#and its what RBG would have wanted

[a-tale-of-legends]

Hmmmm. You know I've always been subconsciously knew that Blue ( rival) had different sprites throughout the game, but I never really took the time to like. Analyze them? And truthfully there isn't much to analyze but I do find it interesting on how the sprites differ from the original rbgy games and FRLG.

So let's start with rbgy. Or rather rbg cause yellow has some slight difference despite its overall same pattern.

This is the sprite to represent Blue from the first 3 battles ( as in the one in the lab, the optional one in viridian city and the one in cerulean city right before nugget bridge). This pretty much captures Blue pretty well. This cocky kid who thinks he's better than you,lmao. Got his signature hand gesture too. This was during the early game, I would say. Where he does probably think " yeah there's no way Red would catch up with me, hur hur".

Then we reach the fourth sprite on the S.S. Anne

This sprite is the sprite that's used for the rest of the game until his champion battle. This one gives such a different vibe than the first one. He looks so much more focused compared to his other sprite. Like he's looking directly as the player this time, PokeBall out, in a semi hunched position getting ready. He doesn't even have a smirk on his face, which I find very interesting. There's many ways to interpret this really, one of which is a simple " the game is telling you your getting to the mid game now". For me personally, I think it reflects on how Blue starts seeing the player. I kinda see it where Blue is starting to realize that Red is catching up, so to speak. That he can't treat them entirely like a joke anymore. He's still gonna talk shit ( the best an 11 year old can anyway) but like. It's a thought at the back of his mind. Especially when he keeps losing, like Red is almost a threat to what he wants. It's also interesting to think about this with the context of " Red and Blue where childhood friends turned rivals". I mean. They were always rivals according to professor oak, but you get what I'm trying to say right? I think this is where the " competition" gets real to blue, and he's taking it as seriously as he can, now with the facade of him being this snarky jerk. Again, that's just my interpretation of it, I'm down to hear others!

And finally....

Champion Blue! This sprite technically makes blue the first champion to have a different outfit compared to their usual sprite, which I find cool. Also this is probably what they used for reference for his look on HGSS. Probably, I don't actually know. I do think it's kinda cute that this implies he went into the elite 4 looking his best hgvhvgvgvcg. Anyway, to the actual analysis. He did it! He became champion! Before Red,too. I know I just said it was cute that Blue had an outfit change for this moment but it still shows his very show boaty nature I think. He wants Red to know he won. He wants everyone to know he won. He worked hard to get where he is and by Arceus he is going to show for it. Here's my thing though. I can't tell if he's smirking or not. I don't think he is, to it's still kinda hard to say? To me anyway. But let's go with the fact that he's not smirking. And like yeah. He's champion. This is the ultimate battle that probably means everything to him and Red. He wants to be serious about this. I just find it interesting how ever since that 4th battle he hasn't had a visible smile or smirk. His words have always been very "Blue" but his facial expressions don't fully convey that? Like his body language doesn't exactly show someone who's overly cocky, and someone who thinks he's at the top of the world, even in his champion battle, with all of that swagger. I dunno if I can accurately write my thoughts down on this but. It's weird to have Blue not smirk. Does that make sense? And not to say that Blue shouldn't be seen as serious but to lose that smirk so quickly as of the 4th battle ( third if you just didn't do the optional battle) is so. Weird. Even if he is taking Red seriously, even if he is starting to see Red as a threat rather than a friend, where's his bravado?

Am I looking way too deeply into this? Yes. Am I done. Nope!

.....oh boy. This is gonna be a bit longer than I thought-

Pokemon Yellow pretty much had the same philosophy of rbg in Blue's sprites, showcasing different poses for different parts of the journey. Where it differs is the second sprite

The second sprite for the 4th (or 3rd) battle and onward his pretty much the same as rbg, expect more polished, I think. And! He's still smirking! As much as I loved over analyzing and theorizing the shit out of his previous sprites, this sprite is way better at conveying Blue as Blue I think. The position still makes it clear that Blue is taking Red more seriously, especially with the PokeBall out, but it doesn't feel as intense as the rbg ones did imo. Though that could also be bc of the coloring. Overall it just better shows Blue character. Again, I still like the shit I wrote before, and honestly it kinda makes me appreciate Blue more, but like. Yeah, this one shows his character better. And it makes this:

Less weird to me. Minus taking away his "champion outfit". How dare they honestly. But anyway, having Blue have his usual smirk throughout the game only to drop it once he has his final battle with Red for champion. Cause like to. To him this fight would literally mean everything. He has to keep it serious. I don't have much to really say other than this pose Blue is in looks like he's just about to throw that PokeBall. I think it's neat given how important this battle is to him.

Now we can finally go to the frlg sprites bc they're kinda weird to me.

This is his sprite for the first three battles. It's. So different compared to the rbgy ones. This this sprite looks more like the sprite that he would have had for his fourth fight. And what's more!

This is his sprite that's used for fourth battle onwards. And I was so confused about this when I saw it cause. What was it trying to convey? Yeah we know that Blue is cocky, but this feels. Odd character wise. Though then I realized that this sprite and the sprite before are like. Switched versions of the rbgy ones ( specifically yellow in terms of characterization). Though I don't want to make it seem likes it's an inherently bad thing. Like it's an odd choice to me, but I can kinda see something with it. With the rbgy sprites, to me, Blue goes from not fully taking the player seriously to realizing " oh shit, Red could beat me I can't have that" to the serious battle that makes or breaks everything. This progression in frlg is like. Starting out on equal terms, but as time goes on Blue just gets more and more cocky until the last moment where you take him off his high horse. At least sprite wise, that's what that story conveys. And honestly I think both are totally fine stories to tell with Blue. I personally like the rbgy sprites better. In terms of character telling I mean. Also I can't stress enough this is just my own interpretation of these sprites that honestly don't really impact the story much. I just found it interesting that Blue actually has different sprites at all at specific points in the plot. Oh wait before I forget

This is the sprite that Blue has for his champion battle. I think he's pointing at the player? Again it's such an interesting vibe in comparison to those before it, but overall it still showcases what it needs to in terms of what the player/Red/Green/Leaf should feel at this very moment. All or nothing, winner takes all, you get it.

Aaaaand yeah. The rbg section kinda stole the show but I think it's good context for the rest of it. I hope this was enjoyable to you all and if you have your own interpretations of Blue's sprites and what they mean, I'd like to hear them!

[ochrearia]

Idc how much you look down on your ability to draw you can still doodle and add color to it, I believe in you 🫵🏾 /lh

But if you dont want to do that I can draw them, you just gotta describe them in complete detail

HEIAJFJF Im good at over describing things that's literally just how I write my fanfiction

I dislike my drawing style it's not. good. Im an abstract artist I would sooner make more abstract art of these FNF fuckers than attempt drawing actual people. You're honestly not that far off from cs!BF in my head its just when I say his skin is white I dont mean like. human white I mean fucking paper whiTEHDJDNFNT

See the thing with Dinaurians is they never give much of anything on these guys aside from they're supposed to all have some sort of blue skin which I promptly ignore for the Dinaurian RBG designs because I don't. CareBEEJELKFG my AU my rules. Their suits seem to correlate directly to the skin patterns of their dinosaur forms so that's why in my head it's like "oh okay so their skin just looks like that and the suits chameleon the skin they're covering to make it look like seamless layers!" which is probably wrong but I. Think it's fun anyway

So yeah. cs!BF is whiter than me with red knee ringlets, neon cyan hair which is spikier than base, I gave him gray swirlies on his arms as a reference to a microphone's cord. claws fangs pointed ears etc. Stupid idiot tail. I think I wrote down that while cs!GF has an extra long tail cs!BF's is shorter than what his basic dino counterpart would be. Also he has a ball tail instead of spikes

You have the less than ideal drawing of dino him I did LMFAOFJSJFJFN

[ambermotta]

I'm using Google Translate to write this, if there's any error that's the reason.

Helloo, I hope you are well 🤍 I have a question that comes to my mind all the time but I didn't know exactly where to find that answer, so why not ask someone more experienced? hehe

I started studying about witchcraft, gods/goddesses and the like a while ago, but it's really only been theory, since because of my parents I still can't practice freely. Do you think there are ways for me to start this journey now, or do you think it would be more appropriate for me to wait?

I would love to start worshiping a specific Goddess that caught my attention and really had an impact on me. Would I be able to do this discreetly? 😭

Thank you for your timee 🤍

Hi! Sorry if I took a bit too long to answer, I hadn't seen the notification 😅

Answering your question: Yes, you can start now if you wish, but that will come with limitations. If you think it's too hard, frustrating, or dangerous to practice "undercover", then it may be best to wait.

There are a lot of tools and excuses for the undercover witch:

Crystals: "I find them beautiful/ they bring me peace/ it's decorative"

Deity imagery: "I really liked this artwork/I like X mythology a lot/ it's decorative"

Altars: they can be very hard to lie about. Buy you can have a portable altar, or a box altar. Plus, they don't need to be fancy at all. Virtual altars are also an option!

As for limitations, these often include:

Not being able to light candles and incenses.

Alternatives: fake electric candles, rbg lights, essential oils and other fragrances.

Elaborate rituals are hard

Alternatives: be simple and practical. Prayers and visualization are your best friends. Do your stuff while your parents are away or sleeping.

Resources can be scarce

Alternatives: be creative so that you can improvise. You can get a lot of mundane items and give them magical/sacred properties. As for deity offerings, stick to "simple but meaningful". If it's edible, you can eat it in ritual or after you're done with your prayers (depends on deity and culture – do your research)

I personally think worshipping a deity is easier to do discretely than doing witchcraft. Worshipping can be just a prayer, sharing a cup of tea with your deity and doing devotional acts in their honor. It can be as simple or complex as you like. It's a very intimate thing between you and the deity.

Witchcraft may require more "materials" depending on how you plan to do things and some of your stuff can really give you away. That's just my personal opinion though.

Over half the time I've been a pagan witch, I was doing it all in secret. My parents were into spirituality, but it wasn't until like.. 3 years ago that they started to be more open-minded about religions other than their own. In their mind pagan gods didn't exist and witchcraft was dangerous (even though they did it themselves, they just did not see it that way).

I was lucky I could get away with lighting candles and incenses, but living in a very busy household I felt like I really couldn't do most of what I wanted. It was hard, and frustrating. But I still kept my deities close to heart and did what I could.

With all that being said, here are some questions for you to ask yourself, to help you decide what you want to do:

Is it dangerous to get caught? If your family is extremely intolerant to the point where it can be dangerous for you, then waiting until you're more independent is probably better.

Are you okay with having limited resources?

Are you okay with hiding stuff?

Are you ready to deal with your parents if they they find out?

Could you answer their questions calmly and within reason?

I sincerely hope I was able to answer your question and give you some insight ❤️

Living in the "broom closet" has its challenges, but it can be equally rewarding.

Remember you can always start small, and if you feel it won't work out, you call it off until you're ready.

[ceriseisland]

May I ask your opinions on pokespe!Lance? He's one of my favorites, though I understand I'm one of the few to think like that '^^ would love to know what you think about him! Sorry if this has been done before!

I don't spend much time thinking about Lance. He's one of the better villains from Kusaka's "I can write whatever I want" era despite being a pretty underexplored character and falling into the "villain who wants positive change but took it too far" trope. The thing that gets me is that we only have one single scene to set him up as a villain before the climax, and he just kinda shows up and blows up a town and leaves. It's not necessarily bad, since the yellow arc is still really freaking good despite only engaging with Lance on a surface level

The thing about Lance--and any villain the questions the relationship between humans and pokemon--is that he has a point. The arc goes out of its way to show that humans are harming pokemon, specifically with the how the mankey and primape are having their habitats destroyed by industrialization. Lance is making a correct observation, but just like every time pokemon delves into this topic, they present the question and then refuse to engage with it (don't even get me started on the ending of the bw arc). Which like, again, is fine. The yellow arc is still good, but you can't have Lance present these complicated ideas and also treat him like a surface level villain. The arc itself doesn't engage with Lance's ideas, so I've never found the need to either, if you understand me. He doesn't feel like he fits into the pokespe universe for that reason

For Lance as a person, he's interesting conceptually, though he kinda falls into the trap of "we need to know more about the viridian children." Someone being corrupted by their empathetic powers is a great character concept. There's also a TON of great ideas to explore with him being a foil to Yellow that aren't necessarily fleshed out in canon. I think this all comes back to the fact that the yellow arc really should have been a full seven volume arc with everything it tried (and still succeeded!) to do. He's a great character if you love headcanoning

I get why the yellow arc made Lance like that. RBG is about the conflict between nature and technology, with pallet town representing nature and team rocket representing the corrupting force of technology, so it makes sense that the next arc would also be about humans vs nature. The problem is that that's not the direction the rest of the series took. Team rocket is one thing, but you can't just introduce a concept as heavy as the slow evil of industrialization into your story's world and then ignore it later without trivializing the character who brought it up. This problem doesn't exist anywhere else, and it makes Lance seem forgettable. In a different story he would have been great, but in pokespe's universe he's just a weird guy who lives in a cave

[doubleddenden]

Okay so I'm thinking about how the Pokémon Day Presents is 20 minutes. I'm usually pessimistic about these because last time it was mobile game garbage with like a minute of okay stuff.

But here's what's guaranteed:

Scarlet and Violet DLC teaser or equivalent. Everyone that's played knows why so there's no point going further

What's most likely coming:

RBY, MAYBE Green for US I doubt it; GSC, and at the least RSE for NSO. I'd say FRLG too but they may opt to ignore it since LGPE exists on Switch. Either way, it's most likely the case due to the Nintendo Direct that announced Gameboy and GBA games but only showed the Pokémon TCG game for then. The trailer for the Presentation also previewed the old school sprites, the RBY intro, the RBG balloons- we know they like nostalgia, it's coming. Couple the GBA games with the events and the fact that 3ds will be closing shop next month, they pretty much are guaranteed to make it available.

PMD- something is being announced. My bet is on an Explorers remake since they recently dropped the OG remake. We know something is up due to the copyright being on the website code showing Spike Chunsoft 1993 to 2023, and unless they're suddenly going to drop Donphan Rompa and have Pikachu have to figure out which of his classmates killed Butterfree, that pretty much just points to PMD.

That alone should comprise at least 15 minutes. We could probably toss in a minute or 2 to casually remind everyone to download all the Pokestuff they can on the 3ds before the end time comes (so basically Bank- which will be free- and the SM demo for Ash Greninja).

Other than this that leaves a little wiggle room. A minute or 5 is guaranteed to be nostalgia bait and probably a montage of photos from the hashtag campaign they did for Twitter recently.

The only thing left I could guess would maybe be the usual rock cast at Pokémon Sleep, but only because it had a recent stir a couple of months back for... I think trademark, I might be wrong, but it was definitely a small behind the scenes ripple.

As always, I'll be praying for some reminder that Colosseum and XD existed. Won't happen because there's just not enough time. But I'll still hope for a third party studio to bring it back some day- and it'd fit since the GBA games will come back.

But anyway, why don't I have fun with a prediction of what the SV dlc will probably look like:

1. Hexagon legendary revealed, basically a piece of it exists in all Terra Orbs and its basically been soft fusion this whole time. Full form probably has something to do with a world turtle, 2 forms: ancient and future, dragon /Psychic type

2. New uniforms. Not full customization, but probably some special uniform for exploring deeper into Area Zero or some extra variants on the uniforms- maybe even straight up copies of Arven, Nemona, Team Star, and Clavell's uniform variants.

3. Probably mostly going to be artwork, couple of new characters locked to versions, and probably the professor OPPOSITE to the one we worked with- aka Arven's parent that bailed shortly after his birth- showing up suddenly.

4. 2 parts most likely, maybe a third if they really want to milk this. Hexagon is one part. The "Imagined" Pokémon the other (the Johto Beasts and Unovan Swords hybrids). Potential third is up in the air. One location is probably deeeeeeper into AZ and sort of a Hollow World (kinda like Halo 4). The other most likely that chunk on the north east of Paldea. My next guess would be islands way off the coast since apparently Paldea's oceans just go on forever, according to a recent Boundary Break video on SV- Essentially plenty of space for it.

5. More Paradox Pokémon. If I were a betting man- and I do enjoy gacha- I'd wager either paradoxes for Kanto starters OR Sinnoh starters since they basically got left in the rain for new forms. Probably Kanto because they love jacking Charizard off and Ohmori can't go one game without giving his favorite special privileges. But if they ever wanted to drop Gorochu, it's now or never. Probably an ancient pokemon with either a future counterpart or Eevee or Meowth gets a future counterpart.

6. a forgotten Pokémon gets a new form and evolution akin to Slowbro. Betting on Oddish or Poliwag, or generally a Pokémon with a split evolution so they can milk it like Slowbro in Isle of Armor and Slowking in Crown Tundra.

7. Called something like "Azure Ocean" or "Topaz Tunnel" or "Quartz Quarry"- keeping up with fancy color names.

Of course I could be entirely wrong, none of any of the above happens, and it's just something very, very minor.

[ivenvs3000f24]

9: The Weird Stuff (the most amazing thing I know about nature)

As every student of biology knows, classifying living things is simple. You got your prokaryotes and your eukaryotes, which feature plants, animals, fungi and protists. And everything that has ever lived and is currently living fits neatly into one of those categories, right? Umm… not quite.

Nature is messy. Nature is weird. And I would love to talk about some of its strange creatures that I’ve encountered, both in person and through school.

First up, we’ve got the leaf slug. Also known as a leaf sheep, Costasiella kuroshimae is a herbivorous mollusk found in oceans throughout southern Asia.

From Randi Ang/Getty Images

I think my botany prof mentioned this species in passing one time, and I’ve been enamored with them ever since. Why was my botany prof talking about a species that is clearly an animal? Because they display a type of symbiosis called kelptoplasty. Leaf slugs spend their lives grazing on green algae, which they only partially digest. This partial digestion allows them to maintain the intact chlorophyll within their cerata (those little green spikes on their back) and utilize them for photosynthesis. The BBC describes them as “solar powered slugs.”  Photosynthesis isn’t just for plants.

And not all plants perform photosynthesis. Meet the ghost pipe.

I took the above photo while on a walk at Turkey Point. My partner and I were fooling around with Seek, the plant ID app associated with iNaturalist, and decided to see what the weird white flower by the side of the trail was called. And it’s weird.

Ghost pipe doesn’t have any chloroplasts at all. Instead, it acts like a parasite on nearby fungi to drain them of nutrients, as well as stealing energy from other nearby photosynthetic plants. This strange way of getting food means that it can grow in dark environments and doesn’t have any colour. It’s definitely a plant, but it’s got a very unique life strategy.

Last up, I really want to talk about slime molds. Which, although slimy, aren’t technically mold.

The above photos features (what is likely) “dog vomit” slime mold that I encountered at the RBG’s Arboretum. I’ve also seen slime molds in wood chip piles and dark forest soil. Despite the fact that molds are typically fungi, slime molds are classified as protists. Protists are essentially the “we don’t know” category of biology. If it's a eukaryote, but can't be called a plant, an animal or a fungi, then it's a protist. Slime mold are a type of ancient amoeba that is mostly famous for being much smarter than you’d expect of an ancient amoeba.

Slime molds spend most of their lives as single celled organisms but form massive moving colonies to eat and reproduce. They inch very slowly, but surely, towards their goal. These colonies have a fascinating type of intelligence that allows them to find the fastest route to food and problem solve along the way. In experiments, they’ve recreated various public transit systems and usually find the most efficient way to get through a maze. The journal Nature also describes some studies that may indicate they keep time as well.

The more I learn about ecology and biology, the more I appreciate the weirdness that nature has to offer. Categories are human made after all, and there will always be organisms that surprise us and challenge our expectations.

Note: Although I knew most of the information in this post from past research, I did consult some sources to make sure I was accurate, and learned some new things along the way 😊

Leaf slugs: Caballar, R. D. (2021, March 25). The “sheep” that can photosynthesise. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20210324-the-odd-sea-creature-powered-by-the-sun

Ghost pipe: Ghost pipe. (n.d.). Nature Conservancy of Canada. Retrieved November 9, 2024, from https://www.natureconservancy.ca/en/what-we-do/resource-centre/featured-species/plants/ghost-pipe.html

Slime molds: Jabr, F. (2012). How brainless slime molds redefine intelligence. Nature, nature.2012.11811. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature.2012.11811

[amenvs3000f24]

Unit 01 Blog Post

I have never been the type of ‘outdoorsy’ person that many of my peers in the environmental sciences seem to be. Activities such as hiking, camping, and fishing have never grabbed much of my attention when I tried them out. I would much rather go for a walk in an arboretum or lay on the beach! I imagine this is partially due to my lack of experience, but for now these activities have been placed on the back burner. Living in urban settings has made my experience with nature quite manufactured. Growing up in Hamilton, ON, I was familiar with many waterfall trails and the RBG. Most of my easily accessed activities were well maintained, leaving me with little to no experience with the wilderness/nature at its core. While the trails are beautiful, they are well manicured. Guard rails, trimmed branches, poison ivy warnings, and no swimming signs could be seen everywhere. Although I appreciate all aspects of nature, I would consider my affinity to nature a bit vain, with a love for its aesthetic value. I imagine this is why I struggle to connect to the activities with a focus on the grittier aspects of nature. While a naturalist would be open to leaving their camping trip covered in mosquito bites, unhooking the fish they caught, and getting a scraped knee on a new trail, I struggle to believe I am at that level yet!

                  One way I stepped out of my comfort zone this summer and connected with nature was through my job as a gardener. I worked in horticulture planting and tending to flowerbeds across Hamilton. While physically demanding, it allowed me to connect with nature and take pride in what I was doing around the city. It was a great experience that made me realize what I wanted to do in the future and how much I enjoyed being outside. Some of my favourite aspects were watching the beds we had planted grow and fill in over the summer, as well as learning to identify certain plants and having the opportunity to learn how to use landscaping equipment. Realizing I wasn’t afraid to get my hands dirty made me want to expand my horizons. Over the summer I came across many insects while working and took a specific liking to millipedes. After a lot of research, I realized I would be able to keep one as a pet and am currently working on building an enclosure for an adult Narceus americanus! Advancing further into my degree has made me realize my interest in entomology and am looking forward to it advancing into a hobby.

                  My coworkers over the summer allowed me to develop a sense of place in nature by helping me understand the process of urban beautification. I feel that it is often something that is overlooked or taken for granted, but the civic pride a beautiful cityscape can incite was something I really enjoyed seeing. I considered my job a learning environment and tried to ask my coworkers as much as I could. This allowed me to leave my summer position feeling fulfilled and excited to apply my newfound skills!

[condos2homes]

Why Pre Construction Condos Are an Attractive Investment in Burlington

You know what they say - the early bird gets the worm. Well, when it comes to real estate investing in Burlington, getting in early with pre construction condos Burlington can be like catching a pretty fat worm. 

You buy a unit before they even break ground. You got the opportunity to get it in today's pricing. Then within a couple of years when construction is completed, your condo is likely worth way more than you paid. It's a way to get ahead of rising property values. You don't need to spend a lot upfront like you would for a resale place.

Burlington condos for sale are the perfect option for this kind of investment. The city's economy has been on fire lately. It’s attracting people from all over with its prime location between Toronto and Hamilton.

Some buyers are just looking for a sick place to live long-term. But a lot of investors use pre-construction as a way to build equity fast and either rent it out or flip it for profits once it's move-in ready.

Booming Real Estate in Burlington  

Speaking of profits, have you seen the numbers on Burlington real estate lately? They're exciting! 

As per the TRREB report, the average price for a home in Burlington was $969,008 in January 2024. The median list price of a condo in Burlington was $712,172. They've been skyrocketing even higher. Why such huge gains? A few reasons:

Burlington has turned from a sleepy suburb into a total economic powerhouse and provides high-paying jobs. The schools are stellar. Access to Toronto and getting around is a breeze with the QEW and highways. Plus, you've got unreal amenities like the waterfront trail and the Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG gardens).

Needless to say, everyone and their uncle wants to get their foot in the Burlington door. Which is exactly why investing in pre construction condos Burlington now is such a no-brainer move.

Upscale New Developments

Developers have definitely picked up on the Burlington real estate craze too. There are more Burlington condos for sale all over the city for buyers to get in on. 

A few headline examples:

1989 Condos - 989 Condos bringing a fresh vibe to the action. This new development is rising up around Upper Middle Rd & Appleby Line. If you've been dreaming of an uptown address without going totally broke, 1989 has over 75% of units priced below $650K.

35 Plains Road -  For those seeking a more villagey feel, check out 35 Plains Road over in Aldershot. This intimate 72-suite boutique condo fits right into the area's charming vibe around Plains Rd E & Waterdown Rd. Pricing starts in the $700s here.

Northshore Condos - Golfers are going to love this one. Northshore Condos is set up overlooking the lush fairways of Burlington's prestigious golf and country club. The LaSalle 'hood location near Plains Rd E & King Rd gives you a nice location. 153 units spread across 8 floors. Pricing for these pre construction condos Burlington starts from the $600s.

Making an Informed Decision

It's absolutely critical to partner with a real estate pro who knows the pre-con scene inside and out. Read every word of that paperwork too - those agreements can get pretty dense with all the fine print! At the end of the day though, Burlington condos for sale offer a pretty unique chance to get into an insanely hot real estate market. Learn more about pre construction condos Burlington and make a decision with planning and patience.

[grad603kaede]

Week 2: Printing Technologies & Media

Photoshop

Now - version 24

Started - black and white

Mike McQuade - collage/digital collage

Massimo Morandi - Rotonda del Festical 2015, printed in 2 colours. Green first than blue.

Offset printing CMYK in order

Vasilis Marmatakis 2017 - removing instead of adding.

RBG vs CMYK

Mainly for print design

RGB is for screen

CMYK is for print

3 colour process - yellow, red then blue taken in 3 photos.

Printing process - 1 cyan, 2 magenta, 3 yellow, 4 black

Suzanne Dean - created book cover. Used RGB to create CMYK.

Image made to change to CMYK when printing.

Some filters don't work on CMYK/RGB.

Colour & consistency

Podpunkt - limited colour palette -> more presentable, it's not too into our face. Its got simple line drawings -> milky blue, pink, accent of purple/violet. It's simple.

Nya Upplagan - strict grid, limited colour palette (different but similar), colours more settled.

CMYK

RGB is impossible to print, so CMYK mode helps to show what it would look like in RGB.

All work must be proofed.

Double check by printing, go back and adjust. Never trust your eyes as it differs in lighting such as screen and ambient.

cmd + Y - Preview of CMYK

Colour correcting!

Adjustment layer to go back and edit. Think about how we can present an image.

Contrast - the difference between light and dark pixels.

Levels - is a histogram, how much colour is available. Left is black, and the more you move to the centre the image becomes darker. White on the left, moving to the centre increases more white in the image.

Curves - valuation is smoother, histogram is reversed.

Opacity - pressing the number changes the opacity. 5 = 50%

Free hand - add -> shift, subtract -> alt, multiple -> shift & alt.

Polygonal - shift -> angle of the line.

Magnetic - caps lock -> changes the curser. [ -> increase in width, ] -> decrease in width.

Smart object - it allows you to do whatever on photoshop.

Object selection - select object -> select & mask -> view

Magic wand - increase tolerance for more tone. Contiguous -> selects entire colour, deselect -> only in certain yellow.

when using elliptical marquee tool -> alt + drag = starts from the centre.

cmd + spc = select & drag to zoom in and out

shift + cmd + I = invert selection

cmd + dlt = deletes the selected area

Unsplash for free images

creativepro.com for photoshop cheatsheets

SAVE BOTH PS FILE AND FLATTENED IMAGE!

A2 Tasks

In class, I was able to experiment with selection tools such as object selection, magic wand and lasso tool. I am used to using magic wand and magnetic lasso tool so it was useful to learn how to use other tools available as well. I also learnt more about the magnetic lasso tool, and how the curser changes into a circle when the capslock is on.

The selection and lasso tool were helpful when I was trying to remove the background from the speakers image.

Brochure Examples

I have researched some brochure examples, which help me understand what other creative options I can explore. I have looked through Pinterest for brochure design, typography layouts, and different ways to fold a brochure.

Below are some examples I want to focus on because I like the use of space in the three examples, the pop of colour in the images and the highlighting of the critical messages on the brochure.

Starting Point

The two images below are of several examples I have sketched, exploring different ways to display speakers and designers in my brochure. As mentioned on my blog, I wanted to include a pop of colour with a black and white photo and highlight the important part of the brochure.

The two sketches show how and where wanted to place the speakers on my brochure. However, it was challenging to do so because I felt the placement layout was restricted and needed to be more open.

Designer's images

I wanted to focus mainly on cropping images of the designers by removing the background and keeping the colours black and white to create a contrast with a pop of colour.

I have experimented with different shapes and layers and filtered with red, black and white images to visualise what could work and include on my brochure.

[saint-eridell]

A friendly reminder to all of my American friends to please, for the love of every deity in every pantheon vote this coming November. If you don't wanna do it for yourself, do it for your friends and loved ones who stand to suffer under another four years of 45. Voting is quite literally the only way we're gonna fix this mess.

[plannedparenthood]

Thank You, RBG

We are heartbroken. Supreme Court Justice and gender equality hero Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on Friday, Sept. 18. Her death is a painful loss for our country. She was a fierce and unapologetic warrior for equality, and her achievements are endless. As we mourn we’re also embracing our gratitude for her service to our country.

Cherishing RBG’s Legacy

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg committed her life to protecting the rights, freedoms, and health of people across the country — in particular women, communities of color, and others whose voices too often go unheard. She was a true trailblazer who inspired millions of girls and women to fight through sexism and discrimination to make American a better place to work, to live, and to love. 

Her powerful words over the years, including her razor-sharp dissents, helped push our nation toward freedom and opportunity for all. Her spirit, values, and words will be deeply missed.

A Modern Revolutionary

Some revolutionaries shook up a society with anger burning and guns blazing. Others studied hard, knocked down an unfair system one peg at a time, and spoke truth to power while wearing a lace collar. That was Ruth Bader Ginsburg. 

She got two mottoes from her mother, Celia Bader (who marched for women’s suffrage): 

“Be independent,” take care of yourself without being financially beholden to a man, and

“Be a lady,” don't allow emotions like anger to be so consuming they get in your way.

When Ruth Bader Ginsburg saw anything repugnant — like systemic discrimination — she would get straight to work. It wasn’t easy. Over decades, Ruth Bader Ginsburg faced a slew of indignities. But she harnessed courage and resolve to strategically break down America’s sexist, unethical laws and institutions. 

To honor the Notorious RBG, we’ve collected our seven favorite facts about her life and her legacy.

7) RBG was defiant in the face of entrenched sexism in college and law school.

Most colleges didn’t accept women in the 1950s, and Ruth Bader was one of the first to break the gender barrier. At Cornell University, she was sexually harassed by a professor, who offered answers to a test in exchange for sex. She confronted him: “I went to his office and I said, ‘How dare you? How dare you do this?’ And that was the end of that.” 

At Harvard Law School, she and the eight other women in her class of more than 500 students were ogled, ignored in the classroom, excluded from the library, and asked by the dean how they could possibly justify taking a seat away from a man. But that hostile environment didn’t stop her. 

She fought it with brain power and superhuman physical endurance. She was so obsessed with the law that she’d regularly stay up until dawn studying. Well into her 80s, she retained her reputation for working until 3 a.m. and living on just two hours of sleep. 

While she was kicking butt at the top of her classes, she was also taking care of her young daughter and sick husband. Martin (Marty) Ginsburg contracted testicular cancer and had extensive radiation therapy, which kept him from going to his own law school classes. So, RBG organized his friends to attend his classes, worked through their notes with Marty, and typed up Marty’s papers — all while doing her own schoolwork on top of it. 

She tied for first in her class from Columbia Law School in 1959. She also was the first person to become a member of both the prestigious Harvard Law Review, and the Columbia Law Review — one of many of her unprecedented feats. She proved to those elite schools that a woman could succeed.

6) RBG showed the world what a partnership looks like in a husband-wife relationship.

Ruth Bader met Marty Ginsburg while they were both at Cornell University, and they forged an equal partnership from the beginning. He learned to cook so she didn’t have to. Later, he lobbied for her seats on the Court of Appeals in D.C. and on the Supreme Court. And he gave up his law firm in New York to follow her to Washington — a shocking move at the time. 

Here’s how she put it at her 1993 Senate confirmation hearing:

“I surely would not be in this room today without the determined efforts of men and women who kept dreams of equal citizenship alive. I have had the great good fortune to share life with a partner truly extraordinary for his generation. A man who believed at age 18 when we met that a woman’s work, whether at home or on the job, is as important as a man’s. I became a lawyer when women were not wanted by most members of the legal profession. I became a lawyer because Marty supported that choice unreservedly.”

5.) RBG won a whopping five cases before the Supreme Court — and they all advanced the Constitutional protection of equal rights for all Americans.

As smart and accomplished as Ruth Bader Ginsburg was, no law firm would hire her after she graduated from law school. Law firms slammed the door in her face time after time because they only hired men. She realized that “being a woman was an impediment.”

As Ginsburg navigated the legal working world in the 1960s, she saw how thousands of state and federal laws were treating women as second-class citizens. At that time, most states’ laws allowed employment termination for pregnancy, and let banks deny credit to women without a male co-signer. The Supreme Court had rejected every challenge to laws that treated women worse than men.

All this gender discrimination fueled Ginsburg’s drive for social justice. In the early 1970s, she followed the strategy of NAACP civil rights lawyer and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, who helped dismantle Jim Crow laws case by case over many years — leading to Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which outlawed racial segregation in schools in 1954. Like Marshall, Ginsburg centered her arguments on the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which says all persons should be treated equally under the law.

Throughout the ‘70s, Ginsburg led the ACLU’s Women's Rights Project, for which she argued and won five landmark gender equality cases before the Supreme Court. As she said in the 2018 documentary RBG: "I knew that I was speaking to men who didn't think there was such a thing as gender-based discrimination, and my job was to tell them it really exists.”

These cases set the foundation for the country’s laws against sex discrimination, and helped eliminate being male as the criteria for employment, pay, and benefits:

Two cases in 1975 and 1979 established the requirement that women serve on juries, recognizing that they should enjoy both the benefits and the responsibilities of our judicial system.

“The vaunted woman's privilege viewed against history's backdrop simply reflects and perpetuates a certain way of thinking about women. Women traditionally were deemed lesser citizens.”

—Ruth Bader Ginsburg, arguing before the Supreme Court (Duren v. Missouri, 1979)

An employment benefits case in 1973 required the U.S. military to equally distribute family-based benefits for service members regardless of sex.

“In asking the Court to declare sex a suspect criterion, we urge a position forcibly stated in 1837 by Sara Grimke, noted abolitionist and advocate of equal rights for men and women. She said, ‘I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.'”

— Ruth Bader Ginsburg, arguing before the Supreme Court (Frontiero v. Richardson, 1973)

Two cases in 1974 and 1975 threw out gender-based distinctions in survivors’ benefits, granting widowers the same benefits as widows. RBG argued that while giving widows special treatment sounded nice, it wasn’t. Withholding benefits to widowers devalued the work of their deceased wives.

“A gender line...helps to keep women not on a pedestal, but in a cage.”

—Ruth Bader Ginsburg, arguing before the Supreme Court (Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, 1975)

4) At her confirmation hearings, RBG openly declared that abortion access is a Constitutional right.

At her 1993 Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Ruth Bader Ginsburg showed what it looks like to uphold constitutional rights. Unlike recent Supreme Court nominees, she affirmatively declared the Constitutional right to safe, legal abortion. When Sen. Hank Brown (R-CO) grilled her about her views on abortion, she declared:

“But you asked me about my thinking about equal protection versus individual autonomy, and my answer to you is it's both. This is something central to a woman's life, to her dignity. It's a decision that she must make for herself. And when Government controls that decision for her, she's being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices.”

3) RBG wrote the historic decision ruling that state-funded schools must admit women.

In 1996, Justice Ginsburg wrote the Supreme Court’s majority opinion in United States v. Virginia, which ruled that the Virginia Military Institute’s men-only admission policy violated the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. Justice Ginsburg destroyed the Institute’s argument that its program wasn’t suitable for women. Instead, she wrote that:

“[G]eneralizations about ‘the way women are,’ estimates of what is appropriate for most women, no longer justify denying opportunity to women whose talent and capacity place them outside the average description.”

The school has admitted women since then, and — as Justice Ginsburg predicted — they have made the school proud.

2) RBG’s dissent from the majority in Lilly Ledbetter’s case led to the passage a fair pay law.

In 2007, Justice Ginsburg dissented in the ruling against Lilly Ledbetter — a tire factory employee who learned, decades into her tenure, that she was being paid much less than men in the exact same supervisory role: She was making $3,727 per month, while her male counterparts were making between $4,286 and $5,236 per month. However, she lost the case because the Civil Rights Act had a statute of limitations for reporting on discrimination. 

In her scathing dissent, Justice Ginsburg wrote that gender discrimination can be hidden for a long time and “the ball is in Congress’s court” to change the rule. In 2009, Barack Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which extended the Civil Rights Act’s statute of limitations and guarantees women equal pay for equal work.

1.) RBG put the smack down on TRAP laws in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt. 

In the landmark Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt case in 2016, the Supreme Court — including Justice Ginsburg — ruled that two abortion restrictions in Texas were unconstitutional because they would shut down most clinics in the state and cause Texans an “undue burden” on access to safe, legal abortion. The case exposed the lie that anti-abortion politicians have been peddling for years: that it’s somehow “safer” when the state imposes medically unnecessary, onerous targeted restrictions against abortion providers (TRAP) laws. 

In her concurring opinion to the majority, Justice Ginsburg wrote:

“Given those realities [that keep abortion access out of reach], it is beyond rational belief that H.B. 2 could genuinely protect the health of women, and certain that the law ‘would simply make it more difficult for them to obtain abortions’... When a State severely limits access to safe and legal procedures, women in desperate circumstances may resort to unlicensed rogue practitioners... at great risk to their health and safety.”

With this historic decision, the Court reaffirmed the constitutional right to access legal abortion. This decision was a triumph for abortion access. And when one of the restrictions that Ginsburg helped strike down came up in another lawsuit this year, Ginsburg again helped lead the Court to protecting abortion access in a major Supreme Court victory for reproductive rights.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg rose for all of us. How will we work together to rise for her?

From day one, Justice Ginsburg recognized our constitutional right to control our bodies and our destinies. That is a legacy that cannot and must not depart with her. 

Justice Ginsburg stood up for us. Now it’s our turn. 

Follow Planned Parenthood at facebook.com/PlannedParenthood and twitter.com/PPFA to stay updated on how to get involved. Together, we will rise. 

By Miriam at PPFA

[qqueenofhades]

Re: the post you reblogged about Bush. I'm 21 and tbh feel like I can only vote for Bernie, can you explain if/why I shouldn't? Thanks and sorry if this is dumb or anything.

Oh boy. Okay, I’ll do my best here. Note that a) this will get long, and b) I’m old, Tired, and I‘m pretty sure my brain tried to kill me last night. Since by nature I am sure I will say something Controversial ™, if anyone reads this and feels a deep urge to inform me that I am Wrong, just… mark it down as me being Wrong and move on with your life. But also, really, you should read this and hopefully think about it. Because while I’m glad you asked this question, it feels like there’s a lot in your cohort who won’t, and that worries me. A lot.

First, not to sound utterly old-woman-in-a-rocking-chair ancient, people who came of age/are only old enough to have Obama be the first president that they really remember have no idea how good they had it. The world was falling the fuck apart in 2008 (not coincidentally, after 8 years of Bush). We came within a flicker of the permanent collapse of the global economy. The War on Terror was in full roar, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were at their height, we had Dick Cheney as the cartoon supervillain before we had any of Trump’s cohort, and this was before Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden had exposed the extent of NSA/CIA intelligence-gathering/American excesses or there was any kind of public debate around the fact that we were all surveilled all the time. And the fact that a brown guy named Barack Hussein Obama was elected in this climate seems, and still seems tbh, kind of amazing. And Obama was certainly not a Perfect President ™. He had to scale back a lot of planned initiatives, he is notorious for expanding the drone strike/extrajudicial assassination program, he still subscribed to the overall principles of neoliberalism and American exceptionalism, etc etc. There is valid criticism to be made as to how the hopey-changey optimistic rhetoric stacked up against the hard realities of political office. And yet…. at this point, given what we’re seeing from the White House on a daily basis, the depth of the parallel universe/double standards is absurd.

Because here’s the thing. Obama, his entire family, and his entire administration had to be personally/ethically flawless the whole time (and they managed that – not one scandal or arrest in eight years, against the legions of Trumpistas now being convicted) because of the absolute frothing depths of Republican hatred, racial conspiracy theories, and obstruction against him. (Remember Merrick Garland and how Mitch McConnell got away with that, and now we have Gorsuch and Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court? Because I remember that). If Obama had pulled one-tenth of the shit, one-twentieth of the shit that the Trump administration does every day, he would be gone. It also meant that people who only remember Obama think he was typical for an American president, and he wasn’t. Since about… Jimmy Carter, and definitely since Ronald Reagan, the American people have gone for the Trump model a lot more than the Obama model. Whatever your opinion on his politics or character, Obama was a constitutional law professor, a community activist, a neighborhood organizer and brilliant Ivy League intellectual who used to randomly lie awake at night thinking about income inequality. Americans don’t value intellectualism in their politicians; they just don’t. They don’t like thinking that “the elites” are smarter than them. They like the folksy populist who seems fun to have a beer with, and Reagan/Bush Senior/Clinton/Bush Junior sold this persona as hard as they possibly could. As noted in said post, Bush Junior (or Shrub as the late, great Molly Ivins memorably dubbed him) was Trump Lite but from a long-established political family who could operate like an outwardly civilized human.

The point is: when you think Obama was relatively normal (which, again, he wasn’t, for any number of reasons) and not the outlier in a much larger pattern of catastrophic damage that has been accelerated since, again, the 1980s (oh Ronnie Raygun, how you lastingly fucked us!), you miss the overall context in which this, and which Trump, happened. Like most left-wingers, I don’t agree with Obama’s recent and baffling decision to insert himself into the 2020 race and warn the Democratic candidates against being too progressive or whatever he was on about. I think he was giving into the same fear that appears to be motivating the remaining chunk of Joe Biden’s support: that middle/working-class white America won’t go for anything too wild or that might sniff of Socialism, and that Uncle Joe, recalled fondly as said folksy populist and the internet’s favorite meme grandfather from his time as VP, could pick up the votes that went to Trump last time. And that by nature, no one else can.

The underlying belief is that these white voters just can’t support anything too “un-American,” and that by pushing too hard left, Democratic candidates risk handing Trump a second term. Again: I don’t agree and I think he was mistaken in saying it. But I also can’t say that Obama of all people doesn’t know exactly the strength of the political machine operating against the Democratic Party and the progressive agenda as a whole, because he ran headfirst into it for eight years. The fact that he managed to pass any of his legislative agenda, usually before the Tea Party became a thing in 2010, is because Democrats controlled the House and Senate for the first two years of his first term. He was not perfect, but it was clear that he really did care (just look up the pictures of him with kids). He installed smart, efficient, and scandal-free people to do jobs they were qualified for. He gave us Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor to join RBG on the Supreme Court. All of this seems… like a dream.

That said: here we are in a place where Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren are the front-runners for the Democratic nomination (and apparently Pete Buttigieg is getting some airplay as a dark horse candidate, which… whatever). The appeal of Biden is discussed above, and he sure as hell is not my favored candidate (frankly, I wish he’d just quit). But Sanders and Warren are 85% - 95% similar in their policy platforms. The fact that Michael “50 Billion Dollar Fortune” Bloomberg started rattling his chains about running for president is because either a Sanders or Warren presidency terrifies the outrageously exploitative billionaire capitalist oligarchy that runs this country and has been allowed to proceed essentially however the fuck they like since… you guessed it, the 1980s, the era of voodoo economics, deregulation, and the free market above all. Warren just happens to be ten years younger than Sanders and female, and Sanders’ age is not insignificant. He’s 80 years old and just had a heart attack, and there’s still a year to go to the election. It’s also more than a little eye-rolling to describe him as the only progressive candidate in the race, when he’s an old white man (however much we like and approve of his policy positions). And here’s the thing, which I think is a big part of the reason why this polarized ideological purity internet leftist culture mistrusts Warren:

She may have changed her mind on things in the past.

Scary, right? I sound like I’m being facetious, but I’m not. An argument I had to read with my own two eyes on this godforsaken hellsite was that since Warren became a Democrat around the time Clinton signed Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, she sekritly hated gay people and might still be a corporate sellout, so on and etcetera. (And don’t even get me STARTED on the fact that DADT, coming a few years after the height of the AIDS crisis which was considered God’s Judgment of the Icky Gays, was the best Clinton could realistically hope to achieve, but this smacks of White Gay Syndrome anyway and that is a whole other kettle of fish.) Bernie has always demonstrably been a democratic socialist, and: good for him. I’m serious. But because there’s the chance that Warren might not have thought exactly as she does now at any point in her life, the hysterical and paranoid left-wing elements don’t trust that she might not still secretly do so. (Zomgz!) It’s the same element that’s feeding cancel culture and “wokeness.” Nobody can be allowed to have shifted or grown in their opinions or, like a functional, thoughtful, non-insane adult, changed their beliefs when presented with compelling evidence to the contrary. To the ideological hordes, any hint of uncertainty or past failure to completely toe the line is tantamount to heresy. Any evidence of any other belief except The Correct One means that this person is functionally as bad as Trump. And frankly, it’s only the Sanders supporters who, just as in 2016, are threatening to withhold their vote in the general election if their preferred candidate doesn’t win the primary, and indeed seem weirdly proud about it.

OK, boomer Bernie or Buster.

Here’s the thing, the thing, the thing: there is never going to be an American president free of the deeply toxic elements of American ideology. There just won’t be. This country has been built how it has for 250 years, and it’s not gonna change. You are never going to have, at least not in the current system, some dream candidate who gets up there and parrots the left-wing talking points and attacks American imperialism, exceptionalism, ravaging global capitalism, military and oil addiction, etc. They want to be elected as leader of a country that has deeply internalized and taken these things to heart for its entire existence, and most of them believe it to some degree themselves. So this groupthink white liberal mentality where the only acceptable candidate is this Perfect Non-Problematic robot who has only ever had one belief their entire lives and has never ever wavered in their devotion to doctrine has really gotten bad. The Democratic Party would be considered… maybe center/mild left in most other developed countries. It’s not even really left-wing by general standards, and Sanders and Warren are the only two candidates for the nomination who are even willing to go there and explicitly put out policy proposals that challenge the systematic structure of power, oppression, and exploitation of the late-stage capitalist 21st century. Warren has the billionaires fussed, and instead of backing down, she’s doubling down. That’s part of why they’re so scared of her. (And also misogyny, because the world is depressing like that.) She is going head-on after picking a fight with some of the worst people on the planet, who are actively killing the rest of us, and I don’t know about you, but I like that.

Of course: none of this will mean squat if she (or the eventual Democratic winner, who I will vote for regardless of who it is, but as you can probably tell, she’s my ride or die) don’t a) win the White House and then do as they promised on the campaign trail, and b) don’t have a Democratic House and Senate willing to have a backbone and pass the laws. Even Nancy Pelosi, much as she’s otherwise a badass, held off on opening a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump for months out of fear it would benefit him, until the Ukraine thing fell into everyone’s laps. The Democrats are really horrible at sticking together and voting the party line the way Republicans do consistently, because Democrats are big-tent people who like to think of themselves as accepting and tolerant of other views and unwilling to force their members’ hands. The Republicans have no such qualms (and indeed, judging by their enabling of Trump, have no qualms at all). 

The modern American Republican party has become a vehicle for no-holds-barred power for rich white men at the expense of absolutely everything and everyone else, and if your rationale is that you can’t vote for the person opposing Donald Goddamn Trump is that you’re just not vibing with them on the language of that one policy proposal… well, I’m glad that you, White Middle Class Liberal, feel relatively safe that the consequences of that decision won’t affect you personally. Even if we’re due to be out of the Paris Climate Accords one day after the 2020 election, and the issue of climate change now has the most visibility it’s ever had after years of big-business, Republican-led efforts to deny and discredit the science, hey, Secret Corporate Shill, am I right? Can’t trust ‘er. Let’s go have a craft beer.

As has been said before: vote as far left as you want in the primary. Vote your ideology, vote whatever candidate you want, because the only way to make actual, real-world change is to do that. The huge, embedded, all-consuming and horrible system in which we operate is not just going to suddenly be run by fairy dust and happy thoughts overnight. Select candidates that reflect your values exactly, be as picky and ideologically militant as you want. That’s the time to do that! Then when it comes to the general election:

America is a two-party system. It sucks, but that’s the case. Third-party votes, or refraining from voting because “it doesn’t matter” are functionally useless at best and actively harmful at worst.

Either the Democratic candidate or Donald Trump will win the 2020 election.

There is absolutely no length that the Republican/GOP machine, and its malevolent allies elsewhere, will not go to in order to secure a Trump victory. None.

Any talk whatsoever about “progressive values” or any kind of liberal activism, coupled with a course of action that increases the possibility of a Trump victory, is hypocritical at best and actively malicious at worst.

This is why I found the Democratic response to Obama’s “don’t go too wild” comments interesting. Bernie doubled down on the fact that his plans have widespread public support, and he’s right. (Frankly, the fact that Sanders and Warren are polling at the top, and the fact that they’re politicians and would not be crafting these campaign messages if they didn’t know that they were being positively received, says plenty on its own). Warren cleverly highlighted and praised Obama’s accomplishments in office (i.e. the Affordable Care Act) and didn’t say squat about whether she agreed or disagreed with him, then went right back to campaigning about why billionaires suck. And some guy named Julian Castro basically blew Obama off and claimed that “any Democrat” could beat Trump in 2020, just by nature of existing and being non-insane.

This is very dangerous! Do not be Julian Castro!

As I said in my tags on the Bush post: everyone assumed that sensible people would vote for Kerry in 2004. Guess what happened? Yeah, he got Swift Boated. The race between Obama and McCain in 2008, even after those said nightmare years of Bush, was very close until the global crash broke it open in Obama’s favor, and Sarah Palin was an actual disqualifier for a politician being brazenly incompetent and unprepared. (Then again, she was a woman from a remote backwater state, not a billionaire businessman.) In 2012, we thought Corporate MormonBot Mitt Fuggin’ Romney was somehow the worst and most dangerous candidate the Republicans could offer. In 2016, up until Election Day itself, everyone assumed that HRC was a badly flawed candidate but would win anyway. And… we saw how that worked out. Complacency is literally deadly.

I was born when Reagan was still president. I’m just old enough to remember the efforts to impeach Clinton over forcing an intern to give him a BJ in the Oval Office (This led by the same Republicans making Donald Trump into a darling of the evangelical Christian right wing.) I’m definitely old enough to remember 9/11 and how America lost its mind after that, and I remember the Bush years. And, obviously, the contrast with Obama, the swing back toward Trump, and everything that has happened since. We can’t afford to do this again. We’re hanging by a thread as it is, and not just America, but the entire planet.

So yes. By all means, vote for Sanders in the primary. Then when November 3, 2020 rolls around, if you care about literally any of this at all, hold your nose if necessary and vote straight-ticket Democrat, from the president, to the House and Senate, to the state and local offices. I cannot put it more strongly than that.

[idontlikeem]

re: your thoughts on pride merch. I totally agree that nhl teams signalling acceptance of lgbtq+ folks is better than active bigotry! i too am pretty endeared by teams and players who take the initiative. so i think i understand where you're coming from in the sense that the observation that mainstream brands has co-opted lgbtq symbols & made it marketable, and therefore more normalized, is an incredibly obvious one that barely bears saying. no one is arguing they want the nhl to go back to ignoring lgbtq concerns. you're fighting straw men. what people are rightly criticizing is the disorienting disjuncture between branding and the fact that theres not a single out queer player. that branding is the logical end result of market capitalism. it seems that folks like you constantly want others and specifically a younger generation to acknowledge, and even celebrate, again and again, endlessly, the "progress" made--to the point that we can't even criticize NHL BRANDING of all superficial things without being told of its supposed virtues that we're supposedly ignorant of.

to be more specific, i think you're confusing healthy resistance to & skepticism of this marketing with "purity testing"--a term that is wielded to shut down efforts at rigorous distinction-making and demands for more accountability. i think you'd probably agree that this type of marketing can't be the end of "progress," but to me, posts like yours sound like--"coming from someone who's gone through supposedly 'worse' times, be happy with what you've got." in other words, i think its fair to track the progression of how queerness has been normalized in branding, but to say that this progression should discourage people from criticizing nhl's efforts and that this normalization is necessary for "acceptance" seems really wrong to me. ultimately, marketing and corporations do not engage in any kind of intelligent way with queerness. to suggest that it is only through market capitalism that "normalization" can be achieved is ..a lot. and sort of exactly how capitalism wants you to think. i mean did we move further towards gender equality when "the notorious RBG" was splashed on book covers from hipster stores to urban outfitters? when "we should all be feminists" was printed on shirts in brandy melville? when "black lives matter" became more a global brand than a grassroots movement? i think these comparable--but ofc not exact--trends give a sense of the limits of branding.

man, what did i say?

if what I said is so obvious and pointless to say then why do I keep seeing stuff talking about how empty and pointless all this stuff is? why is every single take all over the Internet about how gross and empty it is? or are you accusing me of making that up whole-cloth? it’s not a strawman if it’s really out there.

don’t come to me and put words in my mouth that I didn’t say. at no point did I say or imply it shouldn’t be criticized or pushed to be better. my post was *very specifically* about people who react in the ways I outlined.

and I’m sorry, are you saying it’s “disjointing” that there’s not an out queer player in the NHL? does that mean someone should feel obligated to come out to make the discordance you see in the messaging more palatable to you? because that is absolutely not it.

more than one thing can be true. you SHOULD realize that things have changed for the better incredibly fast and be appreciative of the work done before you, without deprecating the signs of progress that are all around you in the world that you might take for granted because you haven’t known anything else. progress cannot continue without previous progress. you know that, right? with hindsight everything is imperfect, and there are many things I would change if I could, but even baby steps are steps and they should be recognized, celebrated, and encouraged, because baby steps lead to bigger steps. you can and should also work to keep pushing forward. which is literally what I said.

when capitalism is dead and gone get back to me on how to ethically engage with this stuff in the ideal way you want. in the meantime, I live in a world where capitalism is the rule of law, and we have to work within the systems in which we all exist.

“supposedly ‘worse’ times”. that’s an interesting use of scare quotes. I sure hope you’re not trying to say that in the (very recent) past it wasn’t significantly worse and more unsafe to be any flavor of queer than it is now? because if that’s what your snippy little phrasing there was meant to say, you have a lot of self-educating you need to do.

also, don’t tell me what words and phrases I should and shouldn’t use :)

[jewish-privilege]

In 2003, Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, fell on October 6. That year, October 6 was also the first Monday in October. By federal law, the U.S. Supreme Court term commences on the first Monday in October of each year. And since 1975, the Court opened each term with oral argument presentations. Not in 2003 though. That year, in deference to the Jewish holiday and in no small part due to the efforts of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the U.S. Supreme Court officially deferred oral arguments until Tuesday October 7, 2003. We know that it happened, but how did it happen?

Justice Ginsburg told me the story in 2016 and here it is, as I heard it from her.

(...)

During her remarks [on September 25, 2016 at a dinner program at the U.S. Supreme Court sponsored by the American Friends of Hebrew University] and in an off-hand comment, Justice Ginsburg pointed out that the U.S. Supreme Court always opens its sessions on the first Monday in October; but that year, in 2016, Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) fell on Monday, October 3. In deference to the holiday, Justice Ginsburg explained, the Court would not hear oral arguments in cases until Tuesday, October 4.

Knowing that there was a federal law requiring that the Court commence each term on the first Monday in October and knowing the long-standing practice of hearing oral arguments on that first Monday of each term, Justice Ginsburg’s comment struck me. The Supreme Court is steeped in its traditions and certainly if any institution is going to follow the law, it would be the U.S. Supreme Court. How did it happen that the Court just moved the date for oral arguments?

I got my chance to ask the Justice when the group left to have dinner in the great hall just outside the courtroom. Justice Ginsburg was seated at a table by herself. I sat next to her to ask how the decision was made to move oral arguments in 2016 in deference to Rosh Hashanah.

She immediately turned to me and told me the story. ”Several years ago,” she began, telling me about the 2003 precedent, “Yom Kippur fell on the first Monday in October. Justice Breyer and I went to the Chief Justice [Justice Rehnquist] and pointed that out. We said that the Court should delay the opening in deference to the Holiday.

“The Chief was not persuaded. He said, ‘Why should we delay? We always hold our Friday conferences on Friday, even if it is Good Friday.’ So I replied to him ‘So move that conference to Thursday; that would be fine for us.’ The Chief was still not persuaded. Do you know what persuaded him?” she asked, looking right at me. “I explained to him that lawyers wait their entire career to appear before the Supreme Court. For many of them, it is a once in a lifetime chance to argue in the Supreme Court. What if a Jewish lawyer wanted to appear in court? We should not make that lawyer choose between observing his or her faith and appearing before the Court. That persuaded him and we changed the calendar.”

Justice Ginsburg did more than just change the Court’s calendar.

When Sandy Koufax refused in 1965 to pitch in the World Series in deference to Yom Kippur, that was a courageous act and statement of faith. Following that example, Justice Ginsburg could have said “Go ahead and hold the oral arguments; but I won’t go because it is Yom Kippur.” But she did not. Even Sandy Koufax did not make them move the date for the World Series. Justice Ginsburg moved the date for the legal equivalent of the World Series.

Importantly, Justice Ginsburg’s argument was not based on the needs of a specific lawyer who was arguing a specific case or even a specific Jewish Justice who would otherwise have to be seated for the case. It was an argument on behalf of all Jewish lawyers who then existed or might exist in the future; it was an argument based on the possibility that there might be a Jewish lawyer at some point in time who would need to appear before the Court and not be comfortable choosing between his or her faith and the pinnacle of a legal career. Therefore, the 2003 official precedent was set that even the storied “First Monday in October” could be set aside for a higher purpose.

The next spring, I was asked to speak at a University of Maryland graduation program for Jewish graduates. The program was on Sunday May 21, 2017. I included this story as part of my remarks encouraging the students to be proud of their Jewish identities and to find ways to incorporate their Jewish identities into the secular world.

The next day, I was invited to attend a legal award program in Washington, D.C. Unbeknownst to me, Justice Ginsburg was a featured speaker.

At the post-event reception, a small crowd formed around Justice Ginsburg, hoping to take selfies with her. I stepped up to the front of the line just to thank Justice Ginsburg for having shared her story with me back in September. I told her that it was a great inspiration for the students and it was very well-received. She remembered telling me the story and was grateful to hear that the students appreciated it.

One of her biographers was standing nearby, heard me talking, and asked me about the story. I explained the story and the biographer asked if I had it in writing. In fact, I had written up the entire story as part of my graduation speech and I shared the speech with her on Tuesday, May 23. She immediately shared it with Justice Ginsburg. On Wednesday, May 24, I received the following email from Justice Ginsburg whose words provide a fitting postscript to the story:

 Thanks for sharing with me your May 21 graduation remarks. You told of the settlement of the “Yom Kippur controversy” with admirable accuracy. Glad you found it a useful illustration that people of good will can accommodate sincerely held religious beliefs without undue disturbance of other interests.      With appreciation, and every good wish,      RBG

May her memory be for a blessing.

[samcro-before-hoes]

Biker born and Bred

Characters:

May 2009

**********************

*************************************

Elizabeth Diana Taylor (Wilder)

‘Beth, mommy, Mama, RBG, Queen Mother, Mama B, Lovey’

February 14, 1954

"Queen of the bikers is usually what they call me."

"Who broke my fucking mirror?!"

"What’s mine is hers and what’s hers is mine.”

"How many times have I told you?! This is a respectable fucking neighborhood!"

*************************************

Genevieve Rae Scott M.D, F.A.C.S, F.A.C.O.G

‘Gen, Geni, Doc, Queen Mother 2.0, RBG, Mom, Mama Gen, Lollie’

February 16, 1953

"One thing about Beth and I is we have always loved each other's kids as our own."

"I deliver babies. I don't judge people who don't want to have them."

"I love JR and I love Beth. I love our children. I love the life we've built together."

"Beth, please, let it go.

*************************************

Robert James Taylor ii

                   ‘Tripp, Prez, RBG, Rob, Dad, Pops’

July 4, 1949

First 9/ Club President

"You get Gemma and Beth together it's like episode of biker wives."

"Come near my daughter again and I will kill you.”

"Its a Charming life ain't it?"

"Teller-Taylor Automotive Repair."

*************************************

Jessica Louise Harris-Taylor

‘Jessie, J.L, Jess, Barbie, Jessie-Lou, Mommy,

Jessica L. Harris’

December 25, 1980

"My story has never been normal."

"I'm a mother, a old lady and a pornstar in that order. My kids come before everything."

"I've never loved a man I've been with besides Jagger. With him it's different because he means everything to me."

"If I so much as hear his name come out of you mouth I will end you."

*************************************

Jessica and Jagger’s kids:

*************************************

Esme Rose Taylor (Wilder)

‘Esie, Mom, aunt Esme, auntie Esie’

March 5, 1959

"Biker queen, and Queen Mother. It's a royal life you lead Beth."

“After Tiffany was born I don’t know how to explain it but I felt so lost, so alone, so I went to Gen and she gave me Prozac.”

“I should have stayed.”

“I’ve missed you baby.”

*************************************

Alaric Micheal Taylor

'Cross, Ric, Uncle Cross, Uncle Ric'

1952

Club Member

“My brother and I? Thick as thieves.”

“I remember when you were just a little girl, since then I knew you would wear a kutte.”

“I honestly don’t know how you do it bro, Esme and the girls, you got two wives and like 100 kids.”

"When you have a kid your whole perspective changes.

*************************************

Addison Natalia Taylor M.D., F.A.C.S., F.A.C.O.G.

1960

“I'm so sorry Jax.”

“Shh, Natie it's okay I'm here.”

“Jax I will do everything I can to help him, but someone needs to help her.”

“Whatever you tell me, stays with me.”

[thorodinsson]

i finally decided to take the time & do a heavily requested gif tutorial! this will be very detailed & is how i make every single one of my gifs from start to finish! i’ll also include resources for ps downloads, actions, etc. if you have any questions, don’t be afraid to ask! & if this helps you, pls rb!!

TUTORIAL UNDER THE CUT!

i’m going to break it down into sections to hopefully make it easier to understand!

1. software i use

2. hq movie/tv show/video downloads

3. screencaps

4. importing screencaps into photoshop

5. cropping

6. actions/sharpening/gaussian blur

7. image sizing

8. time delay

9. coloring

10. saving

1. software i use

photoshop - i use photoshop cc 2020 on my macbook air but any version of photoshop with video timeline/frame timeline will work for creating gifs! i pay for my photoshop but i know there are ways to get it for free. if you don’t want to/can’t pay for photoshop, here (x, x, x, x) are some links to download it without paying!

mplayer osx extended - this is the software i use for my screencaps. there are a lot of software’s out there & i think it truly comes down to preference. i’m just more familiar with mplayer & the screencaps come out really smooth in my opinion. it’s free as well & here is a link to download it! 

2. hq movie/tv show/video downloads

ok so i’ll be real, i never used t*rrents until recently & i’ve personally noticed a huge difference when it comes to quality. before using them, i was using files from MEGA & if you’re not comfortable with t*rrents, i would definitely recommend MEGA links! when it comes to downloading any videos, try to make sure they are 1080p or 2160p if available! 720p is also ok but always try to get 1080p. also i’ve found that with movies, 1080p Blu-ray versions look better but again, it’s all about preference! 

t*rrents - i only use one t*rrent site which is r*rbg. they have a huge variety of tv shows & movies from what i can tell. 

MEGA - MEGA is really nice for people that aren’t comfortable with t*rrents. the way i used to use MEGA was, i followed accounts on twitter that would upload MEGA links to tv shows. here (x, x, x, x, x, x) are some of the accounts that post a wide variety of links to MEGA downloads! i will say, the only downside to MEGA links is that they seem to take longer to download & you can cap out at a certain amount of GB each day.

folx - i use this to download stuff from r*rbg! download this before you try to download anything from r*rbg. its free to use & there are multiple sites you can download this software from but i’ll link a few right here (x, x, x this one is a link directly from the apple store but it costs $15.00). if you don’t want to download from any of those links, you can just simply look up ‘folx mac/windows download’ in google!

4k video downloader - i use this to download videos from youtube! it’s free as well & you can download it here!

3. screencaps

once you’ve downloaded a movie or tv show or whatever you want to gif, open whichever screencap software you’re using & start playing the video. for mplayer osx extended, to screencap you just go to the scene you want to gif, pause the video, & hold down shift + command + S on mac (i think it’s the same for windows i’m not sure).

4. importing screenshots into photoshop

now that you’ve got the screencaps of the scene you want to gif, it’s time to open photoshop! to upload the screencaps, in photoshop go up in the lefthand corner to file > scripts > load files into stack. once you click on that, you’ll click ‘browse’ over to the right & the files on your computer will pop up. go to wherever you saved your screenshots & select all of them! once you’re done selecting them, hit ‘open’ in the bottom right corner.

5. cropping

now all of your screencaps are imported!!! now it’s time to crop the screencaps. go to the crop icon over to the left.

for this gif, i want dimensions to be 540 x 350, so i go up top & type it in

great! now the gif will look like this:

6. actions/sharpening/gaussian blur

now that the gif is cropped, we’re going to sharpen it. i use actions because they are so much faster & easier. i use the action that kylos uses in her giffing tutorial & the direct link to download the action is right here! to access actions, you can either go to window > actions or go over to the play button to the right that looks like this:

when you hit that play button, you will see the actions that you have downloaded pop up! select where it says ‘select here!’ & then go down to the play button at the bottom to play the action. i circled both steps down below

the default radius in this action is 0.3 & i normally change it to 0.4 (it’ll normally pop up & ask you like shown below & just change it to 0.4!)

now the action has been played!! i add an extra step but it’s optional! what i do next is i add a layer of gaussian blur on top of the action. to do that, go to filter > blur > gaussian blur. once you select that, it’ll have a pop up that looks like the one below & you’ll just select ok or hit the enter button

once you do that, you’ll notice your gif looks soft or not sharpened so the next step is to change the percentage of the gaussian blur layer you just applied. to do this, you go to the bottom right corner & hold down option by clicking on the gaussian blur layer. there will be options that pop up & you’ll select ‘edit smart filter blending options’ like shown below (my handwriting looks like a five-year-olds ik)

another pop up will show up in the middle of the screen & you’ll be able to select which percentage you want to place on your gif. the opacity really depends on the gif but i normally do 10%-30%. for a lot of my gifs recently i’ve applied 15% which is what i did on this gif! once you change the opacity to whatever you want, hit ok!

after that you want to change the image size to the same size you cropped the gif to. to do this, you’ll go to image > image size > & change it to 540 x 350 (or whatever the size of your gif is! also make sure it’s switched to pixels instead of inches! once you’ve done that hit ‘ok’ or press enter.

once that’s done, go ahead & save the gif! to do this, go to file > export > save for web (legacy). it’ll show you the size of the gif down in the bottom left & as long as it’s under 10mb you’ll be fine!!! down below i circled my save settings as well! also its SUPER IMPORTANT THAT YOU SET LOOPING OPTIONS TO FOREVER! once you’ve done all that, save your gif by hitting the ‘save...’ button down below that’s circled. you can name your gif however you like just make sure you keep the .gif after it!

now my gif looks sharper than before: 

now for time delay & coloring!!!

7. time delay

open the gif you just saved in photoshop by going to file > open. once it’s opened, you’ll see a timeline of all the frames towards the bottom. it’ll likely say 0.07 sec with a small little downward arrow next to it. select the downward arrow & select other. change the speed from ‘0.07′ to ‘0.05′! gifs look much better & more natural at this speed. (also yes i did delete a few frames because i felt it was too long so to delete frames you just select the ones you want to delete & click the trash button down by the scroller!)

8. coloring

coloring can be so much fun but so tricky! i personally use a base psd that i made for all of my gifs & then adjust it according to the gif i’m coloring but for this gif i colored it from scratch! so for most of my gifs i only color/edit them using levels, selective color, brightness/contrast, curves, color balance, & vibrance (in that order) to access these, go to layer > new adjustment layer > & then select whichever one you want to start with. 

1. levels

2. selective color

blacks: black +2

reds: cyan -9, magenta +1, yellow -3

cyan: cyan +100

3. brightness/contrast

brightness: 5

contrast: 6

4. curves

5. vibrance

vibrance: +16

saturation: 0

then you save it just like earlier by going to file > export > save for web (legacy) & you’re all set!!!! i hope this helps anyone who is trying to get into gif making & if you have any questions, don’t be afraid to reach out!!!!