece: Lumine can't fight with Aether and if she would have to go separate ways from him, period, it will be the death of her. Aether appears so shortly, but he's lurking in the narrative and is a focal point for Lumine and her connection to Aether of allies or enemies.

As for Childe and Lumine? They are at the start stage of the song. They're at the stage of being able to crack up and smile instead of holding on to the fight between them or staring at the other as they wonder if they should clap each other on the shoulder or drive a blade through it. Because they are at the start, they are going to head for the end of the song too, and Lumine and Aether's connection of allies and enemies will be reflected and paralleled in the relationship Lumine and Childe will build up.

(That’s my guess going of the title, tags, summary, and this first chapter and its title anyway. I’ve been right in my predictions and I’ve been wrong. I think there is a reason for the tag Lumine & Aether as well as Childe & Lumine, and it’s paralleled with this chapter title.)

I’ve got another thought about this chapter’s title, but since I’ve only come to realize the hypothesis after reading the second, let’s march onwards to chapter two.

safe ship, harbored

Since there was a theme with the previous two titles, it’s an easy choice to do an internet search and find that it is yet another song by The Crane Wives, creating a theme thus far for the two of seven chapters planned. To listen to the song on YouTube, click here, and find the lyrics here.

What does it mean, a safe ship harboured? Like all of us shippers know, a ship wants to set sail to truly be alive, whether through fandom or crumbs of interactions from canon. It can be dangerous to go out there, but the alternative means the ship is stagnant.

When I read the song, I am reminded of one person in particular.

The Tsaritsa.

She is a ship Childe should not waste his bottle on for blessings. Where does his faith fall in her? She lost all of her good years on that throne while the Fatui planned and planned for centuries for this, and she hasn’t fared across the world all that time. She is the Goddess of Love, yet she hasn’t seen the people in Teyvat to love as the plans unfold and cause death and desolation. She is not born a safe ship; she is made one because Celestia cost her everything.

I then proceeded to read up to the second paragraph—I suggest you do the same.

My verdict after reading it is that the Tsaritsa absolutely is the safe ship in the harbour (an archon safe on her throne in the palace). Lumine proves she herself isn’t a ship safe in the harbour by being on the move: last chapter, she was in Liyue and right now, she is in Snezhnaya and braving the worst blizzard to get to the throne room.

The question I was left with is if it will be Lumine who withholds the bottle of blessings on the ship or if that’s our favourite Harbinger. I’m holding out for Childe because to Lumine, the Tsaritsa is just another archon. To Childe, it’s been the archon at the ice palace that will finish what she started centuries ago. When glancing at the tags, you’ll note that there is a Childe & Tsaritsa tag, signalling that their relationship is important to a section of this story, and that’s why I’m rooting for something this chapter for Childe.

Take this as your signal to read the second chapter in full. I’ll be talking about its contents, whenever it comes up now.

Childe had the choice between dying for his Tsaritsa or yielding. As if he understood the message his Tsaritsa is silently screaming to her followers, Childe opted not to waste his life to bless the Tsaritsa on a journey she might not even make. Childe yielded, and Lumine even hints that the Tsaritsa wanted to teach Childe a lesson here. Don’t break the bottle, don’t waste your blessings on me.

Now that we’ve got most of the second chapter out of the way, we can make a short side-step and make ties to the previous chapter and overall story.

The thought of bloodthirsty blue eyes crossed her mind, and she gripped her blade tighter. [...] This will not be an easy fight, and she knows that delaying the inevitable will not get her anywhere.

There are soft call backs to the story title's song in this chapter: time is not your friend, and delaying the inevitable will not make you braver. So Lumine does not delay and moves forward.

This chapter's title: safe ship, harbored, ties so nicely with the story title. no amount of fear will keep you safe. The ship might be in the harbour, it might be seen as safe, but its fear of setting out in the harsh world won't keep it safe because danger will find its way to it eventually.

(The danger here, of course, being Lumine.)

Similarly, no amount of fear would keep Lumine safe in her battle with Childe, but for the time being, it was keeping Childe safe. Lumine defeated three Harbingers already and mentioned that the numbers of Fatui had thinned—I doubt she has given the other Harbingers the same grace she gave Childe, because even when he is an enemy he’s an ally. A friend. Something she reminded herself of by getting that mask off so she saw her friend Childe instead of the imposing enemy Harbinger. I know how I will interpret it, but it’s up to you what you read between the lines.

At the end of the chapter, Lumine and Childe make plans to travel together. What does that mean in the context of this chapter’s title?

Instead of staying safe in the Snezhnaya, they set out on their dangerous journey. Instead of staying docked in the harbour, they set sail with the risk of getting hurt, and seem to avoid what happened to the Tsaritsa. Remember, however, that the Tsaritsa was not born a safe ship. Something or someone wore her down, and it could be “Celestia” being the culprit but most importantly: losing someone very dear to her broke her. Just like the previous chapter seemed to have Lumine and Childe at the start of the narrative of the song, it could be the case here. They go around the world, but one of them will sink and the other will remain docked in the harbour because of the scars that experience left. With it being the end of Childe’s story and only the end of a chapter in Lumine’s, you can fill in the blanks who of the two becomes a safe ship, harbored.

This brings me to the final metatextual point: this whole fic’s premise. #thinking about all the ways childes character will end.... All these chapter titles and other relationships so far have been warning signs of Lumine’s (and Childe’s) future, similar to how certain aspects in the game’s narratives have been warning signs of Childe’s future, particularly how he’s toeing the line with death. The chapter titles all have a bearing on someone else’s present and are the writing on the wall for Lumine and Childe’s possible future.

Since you read Genshin fic, you’re likely playing Genshin Impact. In the various quests and hidden in the lore that describes the history of Teyvat through books, weapons, artifacts and other writings, you’ll find that the same stories are happening over and over again. I’d argue that every time a story gets repeated, though, it goes just a fraction better. (Alhaitham’s story quest has Alhaitham, whose design and characterization is inspired by King Deshret, outright rejecting the collective consciousness King Deshret worked towards with the Golden Slumber. I have high hopes for Mondstadt to end up differently than Khaenri’ah, what with all the parallels between Aether’s connection to Khaenri’ah, ours to Mondstadt, and just general connections between Khaenri’ah and Mondstadt.) The people in the current stories make a better choice and avoid greater tragedy than those in the past. That’s why I can’t lose hope that all these warning signs of death to Childe and warning signs of isolation for Lumine remain that: they take the better path because those in the past took the tragic road.

And if it does end up with Ajax dying far too young, then the warning signs were all there. While I can’t say, “I knew it,” I did know it remained a possibility. Even though I’ve thrown all these words of analysis on the titles in the fic, and I will do so on future chapter titles too, I’m no closer to finding the answer of how this fic will end. Future chapter titles will prove if the current theme I’ve settled on will hold:

The song is by the Crane Wives

The title is primarily about someone else or a relationship Childe or Lumine has with someone else

The title is secondarily about Childe and Lumine, acting as a warning sign of their future

I have many, many more thoughts about the fic, but they don’t revolve around the subject I carved out as my focus: titles. I will, however, point you to read the first chapter again and then read the last scene between Lumine and Childe in chapter two. The parallels. Read it again, and then look down:

Talking while watching the stars (Lumine's home, in a sense) - talking while watching the snow (Snezhnaya, Ajax's home). Lumine sharing a part she doesn't tell just anyone (her most important person: Aether. He hasn't showed up yet, but he's so important, lurking in the narrative, being Lumine's main quest) and then Ajax doing the same here, with the sun rising (his name! something he still has of before he became Fatui. Before he got lost in bloodshed. Before he fell in the abyss. When he was a bright-eyed kid listening to legends told by his father when ice fishing). Childe reached out to Lumine to travel together for a bit in chapter one and in chapter two, Lumine reaches out to Childe to travel together for a bit. So many delicious parallels that, just like Childe said in chapter one that Lumine is important to him, it’s clear in chapter two that he is important to Lumine.

I’ll wrap it up now, as this has reached beyond what could fit in two comments on AO3.

The title is the first thing we see as a reader, yet it might very well have been the last thing the writer decided on for their story. The title is the beginning and the end, as we uncover more and more through the story about what the author considered—one way or another—the most important representation of it. The title is just a random combination of words at the start you hold no connection to, yet as you progress though the story, your understanding of the fic grows with every word, every paragraph, every chapter and everything else you can get your hands on as being meaningful to the title.

Somewhere down the line, the random combination of words will hold meaning of its own. Somewhere down the line, the title in progress just became the title and heart of the story.

#Chilumi #Genshin Impact #Lumine #Childe #Tartaglia #gray and the adventure of commenting #I'm also quite chuffed about the meta of my own title #I also just want someone to screech with about the fic #It's a bit introspective about both Lumine and Childe so far #AND other characters too which reflects back on them #I've been losing my mind over it and am due a reread

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bluewinnerangel · 2 years ago

Note

right back at ya cowboy

Omg ella I'm so sorry I was gonna do this "later" and then it got buried. OK. I clicked. EDIT: I JUST FOUND THIS IN MY DRAFTS IM DOUBLE SORRY lol imma expose my ramble draft

[So in case someone's reading this thinking ???? we sometimes throw a spinning wheel of songs at each other and then just go rambling yelling analysing whatever it gives back. I've kept track with this tag, feel free to copy any of them wheels links and go off or bug someone with it actually pls do]

Oh you mean that song I for some reason like some total idiot put on first thing in the morning and just bawl my eyes out, you know when its so early you're just so vulnerable and everything feels raw and there's no thoughts just something primal happens and it's me drowning myself in this song and then the day can start I guess am I fine nobody knows. It's now my Saturday morning ritual where before coffee I see some sun and I just bawl there's something therapeutic about it. I'd recommend it. Just some sun some coffee brewin some confused pet wondering if you're OK yeah.

Anyway. The song I can place extremely easily in like "1d ended and it sucked" context, but it works with a lot. whatever I can think of him, or anyone, writing about, whatever it means to me. (general Louis' songwriting ramble incoming:) I'm looking at FITF differently compared to Walls and previous work and he's approached it differently, I feel like what he's been saying about his discography fits that as well. I think (this is a mash of what i think to hear in his lyrics and in interviews, so heavy paraphrasing:) before he had this idea he should be writing where the whole thing makes sense to be about this one situation/idea and it has to be about him too and sure perhaps a context might have been written around it, but i think in the past hes been pretty perfectionist on having every single line fit the thing he was thinking of what that song is, and now thats no longer the case. Now it's whatever works, whatever hits, feels, does it. It doesn't matter one thought/situation flows into another.

I guess that was a long rambley way of saying I wanna do line by line lyric analyses of his stuff but I don't know how to make that work as it did previously, for me at least. But on the other by temporarily running with one interpretation and seeing what you can find in the lines can really help see more angles, bring more depth to the line, and consider other meanings and stuff so.. idk not much wrong with it. I wanna do that too I think. This is I guess A Promise I'll do a Holding On To Heartache lyric breakdown. At Some Point. :D

But I think his choices of words and soundscapes and perhaps all them being little references are just wonderful. I cherish it so much. I'm slightly afraid he did the same in Perfect Now (like after seeing a web of possible perfect now lyrical referencing that song did become one of my favs as I love that idea like it gives so much more body depth meaning whatever to a song to me even if not on purpose lol its not even relevant at that point anymore anyway) and long term didn't value it much so now I'm afraid my new little more poppy fav will be his new neglected child but time will tell. Just... have an itch. Rip. EDIT yeah that itch got worse because of the track by track we got now.. it's got that bit about HOTH being a poppy one and the way he's talking about it sigh i feel him but sigh also hes sigh i dont wannt start that discourse over that shit so no. but itch. I uh... luckily don't let how I interpret his reactions to his own songs affect the way I feel about his own songs haha brainpayne this.

ok ok ok last ramble it sounds so fucking liquid? so wet?? how do I explain this why does it sound w e t EDIT: help me he said the sound is like a guitar under water like he's drowning it's flooding we're in a puddle of tears this song, it's what makes me bawl I think, because the song sounds like bawling, and your cheeks are puffed up and we,t and you find a moment of quiet and stare up at the sky with your wet lashes exhausted defeated but you're still here you're still breathing. Also the bridge with the "space between us just comes FLOODING back" at the end of it, it's not the bit that hits the hardest in an obvious way, instead it kinda gets overlooked a way, theres no moment to sit and waddle in the SHIT FLOODING BACK RIGHT THERE it just goes right into the quiet bit again,there's no time given to recover from getting crushed by the wavesm and it just does something to me... I can't leave that bit as the little end of a big thought it sounds like, but the way its sung... time just keeps ticking and we're at the end. I'm almost sure that wasn't intentional and like @ me why focus on this of all the overwhelm that's in this song, but that just feels like a reflection of the feeling I get from this song, you're just fucking sitting there in the middle of this overwhelming ache these waves of hurt and shit just moves on and youre just there stuck there with but i wasn't done? But I guess I should be? Like there's no room for me drowning in this even more but I feel like I need to still?

ramble out.

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skarifikator · 10 months ago

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hey! i found you thru your neocities site and really really wanted to ask, how did you code your art gallery? it's lovely and perfect and i high-key want to steal it

THANK YOU FIRST OF ALL!

secondly... I wish i could give you a comprehensive answer but truth is since i worked on it for over a year i don't remember everything i did? a lot of the things i achieve with my markup is based on trial and error and testing different solutions. i don't actually know what i'm doing lol. i use a lot of tutorials and old forum posts and such and i wish i could just link those but when so much time has passed i can't remember everything i looked up. HOWEVER i'll try my best to provide some basic guidance to what's what, and what it does in my markup, to make it easier if you want to copy my shoestring bullshit. (and past how embarrassing it is that my markup is so messy and inefficient, i have no problem with anyone referencing my source or even copy pasting whole chunks of it to have a base to work from if they wanna make something similar to me. no credit needed ofc , just don't use any of my assets or style it the exact same, make it your own! )

THIS IS GONNA BE A LONG POST SORRY SO I'M GONNA HAVE TO PUT THE REST OF IT UNDER A "KEEP READING" , ANYTHING ELSE WOULD BE INHUMANE...

here are links to the relevant sources for the page, there's also another stylesheet linked but this is just a very basic one for my website that has my fonts and scrollbar styling so it's not important here.

view-source:https://korsse.neocities.org/gallery view-source:https://korsse.neocities.org/sidebarstyle.css

(no idea if these links will work for you or if its different per browser or what, if they don't just go to my gallery and right-click view source or inspect or smth)

btw before reading further its useful to know that i use https://www.w3schools.com/ a lot (playing around with the tryit editor is really helpful to understand HOW shit works. sometimes i even make the basic structure i want in the w3s editor isolated from the rest of my messy markup to ensure i get the basics of it to work before i integrate. this way i know that if it breaks it's because it's conflicting with other shit on the page and not because i fundamentally fucked up. ) and i'm just going to assume you know the basics of stuff like what a div is and the difference between class and id etc...

my gallery is largely based on 3 main types of thing(?) : modal images, tabs and collapsible.

THUMBNAILS AND MODALS

my thumbnails are also css, (I KNOW the method i used for my thumbs is something i got off some forum post or reddit comment or substack or whatever, i can't find it again though.) HOWEVER I would not recommend doing thumbnails the way i did because you do not get an appealing custom crop (or i guess you probably could in theory but to do that for every image would be more work than its worth) and because considering it's really just the full image sized down and cropped with styling, it takes a long ass time to load. ( the only reason i do it this way is to not have to make, edit and host individual thumbnails for 6 years worth of art. it's a real menial task to do when you'd have to do it for over 400 images ) but if you need uniform sized thumbnails the best way to do it afaik is to make them in whatever graphics editor you have. i'm unsure if this would be compatible with image modals ( as constructed in the w3s tutorial ) but if not you could probably just make a box modal do the same thing and have the thumbnails be buttons styled with inline css like this:

to make them work as thumbnails though you'd have to make all the dimensions of the actual image file for each thumbnail true to the pixel height/width you'd want them to display as on the page and use css to style all the buttons to be those same dimensions. this will interfere with other buttons on the page but you can probably get around this with making a button class. like for example if your thumbnails are 100x100px you slap this in your css

button.thumb {width:100px; height:100px;}

and add this to the button tag

HOWEVER... this might mean you'd have to make a new modal (on the html side) for every single image so it's probably not ideal if you're gonna have over 400 images like i do... there should be ways to make multiple modals on the same page not a nightmare but you'd have to keep track of unique ids for each one at the very least.

here are both links to the basic w3s modal image and modal box tutorials for convenience.

wish i could have explained what i did better but the modal was like the first thing i did,

and was kind of a nightmare to figure out because i originally wanted it to display a description using the alt text styled in a very specific way that i ended up scrapping because it was broken as fuck and evil and bad. (cw: gore in the bg of the image below btw)

my memory has been corrupted so that the battle with the alt text is all i remember from making it rather than the useful stuff that survived into the current version lololol.

tabs

ok now we're getting into the layout of the page itself. my gallery consists of a sidebar and the page content

in the sidebar the bottom two boxes have the universal stuff that goes on every page that has the sidebar, and the links are just normal links to individual pages. but the top box with the red "links" is the gallery navigation right? and they are not links at all, they're buttons to designated tabs.

for the BASIC layout of the page, it's split into two divs called "sidenav" and "main". [sidenav] is everything that goes in the sidebar space and [main] is literally everything else. there should be nothing directly in the [main] div except for other divs, it is merely a container for the tabs. each and every "page" is a tab, including the "Art" tab that is open by default (i might be wrong but iirc what tab is open by default is simply decided by which one is first in the html document i am so so wrong, it's determined by id in the javascript.)

tab buttons go inside the sidenav div and tabcontent goes inside the main div. i have my tabs styled as inline-block, i can't remember if it matters that much or not but you know... considering what inline-block is, it probably does?

tabcontent contains everything the visitor will see, for most of my gallery tabs this means thumbnails. my thumbnails are laid out in a grid using div classes called "row" and "column" four [column] divs go inside one [row] with one thumbnail directly inside each [column] div. each new line of thumbnails is a new [row] div with another 4 [columns] and their contents, you get it, it's not complicated, just verbose. there are lots of other less amateur ways you can display shit in a grid layout using html/css but my brain is small so this works for me!! :,D

even though they might seem intimidating with the javascript required, tabs in general are pretty simple if you follow the w3s tutorial (there's even one specifically for vertical tabs) . just make sure to keep all the contents of each tab INSIDE said tab and it shouldn't cause much trouble.

since my gallery is so bloated with image links and such i thought i'd also link this example page ( and the source: view-source:https://korsse.neocities.org/temp/exampleignorethis ) i made on the fly for someone else a long time ago. its just a hodgepodge of copy pasted w3s stuff to quickly show off a navbar with tabs and "accordions" (more or less the same thing as collapsible just called smth different in a menu context?) but it's kind of a simple version of the same stuff i did with my gallery? perhaps it can be useful for you as an example, perhaps not. but i might as well link it just in case lol.

collapsibles

the doodle tab also has collapsibles! idk if you even care about this but it's part of my gallery and one of the more fun features that isn't present in your average neocities gallery page. (talking out my ass, maybe they are super common idk, i haven't checked)

the collapsible aren't any more complicated than tabs, and their integration into my gallery isn't any worse than putting the buttons and collapsible content div inside the tabcontent and putting the thumbnails inside the collapsible content div. style as desired with css to make it look the way you want. i didn't do anything too fancy with it. once again easy-peasy if you use the w3s tutorial

uhhh i think that's it? there is more stuff i could explain but i have very little experience with writing explanations like this so i'll leave it at this to start. but don't hesitate to ask if there's anything specific you found confusing, or anything else about how my gallery works that you want me to go into ! ik i could have been more concise but i'd be here all day retyping stuff so i hope u could bear with my long wall of text, i'm not a writer ^^' (i'm a rambler). good luck on your webpage endeavors!

#askbox #the tumblr post editor was being so fucking mean to me while making this lmao

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windvexer · 2 years ago

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just scrolled through some of your account after serpentandthreads recommended you! cant say i was disappointed, i thoroughly enjoy the detailed nature of your posts. i do also have a few questions, but none are innately related to witchcraft, moreso you as a more experienced tumblr user. if you dont feel comfortable answering any of these, i totally understand!

1) when someone reblogs one of your posts and adds their own tags, can you see the added tags similarly to how you're notified when someone adds onto your post?

2) for the "submit a post" feature, how do you feel about this? should we not use it in general, or if we can- should we recommend others' posts to you, or our own for your opinion? (if you are willing to give it of course)

3) do you have any other accounts you recommend? i'm looking to build my following list so i can actually refresh my dashboard lol. no preference as to subjects, but im mainly looking for informative blogs vice casual blogs.

if you have taken the time to read and/or answer any of this, i greatly appreciate it. if you dont- its totally understandable! regardless, i hope you have a wonderful day/night !! (sorry if my message is difficult to read, i'm shit at writing lmfao)

Depending on your notification settings, yes, you will be alerted of tags. On desktop you can see tags in two places: the quick-view drop down bar (that looks like the lightning bolt), and your activity page (click on the head-and-shoulders icon, then select "Activity," which is between Followers and Drafts).

In notes, tags added to your posts will be slightly gray and always include the #. Regular content added to a reblog will be solid, not-faded text and won't include the #.

Post submission is uncommonly used and mainly seen in community-aggregate type accounts, for example if someone was maintaining a candle spell blog and people submit posts to it. Even so, Asks seem to be more commonly used.

Generally, if you want someone to check out content, on Tumblr you might post a link and @ them, like "hey this seems interesting, any thoughts?", or send an Ask inquiring as to if a person wants to review certain content.

On average however I say sending content to people is only common between people who already have some level of relationship (they reblog each other's posts, engage in the same social circles, etc).

I myself enjoy discussing ideas, but I don't think I'd want to engage in publicly "reviewing" the posts of others, especially if they're made by a third party who didn't ask to have their posts reviewed. I think I would be more comfortable having ideas sent through Asks as more of a regular discussion.

A great way to develop community discussion on ideas is to make your own posts, stating the ideas that you're interested in talking about, and asking specific open-ended questions, such as, "does anyone have thoughts on the structure of this ritual?" or "I'm trying to understand X, are there any thoughts as to why it's included in this?"

At this time I've got to get rolling on my day so unfortunately no account recs.

#answered

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thorraborinn · 3 years ago

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I’ve been wondering, is there anything historical to suggest that ritual cleansing was important in Old Norse religion? I’ve seen many heathens online state that one absolutely must spiritually cleanse oneself before approaching the gods (how?), that the cleanliness of Vikings was evidence of this, that one must be spiritually pure, etc…it sounds a lot like sin to me, and not being worthy? I know sometimes water is sprinkled before a ritual, why? Thank you for your insight.

I'm long-forming this one because I think there's stuff underlying this question that isn't apparent on the surface. The rest behind the cut.

In Eyrbyggja saga, Þórólfr Mostrarskegg declares Helgafell ('Holy-mountain') so sacred that nobody is allowed to even look at it if they're unwashed, nor is anyone or anything allowed to be killed there; and where he sets up the regional þing-stead he declares it so sacred that not only is nobody allowed to fight there, but nobody can even take a poop there, and have to go out to a little island (called "Shit-Skerry") if nature called. All this was only enforceable insofar as people were afraid of pissing Þórólfr off, and eventually when Þórólfr and the first generation of settlers dies and the next generation is left to either uphold this tradition or not, tensions actually escalate to violence, ruining the holiness of the þing-stead by spilling blood there. Afterward, they realize they let things get out of control -- while threatening (succeeding? it isn't clear) to take a shit on the sacred site was deliberately crossing the line, the demands for observing the sacred state of the site were too stringent and an act of arrogance on Þórólfr's part, and everyone can agree that the site is defiled by the very avoidable violence. They meet and discuss what to do. They make a new place to hold the þing further up the peninsula, and determine that they can drop a deuce without completely vacating the whole site. Not only that, but allegedly human sacrifices happened there, meanings violence and bloodshed, even if in a restricted capacity, was allowed there. Yet, they all agreed that this was no less sacred than the place Þórólfr had founded.

All this seems to suggest that the people who settled the area did have a concept of some kind of ritual purity, but that it had more to do with agreed-upon norms and consensus than getting spiritual shmutz on you. A couple more points here. Þórólfr's demand that people be washed if they're going to look at Helgafell means literally, physically washed. He was the hierarchically highest of a party of people in a new land that, unlike the land he'd vacated, had no stories attached to it and its places and his insistence on making a big deal out of a place without any history is a somewhat arbitrary expression of his own power.

Another thing is that the saga uses the term ganga álfrek as a euphemism for shitting. This means something like 'to go driving away elves.' There may have been an element here, not of poop conferring a metaphysical impurity, but an extension of its regular impurity. It seems elves might be repelled by shit, which I don't think demands metaphysical explanation, given that I too am repelled by shit.

Most likely it isn't sin that the "heathens online" that you mention are modeling this on, but rather miasma. That link is to a modern Julian Hellenistic website, and explains it better than I can or care to, so if you're not familiar with the concept I recommend clicking and reading a bit before reading the rest of this post.

There's a contingent of heathens whose heathenry is just Neoplatonic Hellenism with all of the keywords translated into a Germanic language, and they have a tendency to present themselves like representatives of the ancient folkways of the north. It seems to be a way to recuperate some of the fake pan-heathen prescriptivism that was lost by nobody taking the idea of a reconstructable Proto-Germanic religion seriously anymore. They cherry-pick whatever they can from Norse and Old English literature to make their argument stick, rather than read the sagas as having value of their own. I don't think that they think that this is what they're doing, I think they just think that Neoplatonic Hellenism is the correct religion, or that "Polytheism" or "Paganism" is a religion and that the Greek and Roman sources are the best-documented witnesses to it. I think it's really unfortunate that we have these heathens who have such a low opinion of their own predecessors that they think that have nothing unique and useful to contribute to understanding the world. I'm going to write the rest of this on the assumption that that's whose commentary you've been reading.

I don't think it's unlikely that there was some kind of purification that may have been done at certain times or in certain places in Scandinavia, but I have two major objections to importing the entire apparatus of miasma and katharsis into the distant past of northern Europe. One is that, as we saw in the episode from Eyrbyggja saga, there was never any mechanism for enforcing this kind of standardization across the whole sphere of what we call "heathenry." It could have happened within certain areas, or more specific contexts like some types of ritual specialists, but there's no Norse Hesiod, and if there were, he'd have a hard time getting the whole of Scandinavia to care what he says.

The other is that I don't think heathens even had a cosmology that preconditioned it, at least in the sense of an idealistic Hellenic thought-world. I don't know about the world of Hesiod referenced in the page I linked to, or Homer where there is also evidence for this worldview, but by the time of people like Plotinus and Iamblichus who contributed to the Neoplatonic Hellenism that is influential in polytheist circles these days, there was a highly advanced cosmology including the immortal divine human soul; the perfect, transcendent world of forms; and gods who are eternal, unchanging, and incapable of error. In fact, Chrysippus, a stoic (so, not an idealist like the Neoplatonics), thought the whole thing was an irrational separation of humans from animals, which makes me wonder to what degree this push for Hellenistic Heathenry is a reaction to the rise of animistic heathenry.

Further, according to Robert Parker's Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion, the whole thing was critiqued by philosophers who "made it their ideal to 'live in agreement with nature' (326). Evidently Herodotus thought that observing the rules about miasma and katharsis was what distinguished "civilized" people (the Greeks and Egyptians) from the other uncivilized people... which most certainly would have included Germanic people. Admittedly it isn't like Herodotus is the best witness to Germanic peoples' day-to-day, but this kind of firm separation of the "human" or "cultural" spheres of existence from the "animal" or "natural" spheres are not something that can really be upheld for Germanic people, especially if we are to work with the proposal that they were broadly animistic.

Like I said earlier, there isn't really anything terribly unlikely about pre-Christian heathens doing some kind of rituals that could be described as "purifying" in some sense. It's not uncommon worldwide. It's evident that fire was important in some ritual capacities, such as circling land with fire to claim land (numerous examples including Eyrbyggja, also Landnámabók) and bearing the horn of ale about the fire when toasts are made (saga Hákonar goða). We don't know why they did these things exactly, and something something "purification" is a decent guess, but that doesn't require us to import a whole worldview about the descent of spirit from the highest celestial spheres -- this could easily operate on the same level as don't shit where the elves are, that's gross and rude.

We also certainly have reason to believe there were ritual preparations in a very general sense, like the völva in Eiríks saga rauða eating a heart from every animal on the farm, and it isn't far-fetched to imagine a trip to the sauna or bathhouse or hot spring ahead of a ritual or especially as treatment for illness, and that could have been conceived as driving out bad spirits or substances. Yet, again, we can explain all this without deferring to Greece and Rome. We know Norse people believed in parts of the self that are not embodied in flesh, but that doesn't mean they were immaterial or supernatural in the original sense of being "beyond" or "above" nature.

But anyway, going back to the original question, but keeping all of this in mind. No, we have no ancient songs telling us that Zeus Óðinn won't accept sacrifices that were made without us being spiritually purified first. If a heathen wants to argue that, they're going to have to actually argue for it, not just take it for granted. Personally, I don't buy it. It sounds to me like a good way to make sure that contact with the deities is limited to a select group of people performing to a certain standard of respectability. I also don't worship transcendental, unchanging, unerring gods any more than I have a pure, immortal, transcendent soul. I do believe in maintaining good relations with people, including (but not limited to) non-embodied people, and some of them might prefer if I not smell like shit, so that can be a way to show respect but that's a matter of maintaining those relations as in the case of Eyrbyggja saga. If they could negotiate the standards to maintain the holiness of the place then there aren't fixed, eternal, unchanging rules.

I drew on "Purity and Danger in Earliest Iceland" by Kevin Wanner and the aforementioned Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion by Robert Parker.

#ask #anon #heathenry

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spikeface · 3 months ago

Text

I'm obsessed with this essay.

This quote is its thesis: deep reading is uncommon, and good, and its impact is visible in the people who do it. I clicked on the link because I was curious about what else the author had to say, and also because I didn't want to be one of those adults who don't read. That sounds bad, and what Henderson promises sounds good: subtlety! weaving! various domains!

I was not prepared for what I found.

The first thing Henderson gives you is a picture of some books:

Immediately, you gasp: Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, Mao Zedong! The Cold War, the Third Reich, ancient Rome! Such staggering complexity and variety!

Perhaps you notice Henderson's own book in this pile. How impressive, that he's read his own book! How does the man do it???

If you're clamoring to know, you're not alone. "People sometimes ask me, 'Rob, how do you read so much?'" he explains modestly, so he thought it would be useful to make an essay entitled "How I Read."

The answer?

One page at a time, like anyone else:

Readers and Twitter/X followers see how frequently I post my readings or see my recommended books and assume there must be a secret. There’s no secret. Years ago, I read How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler. He described reading a book as being “in conversation” with the author. But reading has the added benefit of allowing you to concentrate deeply, move as fast or as slowly through an argument or idea as you want, and formulate and reformulate your thoughts as you move through the text. In a given year, I read about 40-50 books cover to cover, read excerpts and chapters of perhaps another 100 or so, and skim many more. I also read psychology papers and other academic texts. I read multiple books concurrently. Typically 2 or 3 physical books I cycle through, with one I devote most of my attention to. I also have 2 other books I read on the Kindle app on my phone. Waiting in line at the store. In between sets at the gym. Traveling on the train or an uber. All this time adds up. You can spend 5 or 10 minutes scrolling, or read a couple of pages of a good book. I recommend the latter.

He's so brilliant that people assume he must be naturally gifted, but he's actually a humble book-looker. Here is a number of books he has read. Here is another number of chapters. Here is the only reference he makes to Adler's text--one of the pile--and it's a weighty one: a reader is in conversation with the author. Oh, how thrilling! Aren't you excited to see how he's in conversation with all these authors and their "complex and intricate" ideas? He converses with them in between sets at the gym, just FYI.

This section also introduces his thesis: reading is good because it allows you to "concentrate deeply.”

Also, "scrolling" is worse than reading. This is very important. Anything besides reading is worse than reading. Twitter is worse. Audiobooks are worse.

Henderson's proof? A Twitter quote about audiobooks:

What about audiobooks? I like this post from Naval Ravikant:

He’s right.

I love this comparison because drinking your vegetables is famously also good for you. It's just fine, if that's how you'd like to get your greens! How beautiful to live in a world where we can drink kale smoothies.

Not so, for Henderson:

Reading requires a lot of effort and practice. Hearing language versus reading it engages different mental processes. Reading forces you to move more slowly. If an author explains an idea to you, the constraints of natural conversation mean that you can’t just pause for 10 minutes while you think deeply about what he or she just said and then subsequently resume the discussion. Books enable you to do that. Of course, you can pause on audiobook and think about what the author just said. Often, though, listening to audiobooks is accompanied by other tasks, making it harder to devote 100% of your attention to the ideas being discussed or the story being told. Listening to audiobooks is easier. And it’s better than nothing. But if you want to seriously engage with ideas and increase the likelihood that you’ll retain knowledge, it’s better to read.

Audiobooks are bad because people don't engage with them. They don't pause and think about what the author said, because they're too busy doing Other Tasks while they listen. This is what all people who listen to audiobooks are doing everywhere all the time. No one who listens to audiobooks does so because it's actually easier for them to process the information that way. They only listen to avoid processing the information. The solution to this is not to engage deeply with audiobooks but not to listen to audiobooks.

Audiobooks, like TV, movies, and podcasts, are not kale but "junk food," Henderson claims, by way of a quote from a Medium essay (Medium informs me it is an 8-minute-read).

He does, of course, listen to podcasts, but they're not the same thing as reading, which he proves by quoting a podcast:

Dwarkesh Patel: Okay. Let me ask a meta question. What do you think podcasts are for? What is happening?

Tyler Cowen: To anaesthetize people? To feel they're learning something? To put them to sleep. So they can exercise and not feel like idiots. Occasionally to learn something. To keep themselves entertained while doing busy work of some kind...

Dwarkesh Patel: Okay, but is your own podcast a complement to actual intellectual inquiry?

Tyler Cowen: I don't assume that it is. I think of it as a very high-class form of entertainment.

“Very high-class form of entertainment.” More flattering than “junk food.”

Finally, Janan Ganesh writes:

"People are willing to do almost anything other than read at length...At the same time, no one relishes being ignorant or incurious...One way of squaring these opposing impulses is to give things that aren’t books the intellectual status of books."

The Ganesh quote is from an article from the Financial Times, which I can't access because I haven't paid for a subscription. This will become more relevant in a bit.

Right after these quotes is when we get the original excerpt. Henderson waxes on about the importance of reading. Nothing can replace it. Podcasts etc. can only supplement it: "So if I’m reading a book by, say, Melissa Kearney, I’ll also listen to her interviews. This helps the information to stick."

What information, you might wonder? How does the interview help it stick? He doesn't say. Kearney is in his list of books, though, so he's engaged deeply with her work. Elsewhere.

He does, however, engage in some detail with James Clear, author of the book at the bottom of his pile:

If you’re just starting out, focus on building habit first. In Atomic Habits, James Clear writes, “If you show up at the gym 5 days in a row—even for 2 minutes—you're casting votes for your new identity. You’re not worried about getting in shape. You’re focused on becoming the type of person who doesn’t miss workouts.”

The same goes for reading. In the beginning, don’t focus on volume. Don’t focus on trying to read a specific book in a specific amount of time. Focus instead on the concrete and the practical. For example, each day you could schedule a time to sit down and read at least ten pages. If that’s too much, try five. If that’s too much, then start with one page. Then go from there.

In my case, I wake up in the morning and read as I drink coffee. This is how I start the day. I tell myself I’ll read at least 25 pages (it used to be 15 in grad school).

Clear breaks down a goal into an approachable practice: if your goal is to be in shape, focus on creating a habit of going to the gym, even if only for two minutes.

Henderson's recommended habit is similarly practical: read, even if only for a little bit (perhaps a mere 15 pages--his grad school number, in case you didn't know he went to grad school).

But what is his goal?

Henderson praises reading as a way to engage with "complex and intricate" ideas--an engagement so complex it apparently can't be replicated in another medium--but when he breaks it down, reading is a numbers game. "In the beginning, don't focus on volume," he advises. Start with a small number. Later, if you persist, it will become a bigger number.

How do you pick what to read? How do you take notes on a text? What do you do after you "pause if [you] encounter an especially interesting passage or idea?" Henderson is not interested in answering these questions, at least not in an essay entitled "How I Read."

His advice, after "read at least ten pages," is not to download games or social media on your phone. In fact, the smartest idea is to have two phones, a normal and reasonable thing to do. He gets this idea from a tweet:

Or experiment with variants of George Mack’s cocaine phone and kale phone strategy, wherein he carries his “kale phone” most of the time and only allows himself access to his “cocaine phone” at specific points in the day:

• Kale Phone - Full stack serotonin. Only notes, Kindle, Uber, Maps, and emergency number for 2-3 people to call. • Cocaine Phone - Full stack dopamine. Twitter. Instagram. TikTok. WhatsApp. Anyone can contact.

To be fair, Henderson allows that not everyone has two phones money, or even books money. He has suggestions there as well:

What about money? For me, books are similar to food. A necessity. Even when I was broke, I still bought books and still read a lot. When I was a kid, before I started making my own money, I regularly visited the school library and the local library. My teachers were sometimes confounded by me because I never did homework and generally earned poor grades but would understand references they made to books they hadn’t assigned to class. Nowadays, if I see a book that interests me, I always just buy it. The upside of interesting and useful new information vastly outweighs the downside of being out $20 or $30 dollars. Sometimes I buy books and they turn out to be uninteresting or fail to hold my attention. I place it in a pile. Every couple of months, once the stack reaches around 6-10 books, I’ll then donate them to a local used book seller. He allows me to trade them for 1 or 2 used books from the store. If I couldn’t afford books, I’d spend much more time at the library. I’d download them from libgen. I’d physically steal them if I had to.

The important thing is to acquire the books. The best way to do this is by buying them, but other methods are acceptable if you can't drop $20-30 whenever. Steal if you have to. The important thing is to have a pile of books, because then you can take a picture of it.

That's maybe unfair of me to say. It's not, after all, what Henderson says, just what he shows. What he says is that volume is necessary to find meaning:

I don’t finish every book I start. I skim. I’ll read a chunk of a book, place it on my shelf, and then pick it up two years later and continue. There have been a couple of occasions where I’d read the first page of a book, found it dull, and donated it. More than a year later, I bought it again, and read the whole thing in a few days. Sometimes, you have to be ready for a book. Most of what you read won’t be especially interesting or insightful. You have to crush a lot of rock to get to the gems. Deep learning demands effort. If you want to possess a large mental universe of knowledge from which to draw, you have to consume a lot of information. This requires focused reading.

This part of the essay made me so sad that I can't even be sarcastic about it. It's like Henderson, despite having a PhD, can't imagine any better way to learn big ideas besides downing as many pages as he can stomach. Sometimes a book is useful and sometimes it isn't, but Henderson doesn't explain--or even hint--at why that might be.

Buy Machiavelli's work on Livy's History of Rome, his essay suggests. Start reading all 142 chapters and 400+ pages of it. If it's not especially interesting or insightful, put it down. It might be useful later, or it won't. Don't go look for sources that explain and contextualize Livy and Machiavelli in a way that might make the book more useful to you. Definitely don't listen to a podcast by an expert who can do that. Don't listen to several, and follow up on their sources, and form your own opinion, and read Livy yourself. Definitely don't listen to an audiobook of his works. That's junk food.

The absence of critical thinking in Henderson's process can almost seem accidental if you look at any one passage. He's certain that deep reading leads to deep thinking, and for what it's worth, I agree. But from start to finish, Henderson only discusses how to read more, not more effectively or discerningly or critically, and his final quote suggests that passivity is actually the point of reading:

I’ll close with this excellent line from James Clear, who said to Tim Ferriss (on a podcast I greatly enjoyed):

“Almost every idea that you have is downstream from what you consume. When you choose who to follow on Twitter, what book to read, what podcast to listen to, you’re choosing your future thoughts.”

Henderson's reference to a podcast is clearly meant to be proof of his discernment: it's not really about avoiding podcasts so much as being thoughtful in how you engage with them. Fair enough! One might think that would imply that deep reading is not actually about reading a book vs. listening to one, or about books vs. podcasts, but about the ideas inside them and how you engage with them, but Henderson has just argued the opposite of that, and I think this quote suggests why.

What you "consume" becomes your "future thoughts," the quote says. In the context of Henderson's advice, that becomes a passive and haphazard process. Reading is not a conversation with the author so much as a trickle-down effect. If you stumble upon enough interesting pages, those pages will be your future thoughts. If you buy enough books, you will be well-read. If you put your book in a pile of important books, you will have an important book.

If you're snobbish enough about reading lots of pages--and quote enough tweets and podcasts about it--you will be smart, rather than, say, one of those "obviously bright young adults who don’t read or read nonsense despite paying large sums of money for what should have been a decent education."

“In our busy and distracted society, deep reading is increasingly rare. Deep reading changes people. When you interact with people, you can tell who reads seriously and who doesn’t. This isn’t just a matter of mental ability or intelligence. There is a difference between raw cognitive horsepower and time spent immersed in complex and intricate ideas. You can tell the difference between a smart person who reads and a smart person who doesn’t by how they express ideas, the references they make, and the chains of logic they follow. The former often demonstrates a subtle understanding that weaves together insights from various domains. The latter, though sharp and quick-minded, lacks the same depth of perspective or the ability to see beyond the immediate conversation or the Current Thing. This is becoming increasingly apparent among obviously bright young adults who don’t read or read nonsense despite paying large sums of money for what should have been a decent education.”

— How I Read - Rob Henderson’s Newsletter

#text post #quotes #long post #i'm sorry OP i know this was rude #fwiw i love your blog and am grateful for this post #it was interesting to think through this essay and why it made me so big mad

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