#but ‘page’ has always felt… resonant and given what we’re hearing this week

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

.

[tracybirds]

Don’t talk to me about timelines XD lockdown 3.0 was an unpleasant surprise but it did give me some fun fodder to play with. Missing from this were the stream of Valentines to Covid that spread around my section of NZ social media XD I was tempted to make Scott write some, but alas it didn’t fit. Obviously plenty has been fudged, it’s definitely not meant to be taken too seriously and more allows me to collect together some of the mixed emotions of getting a five hour countdown to lockdown D: That was not fun lol like far out, and we had to prepped for remote learning by 9am the next day. Scott is not allowed to complain further in his swanky apartment and no job XDD

In all seriousness, this is Scott’s story for FabFiveFeb2021, hosted by the ever lovely @gumnut-logic (Happy Birthday! still the right day in Aus, I didn’t miss it right :0 either way *hugs*** and I hope it was a nice day :DD)

Prompt used was “Are you kidding?” - it really resonated on Sunday evening ahaha (okay I will stop rambling in my defense it’s post midnight and I have feverishly pummelled this out in a couple of hours, it had been itching at me all day.... I missed that feeling :DDD)

----------------------

Scott was International Rescue through and through, but in the murky waters of the central business district, he thrived.

It was a closed meeting, stretching into the long shadowy hours of the evening. Legal advisors quibbled over clauses while Scott exchanged pleasantries with the company representatives, talking up his local ties to New Zealand’s City of Sails.

“My Dad taught me to sail, right out there in the harbour, you know.”

A casual remark but carefully designed to make himself seem approachable and down-to-earth, just another “one of the guys”. His associate had also sailed once, a national representative in his youth, although time and his new habit of lunch meetings had left those days long in the past.

Personal connections made more money than the lawyers in the background ever could, and Scott prided himself on the homegrown touch.

“Mine too,” said the jovial, middle aged man. “Although I reckon it wasn’t near as pretty a yacht as yours. I’ve read up on you as well, you know.”

Scott laughed, clapping the man on the shoulder.

“Len, I knew we’d get on. What do you say to dinner? This has been going on for far too long.”

“I know a great place that keeps a table reserved for me. Even on Valentine’s.”

“I’m flattered.” He nodded to Van Zyl briefly before addressing the small crowd.

“Ladies, gentlemen. You’ve done some good work, and it’s been a long one. We’ll leave it here for the night and reconfer in the morning.”

He acknowledged the tired smiles and leaned back and listened as the chatter evolved from the dry intricacies of patent law into cheery conversation of dinner plans and family time ahead.

He turned and looked out at the city, lights starting to turn on in the early evening light. The sun wouldn’t set for another half hour or so and he wanted to make the most of what they had left in the day.

So did the rest of the Auckland population it seemed. Cars were flooding into the area, people starting to stream into office buildings.

“So, Federal Street?”

“Len, what’s going on down there?” he asked, jabbing a finger down at the street below.

“Sorry?”

He and Len watched, dumbfounded as the office buildings lit up one by one, lights turning on and off again mere minutes later.

“Mr Tracy! Mr Van Zyl!”

“Charlotte, what is it? What’s happening?”

“Oh, Scott, I mean, Mr Tracy, sorry sir.”

“Charlotte. Take a breath,” commanded Scott, letting the authority of Thunderbird One bleed into his voice. “Tell us what’s happened.”

Charlotte shook her head, her hand creeping up over her mouth. She handed him her tablet.

“It’s a civil defence lockdown, effective midnight.”

A cold dread crept up Scott’s spine.

“Tonight?!”

Len pulled out a comm beside him and started dialling. The person on the other end picked up at the first ring, and dimly Scott could hear her calm, measured voice transmitted through the device.

“Can I help?” he asked, still staring at the stark words on the page.

“I… uh... help? Sir?”

“With the civil defence response, with the company, I don’t know!” He looked up, desperation in his eyes. “What can I do to help?”

Charlotte shook her head, pressing her lips together tightly.

“Mr Tracy, we have an isolation response in place, at your father’s request. Leave the board to organise the company, you need to get home and…”

“No.”

Charlotte’s voice pitched up a near octave.

“Sir, I must insist…”

“There are lockdown protocols on the island as well,” snapped Scott. “I can’t just go home, risk my family, my Grandma.”

She shook her head again.

“You can’t help here. They’ve done it before. It’s Level Three, people will be able to collect gear tomorrow if needed, we’re set up for remote offices and the last thing people need is you dilly-dallying in the top office.”

A loud shrieking alarm pierced through her final words and Scott flinched at the sound.

Len yelped next to him, dropping his comm with a curse.

“Damn emergency alerts, don’t they know the whole country has heard by now? Why do they just SHUT UP!” he bellowed at the still beeping comm. “It’s so unnecessary, the first time we went under, I thought we were about to evacuate for a volcanic eruption. Staying home, it’s hardly an emergency.”

Charlotte did little to hide her scorn, but Scott smothered a smile as he read through the full message.

“Okay, fine,” he said at last. “I can bunker down at the apartment for a few days.”

“Weeks, I’d be prepping for,” interrupted Len. “Hard to say of course, but they keep extending them.”

“You know why we do it,” said Charlotte, coolly.

He shrugged. “Doesn’t mean I have to pretend it’s a holiday like everyone else seems to do.”

“Well, there never was any rest for the wicked, they say,” quipped Scott.

Len barked a sudden laugh.

“You’re alright, Tracy. Shame about how this ended, I’d have liked a bite with you.”

“Well, there’s always next time. Maybe we’ll find time for a shared celebration after all this.”

“My treat, Tracy, my treat,” he said with a chuckle. “Take care now.”

Scott nodded a farewell and turned back to Charlotte.

“You’re going to be fine?”

“I’ll go stay with my Mum,” she said, easily. “She doesn’t like to be in her house alone, and I can’t say I blame her. Holotech’s just not the same as being there, you know?”

“I certainly do,” said Scott, thinking of his brothers, hundreds of kilometres away. “Thank you, Charlotte, I’ll be seeing you.”

“Good luck, Scott.”

***

The downtown apartment was a mere fifteen minute walk from Tracy Tower, but with Charlotte’s words echoing in the back of his mind, the thought of potentially weeks stuck in an incredibly well furnished, yet incredibly unstocked apartment plaguing him, he opted to swing past the local supermarket. Located at the heart of the city, it was never quiet at the best of times but this was unlike anything Scott had ever seen.

The tension in the packed shop was thick as the throng that filled it. Over half the customers were already wearing masks, glaring suspiciously at those who had gone without and Scott self-consciously tugged his rain jacket higher.

Essentials, he thought wildly, just eggs and milk and bread and….

There was no bread. No flour either and the confectionary aisle was already looking sparse. He grabbed a few chocolate bars and threw them in the basket.

“Excuse me,” he said, waving down a frantic and wild-eyed shop assistant. “Do you have any bread out back?”

“No way man, haven’t you heard? Lockdown hits in like three hours, people are going mental.”

“But I don’t have any food at home, I was meant to be flying back tomorrow morning.”

The shop assistant, Ariki as his name badge proclaimed him, grimaced in sympathy.

“That’s hard luck that is. You don’t live in Auckland?”

“No, I don’t. But I won’t be able to get home now either.”

He nodded, like he’d heard it before.

“You’re thinking this is like last year, aren’t you?”

“I, uh, yes.”

“Right,” said Ariki, still nodding along with him. “Right, well it’s not quite the same so don’t stress out. Look, you can still get takeaways this time, we’ll be restocked tomorrow and all the real crazies–” he nodded towards a pair who were arguing over what looked like the last can of baked beans, “–yeah, they’ll be tucked up at home, refusing to take a step outside, it’ll be sweet as.”

Scott stared at him, then looked over at the line snaking through the frozen food aisle, between the meat and dairy and coiling up in the sad looking and so-called fresh produce.

The two chocolate bars and eggs he’s managed to grab hardly seemed worth it at all.

“I can put those back if you want.”

“Yeah,” said Scott, dazedly. “Yeah, thanks that’s be great.”

Ariki smirked a little.

“We’re reopening at seven, yeah? I’ll see you then.”

“Thanks again,” called Scott as he hurried from the shop.

The rain that had been threatening its arrival all weekend was starting to appear, and Scott hurried home, ducking his head down and shoving his hands in his pockets. He knew there’d be enough food for at least his dinner tonight and Ariki was right, he could sort the rest in the morning.

A swipe of his keycard, and he shut out the world with a muffled slam of the door and a sigh.

He shucked off his rain jacket, not bothering to hang it up, and trudged into the kitchen. It wasn’t like there’d be anyone around to complain for a while and he was starving. Lunch, the little afternoon tea nibbles they’d provided, even his last coffee felt like it had been drunken in another life.

Dinner, then finally he’d call home.

He didn’t doubt they already knew what was happening, was probably wondering why he hadn’t called, but none of them had even been swept up in the chaos of lockdown preparations.

He stared blankly in front of the fridge, the cold, bluish light illuminating him in the dark room. The sun had fully set by now, and the last vestiges of twilight had given way to the true, deep night with the onset of rainfall.

His carefully defrosting steak wasn’t on the shelf, and he looked around him in confusion, wondering if he’d accidentally left the meat out on the bench. He was hungry enough that he didn’t think he’d care and his stomach was well practiced at digesting the indigestible, bug and all.

On the kitchen counter was a neat pile: a plate, used utensils and cooking equipment all stacked together, waiting to be washed.

Scott blinked.

“Oh, hey, Scott,” called Gordon’s cheerful voice from behind him.

Scott whirled around, gaping at his younger brother, suddenly in their New Zealand apartment and not where he ought to have been – namely a thousand odd kilometres north east of the kitchen they were standing in.

“Are you kidding me?”

“What?”

“You,” Scott shouted, jabbing a finger towards Gordon. “You ate my dinner!”

“Oh, crap.”

Gordon bolted a split second before Scott charged at him, yelling wildly with all his might.

“Scott, I’m sorry, it was – shit, I mean – come on, it was past nine, I thought you’d been out, and I, oh damn, I, Scott, damn it, I’m not dressed.”

“I don’t care, you ate my food, have you seen the grocery stores? It’s absolute chaos, you traitor, you can go out and get me something, put some pants on and move.”

Gordon yelped as he dove over the couch.

“Okay, I can see there’s been some errors in judgement here,” said Gordon, panting. “I’m sorry, Scott, I really am.”

Scott glared.

“Not good enough.” He paused, eyeing Gordon as he cowered behind the sofa. “What are you even doing here?”

“Uh, excuse me?”

“Here. What are you doing in Auckland?”

“Happy birthday to me too, love you bro, congrats on surviving another year.”

“You came to Auckland for your birthday?”

“Yeah.” Gordon sat up cautiously. “Couldn’t exactly see Penny, and it’s not like there’s many other places that will let us in.”

“I thought we counted as a US territory.”

“John cleared it with someone, I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Didn’t want to be stuck at home for my birthday. And look how that turned out.”

He did look extraordinarily sorry for himself.

Scott sighed, and reached out a hand.

“Go get some damn pants on,” he grumbled. “And go look for Virgil’s emergency snacks, I know he stores them everywhere.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“I mean it, don’t you dare come back unless you bring me food.”

Gordon snorted.

“Sure, wouldn’t want to provoke the wrath of a starving Scooter.”

Scott jerked his body towards Gordon, and smirked as he bolted up the stairs towards the bedrooms, before sinking down into the cushions and closing his eyes.

The comm beeped gently, a stark contrast from the blaring alert from earlier.

“Hey,” he said, opening an eye as Virgil was projected in front of him.

“Tell me you’re not–”

“Oh, I am.”

“Gordon too?”

“Yep.”

“Damn.”

“Tell me about it.”

They were both quiet for few seconds, thinking about how rapidly the world had seemed to shift around them.

“I suppose it’s only for a few days,” began Virgil, but Scott was already shaking his head.

“We gotta do the full two weeks. After that, we ought to be able to clear an exit with the harbourmaster and the coast guard, even if it’s not over, but we can’t come back earlier. The only reason we could move freely before without our helmets is because–”

“Preaching to the choir, Scott. I get it.”

“You gonna be alright without us?”

Virgil shrugged. “Rescues are down what with more people staying at home. Alan and I can handle the small change, and Kayo’s been itching for some POD practice recently. We’ll manage. Besides, you’re the one stuck with Gordon.”

“Hey!”

“Food,” growled Scott and Gordon threw a muesli bar and a tube of M&Ms at him.

“Is that mine?”

“Gordon ate my dinner and the shops were out of everything,” grumbled Scott. “Blame him.”

“It’s my birthday, I don’t deserve this.”

“Cry me a river.”

“Alright, don’t kill each other before the two weeks is up. John’s already organised a betting pool, don’t give him the satisfaction of winning again, he’ll be insufferable.”

“Oh, he’s on,” said Gordon, grinning. “Tell him I put fifty bucks on Scott tipping me out of bed or off the couch by the end of the week.”

“Got it.”

“You can’t bet against us,” said Scott, mumbling around the chocolate. “I thought you were on my side.”

“You tried to murder me over a steak.”

“The jury would have never convicted.”

“Okay, I can see you two are going to have a fun time,” said Virgil, loudly over their bickering. “See you in two weeks.”

He didn’t wait for a response. After all, two weeks was a smidge outside even his patience.

[onstarsandiron]

This is a master post of all the settings for Heart of Iron and Soul of Stars!

As always, let me know if there’s something here that you’d like added/dug up!

Hope the picture quality isn’t too bad, it is admittedly a screencap via my laptop

[Image description: A black and white map of a solar system labeled “The Iron Kingdom” with the sun on the left center edge. Each planet is set on a dotted line indicating its orbit. An area indicated to the lower right of the sun is labeled as “The Starpass”. The closest planet to the sun is Eros, a dark circle with a marbled texture; there is a leader at the top of the planet indicating Resonance, as well as one at the bottom left of the planet indicating Neon City. Around the planet circles its two moons, Juniper and Luna, the latter of which has a leader pointing to its lower right indicating The Iron Palace. To the right of the orbit of Eros’ moons is a small dotted line indicating the orbit of Nevaeh, represented as a dark hexigon. The next planet is Iliad, a dark circle with a cloudy texture and a ring of stars just inside its bounds. A leader at its bottom right indicates Zenteli; Iliad has no moons. The third planet is Cerces, a dark circle with a water-stained texture. Cerces is orbited by Calliope and Palavar. Beyond Cerces is a dotted band that indicates the asteroid belt that encircles the Iron Kingdom, upon which Xourix, a dark pentagon, lies. Between Iliad and Cerces, but lower on the page than either of them, is a cloudy area marked “Haven’s Grave”. End description]

The solar system is as described above. We’re not really given much information about the orbit rates of the planets or the moons or anything aside from Ana’s (originally Erik’s) coronation day being the day all three planets align in what’s known as “Holy Conjunction”, which just so happens to be the thousand-year-anniversary of the Iron Kingdom. The story starts exactly one week (presumably 7 24-hour days, though it is unclear how they keep time standardized in the Iron Kingdom) before this event. 

It’s implied that the planets are broken up into districts and ruled over by Ironblood families (consistent with the classification of the system as a Kingdom) by the line, “The Valerio family was the wealthiest in the kingdom and ruled over twenty-three districts on Eros and Iliad, and a mining continent on Cerces, so they were expected to present themselves with a certain flair—especially at parties.” (HoI, I: Iron Thief, Robb) 

Erosians are seemingly distinguishable from Cercians, though if it’s just due to Cercians’ tribal markings or if there’s further physical traits that distinguish the two, it’s not made clear. It’s implied that there is no life native to Iliad, but the Solani people all hail from Zenteli, as that’s where their ark crash landed 1,000 years before the story’s beginning, though they have of course since spread to the other planets and intermarried with the Erosians and Cercians.

Eros

The planet closest to the sun, this is where the Valerios evidently hail (Robb is often characterized as having an “Erosian” accent), as well as the location of the Academy of Iron and Light, the tomb where the goddess was buried, and Neon City. Heart of Iron says Eros has three moons, but the map in Soul of Stars only indicates Juniper and Luna. “Eros took up most of the starshield, a blue-and-green planet wrapped in layers and layers of bone-white clouds.” (HoI, II: Iron Ships, Jax) Siege has, “…knockoff tapestries of the rolling landscapes of Eros…” (HoI, II: Iron Ships, Ana), and it’s said to typically have a, “Dreamy, green landscape.” (SoS, I: Starship, Ana). Robb’s blue eyes are described as “Erosian blue” many times, implying either that Eros has a very particular blue compared to the other planets, or that the other planets have sky colors other than blue, which would indicate different atmospheric conditions between the three. 

Neon City: Located on Eros, it’s noted as distinctly not like the rest of the planet. “Located in the southern quadrant of the planet, Neon City constantly smelled like damp cement, sewage, and fresh rain, but from a distance the city was beautiful—outlined in lights that reflected in the puddles and through the mists that drifted along the streets. Buildings jutted up into the sky like piercing daggers, slick and glittery with rain. It gave the city an eerie, haunted radiance. In the outskirts where Ana walked, darkness clung to the streets.” (SoS, I: Starship, Ana). It’s implied that it’s always raining in the city. It’s full of dive bars, cement buildings, and steel sky scrapers. There’s a lake somewhere nearby named Lake Leer. 

Resonance: A town nearby the Academy of Iron and Light and right by the tomb of the Goddess. “Koren Vey raised her hands again, and up from the ground came hills and valleys that reminded Robb of the backs of those scaly lizards Erik used to put in his bed as a child to scare him, but then he recognized the strange-shaped pool of water in the valley. “Hold on. That’s Lake Myriad. And that pass in the mountains is the Rigid Bone. I know these landmarks. It’s in the Bavania Range”—Robb motioned to the mountains—“because that’s the valley near …” He went very quiet. “The valley near … ?” Ana prodded. “Near the Academy.” (Sos, II: Starless, Robb). 

Luna

A moon of Eros, Luna is the location of The Iron Palace. Nothing besides the palace is mentioned to be on Luna, but that doesn’t mean such is so. 

The Iron Palace: “The Iron Palace looked like a shard of black glass against the otherwise pale landscape of the moon, a gloomy fortress. The North Tower looked like the other three, but it stood as a hollow shell with burned insides. It had never been rebuilt, and instead the doors were locked – the halls never to be trod in again. The rest of the palace, however, was immaculate in its marble walls and golden trim - the pinnacle of opulence. Surrounding the palace lay terraformed gardens blooming with moonlilies, and in the largest garden stood the kingdom’s first Iron Shrine. … Royal Captain Viera led them into the palace gates and through the empty square, the palace towering over them like a shard of black glass. The palace doors opened into the great hall, lined with pillars as thick as three men.” (HoI, II: Iron Blood, Robb) The palace is largely lit by floating lanterns that fill the halls and rooms, though most likely there are other lighting options such as lamps, overheads, etc.

The palace is also described as a real maze for those who don’t know their way, with identical hallways that Ana only found her way around once she learned which vases and paintings were in which halls. There’s also a system of servant passages that allow servants to move seamlessly through the building and attend to matters unseen. These passages are used by Robb to visit Ana, Malifare as she poses as Ana’s handmaid, and Ana when she was lured into the North Tower. 

Messiers stand at every corner, in the gardens, and at the palace doors. They by-and-large don’t do much. 

Bonus: The Iron Throne: “The throne swallowed the [Grand Duchess]. Large steel beams spiked out from the chair’s back like sun rays, and she the center.” (HoI, II: Iron Blood, Robb)

Nevaeh

Nevaeh is a space station city whose orbit lies between Eros’ and Iliad’s. “The cityscape of Nevaeh passed below, a grid of grimy, dilapidated buildings. Nevaeh had been the only safe haven from the Plague twenty years ago, so everyone who was not infected had moved here – including Ironbloods, who created the gardens to separate themselves from the citizens. An extra layer of protection from the Plague. But soon the space station fell into disarray, with too many citizens and too little space and no money left to buy land on-world on Eros or Iliad after the Plague was eradicated.” (HoI, I: Iron Theif, Robb). 

Astoria: Astoria is the Valerios’ garden estate. As stated above, the Ironbloods took refuge from the Plague in Nevaeh as everyone else, but installed for themselves floating garden estates which hang above the city. Astoria is filled to the brim with exotic flora, including hedge mazes, thorny bushes, and plenty of room to host events. 

Shrine: There is a large, prominent shrine on Nevaeh in which Ana’s adventure begins – attempting to steal the coordinates to the Tsarina from Robb – and ends – in a fight against Malifare that is eventually won by her, Di, and Siege. “At the head of the shrine stood the statue of the Moon Goddess, seven men high, her arms oustretched as she looked to some distant point in the domed ceiling, where murals of the Moon Goddess’s story, the kingdom of shadows and the girl of light, were painted. The entire space station of Nevaeh felt empty in the shrine, as if the world only existed between the alabaster pillars and stained-glass trappings, so quiet she could hear the electric hum of Di’s wires and functions, as soft and soothing as a song.” (HoI, I: Iron thief, Ana) 

There are 999 candles lit in the shrine, representing the 999 years of the Iron Kingdom (one (1) additional candle is added after the 1,000th anniversary). Even the statue of the Goddess was covered in candles, Ana having to navigate them to get to the heart in the Goddess’ hands. In Soul of Stars, the shrine’s tomb has been damaged and the shrine itself set alight during Malifare’s search for her heart, but efforts to reconstruct it were already evident when Ana came back to retrieve the heart from its hiding spot. 

Iliad 

Iliad is the second planet from the sun, the only to be described as having rings, and hosts the city of Zenteli, where the Solani ark crash-landed 1,000 years prior to the story. Iliad’s cities are said to be “Crime ridden” (HoI, I: Iron thief, Ana). Not much is known of Iliad other than it having fighting rings where Lenda fought and Di – and presumably the rest of the Dossier – was shot at by mercenaries there once, earning him a ding to his chassis. Iliad is also where Di visited a mechanic and found out his memory core was malfunctioning, a malady for which there was no fix. 

Zenteli: “Zenteli was a city unlike anywhere [Robb had] ever been before. It shone alabaster white in the sun, almost indistinguishable from the clouds surrounding it. The city was one of the last safe havens away from the HIVE and Messiers, because of an age-old treaty with the kingdom that barred kingdom influence in the Solani city. Located on the peak of a mountain range near the northern pole of Iliad, it should have been cold, but the sunlight kept the city warm and comfortable. Beneath the mountain was a valley where the original Solani ark had crashed over a thousand years ago. As the Dossier broke through the clouds, the sight of the ruined ship was monstrously large—more like the carcass of a living creature than a ship at all. … While the outer walls of the city were made of sandstone, most of the buildings built into the top of the mountain were made of marble. The city was clean and well kept, far older than most cities on Eros. It also had one of the only Iron Shrines that still stood untouched, a shard of white blending in with the rest of the buildings.” (SoS, II: Starless, Robb)

The most impressive feature of the city is the Shining Spire, which appears to function as a Solani palace. The Spire is multi-purpose, being the place where Jax was taken to the med bay, the crew were kept in prison cells, and the Elder counsel met. The spire features a lovely garden that overlooks the ark’s valley, which would have been lovelier if they’d visited when Jax wasn’t actively dying. Inside the spire, “Cloudy crystalline walls separated one room from another, the doors clear as glass. It was so bright, [Robb’s] eyes watered. The medical ward looked more like the inside of a star.” (SoS, II: Starless, Robb)
On every wall in the Spire are etched names, presumably of Solani who have died – perhaps only Solani royalty or those of importance, but that’s unconfirmed – and also Jax’s name, carved when he was on his deathbed. 

The Ark: Called the allahlav in the Old Language, “It had taken only an hour or so to get down the side of the mountain, with the help of a few pulleys and antiquated zip lines hidden in the foliage. The last bit of the trail was a hilly descent into the valley, and the ark already looked impossibly big. It had once housed hundreds of thousands of Solani—but Ana hadn’t realized how big it was until she was halfway down the mountain and the bones of the ship stretched from one side of the valley to the other, like the skeleton of some great beast of lore. It wasn’t a natural valley, but a crater made from its impact.

The ancient ark stood in all its ghostly glory. It was so much larger than Ana could have anticipated, its crystalline structure reminding her more of fossils found in the earth than a ship at all. Great vine-covered pillars curved inward, reaching five hundred feet in the air to make a sort of rib cage for a great beast. The ark spread out in both directions, so long it faded into the trees on either side. It was like nothing in the Iron Kingdom because it wasn’t made of iron or copper or gold. It was ivory and ancient.”

The ark was like a cool giant sky whale but also a controllable ship – even Elara isn’t entirely sure on the details – and was the last of its kind, transporting the last of the Solani from their galaxy to escape the Great Dark that sought to consume them. 

Haven’s Grave

It was a graveyard of sorts, halfway between Cerces and Iliad, where derelict ships congregated through some strange cosmic magnitism, and in the center of the graveyard was a waystation only a few knew about.” (SoS, IV: Starcrossed, Ana)

Cerces

Cerces, third from the sun, is a desert planet infamous for its mineral mines, and features two moons: Palavar and Colliope. Imprisoned people outfitted with vox collars – to prevent unions and uprisings – mine the gem-rich world until they die. “It was a planet of deserts, and underground cities built of topaz and emeralds, and the infamous prison mines that supplied rare jewels to the rest of the kingdom.” (HoI, II: Iron Ships, Jax) It’s also home to the Cercians, though little is described of them except that they wear markings – presumably tattoos – that indicate which clan they belong to.

Palavar

Cerces’s dark moon. It orbited around the third planet from the sun in such a way that it always fell into the planet’s shadow. No light reach it – and that meant no energy. Ships couldn’t function for long, tech would power down.” (HoI, II: Iron Ships, Jax) There are mentions of ruins being on the moon, hinted at being over 1000 years old, perhaps in an age when Cerces was in a different location compared to the sun the Palavar saw light. 

The Tsarina

Known later as The Murder Ship, the Tsarina was the only ship docked in the moonbay that wasn’t accounted for after the Rebellion. “The Tsarina was a Class-4 Armada retired thirty-four years ago for private use, but it did not show its age. On its side, in royal purple, was the Rasovant family crest, a nine-tentacled octopus.” (HoI, II: Iron Ships, Di)

“The halogen lights popped on one at a time, illuminating the long corridor. It was white, lined with silver doors glowing with red keypads. Locked. At first glance, the ship looked immaculate, but there was a thin layer of dust on the tiled floor, showing their boot prints as they traveled down the corridor. … The Tsarina could easily fit five Dossiers. At full capacity, the ship could house two, maybe three hundred people. She’d never been on a ship this big.” (HoI, II: Iron Ships, Ana)

The Dossier

“The Dossier was a ship of beauty. 

The Cercian-7 transportation vessel was from an era before Metals and Rebellions. Close to a century old, the black-and-chrome girl was retrofitted, so it looked like a patchwork of old parts and new spares. Too many firefights had run its three black solar sails ragged, and still it kept sailing like a dead man in the night. The ship wasn’t as fast as newer models, but it was quiet and durable and its solar engine purred sweet as nectar. It was finicky to fly, so most pilots couldn’t handle it properly, but Jax flew it like a dream. 

The cargo bay could fit a skysailer and crates for goods and their latest haul, connecting to an infirmary and an engine room. Up a rickety set of rusted stairs was the crew’s quarters, the galley, the captain’s room, and the cockpit where Jax spent most of his time. The ship constantly hummed from the golden solar energy core at its heart, a sweet and low song that Ana couldn’t sleep without, and the ship always smelled like recycled air, rust, and gunpowder. 

There was never enough privacy, the showers were always colder than the darkest recesses of space, and you could hear someone whisper from anywhere on the ship. But her bunk was warm, and her mattress lumpy to fit her curves, and the crew was like her—forgotten, exiled, orphaned, refugeed. Her family. Home.” (HoI, II: Iron Ships, Ana)

[delicateunraveling]

Dear Taylor,  

A version of this has been in my drafts since the week Lover came out, and I’ve been alternating between too shy and too overwhelmed to post it, but I wanted to try and say something in honor of your 30th birthday, the astonishing year you’ve had, and the impact you’ve made on my life. (The photo is of things I received in a package from a fellow Swiftie, who sent me the deluxe version of the album - and the extra surprises! - because I couldn’t afford it myself, and that itself was remarkably kind and a testament to you - you’ve inspired so much goodness and generosity in others.)

Even if you’re, understandably, never able to see this, it’s honestly a blessing to think I can send this out into the universe. That's enough. Somehow I never knew that I could reach out on Tumblr until recently, or I likely would have said something to you many years ago (despite that overwhelming shyness). I wish I could be eloquent or imaginative in writing it (if I could be complex, if I could be cool!) instead of...an overemotional mess? I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you, for everything you've given to us in your music, everything you've given of yourself no matter how hard it's been, everything you've represented in your honesty, your displays of compassion and strength.

Music is the deepest passion and love of mine, it's the gossamer thread that's held me together in the worst times, the safe place where I could pour my heart and be myself. I'm a couple of years older than you are, though I generally feel behind these days because I've been chronically ill and mostly housebound since I was 19, and that halted my life and dreams in their tracks. The dream of truly honing my voice and my musical self was the most difficult to put away in the midst of all the others. It's often felt like being trapped in amber while the world keeps spinning, or like being a ghost, ostensibly drifting in the world, but nearly invisible to it, only occasionally peeking out of the windows to see the sun.

Ten years ago, I fell for a boy (still the only person I've ever felt that way about), and everything he was ended up being a lie and devolving into him gaslighting me and threatening my safety directly, along with breaking my heart. It took such a toll that I had to pull myself out of a harmful darkness, and he was a musician himself, so I had some terror that the experience with him had stolen or tainted that dearest part of my being. It hadn't, but the recovery took a while. One of the very first things that got me through it, that woke me up again, was being able to hold close to your first two albums. Those songs quite literally helped keep my heart beating, and then Speak Now helped it to heal. I’ve unfortunately never had the chance to see you live (the concert films are spectacular, though!), but your music became a part of the tapestry of my life from those first moments on. I've loved your work ever since then, but often quietly and tenderly, because it's near to such a delicate part of my spirit. It's vulnerable and personal, it's romantic and devastating, it’s starshine salvation when the world feels cold and clouded, and saying that is strange since those expressed emotions are fundamentally yours, but the way they transform into something both universal and specific is truly magical.

This year has been the worst and the darkest I've felt since that heartbreak ten years ago, though for very different reasons. My health took a serious turn for the worse. My beloved dog, who was my constant companion and my emotional support through every day of my illness for almost 13 years, succumbed to cancer. She was my sweet baby (I'm sure you understand this feeling with your precious kitties), and I still struggle with her absence daily. My mom and I are in the most precarious position we've ever been in financially, and we're looking at losing our condo with nowhere else to go. I've felt like everything is terrifying and tenuous and slipping away from me, including time itself. I apologize for even putting those burdens down in words, but if I don't, the weight of my thanks to you isn't as real. "Me!" came out only a couple of weeks after she passed away, and the pure happiness of it was the first bit of joy I'd even felt since she had relapsed. Then when you released “The Archer,” it moved me to the point that tears were streaming down my face when I first played it, feeling like I wake in the night, I pace like a ghost was transcribed from a cathartic place in my own thoughts. Knowing a new album was coming from you once again gave me something to look forward to, a reason to want to keep going, even when it hurt to breathe from missing her, even on days when my illness has been flaring too severely and painfully for me to get out of bed, I kept thinking...make it through to August, you have to hear Taylor's next album. Making it there felt like a minor miracle, and even though I’m scared and don’t know what’s ahead or what’s going to happen now, I am unbelievably glad that I was here to listen to your music, and then to witness your continued bravery, over the past few months. Laying that out in words on a screen sounds too small, but it's tremendous to me.

There are connections to each of your album releases that I could ramble about (Red would take several chapters of its own in my hypothetical novel, My Melodic Inclinations and Inspirations: An Autobiography), in their meaning to me and how much they represent in the pages of these passing years, but I realize how special Lover is to you specifically, and that's why now, more than ever, I wanted to be able to say how grateful I am for your poetic words, for your sweeping and intimate melodies, for your works of art. Hidden away in my room, I've sung-screamed your songs in delight at the top of my lungs, I've curled up under covers and cried to them, I've twirled around in pajamas with them. This is the first time I won't have my fluffy girl to hold on my lap and sing them to, but somehow that has made having new songs all the more treasured and cathartic. Lover is an absolutely exquisite, sparkling gift of an album. I cherish it as I do each of your albums, each for their own special reasons, and I will forever be thankful for all of your work.

I respect and admire you so much for the way you've stood your ground, the way you've championed what you believe in and spoken for equality and for artists’ rights, the grace with which you've approached everything you've been dealt in such a harsh spotlight. I can't fathom what that's like, but I am constantly proud of how you respond, your ability to both grow and remain authentic in expressing your views and truths. Exceptional artistry is worth celebrating (your Artist of the Decade and every other accolade is earned and deserved!), but being an exceptional person is even more worthwhile, and I believe you're both. When we say we stand with you, when we rally around you, I hope you remember that it’s out of not only that admiration and pride, but also rooted in genuine care and connected humanity. Our society needs bright, bold women, making changes and supporting one another. The world is lucky to have your beautiful songs, and your individual voice.

Thank you for creating such incredible things. Thank you for giving a valuable perspective to such a breadth of emotions. Thank you for giving your dazzling art so wholly. I hope you remember how much it means, how deeply it resonates, to so many people. I hope you remember that so many of us are in your corner with the brightest wishes, for your happiness and your freedom to be yourself, with prayers for you and your family and loved ones. I hope you know that your words have given some of us life rafts in swirling currents that threaten to drag us under, that your music has the ability to break through shadows with powerful light. There is a sacredness which exists in art that knits us together. Wherever I go, I'll carry your songs in my heart and soul.

Happy, happy Birthday!!! 🍰 🎈✨ It truly is the end of the decade, but the start of an age. May 30 be the beginning of brand new creativity and experiences, and even more wonder and daylight, golden on the horizon.

Love always,

Jess 💖💖💖

@taylorswift  @taylornation 😘

[filmtrash]

🍑 my favourite CMBYN quotes 🍑

I just wanted to dedicate a post to all my favourite Call Me By Your Name quotes as I feel it’s long overdue. Some of them are the most famous so apologies if you’ve seen them a million times before, some of them aren’t talked about at all and are probably missed upon the first reading. Some of these quotes have got me thinking for hours, most have got me emotional. I know I’ve posted all of these as individual quote posts so sorry for the repetition, but I thought someone might appreciate this. (These quotes take 11 pages up in my journal, all written out by hand). I have put my favourites out of the favourites in bold.

I was exaggerating when I said I thought you hated the piece. What I meant to say was: I thought you hated me. I was hoping you’d persuade me of the opposite - and you did, for a while. Why won’t I believe you in the morning? 

P.S We are not written for one instrument alone; I am not. Neither are you. 

He saw through everybody, but he saw through them precisely because the first thing he looked for in people was the very thing he had seen in himself and may have not wished others to see. 

Let summer never end. Let him never go away. Let the music on perpetual replay play forever. I’m asking for very little, and I swear I’ll ask for nothing more.

Don’t let him be someone else when he’s away. Don’t let him be someone I’ve never seen before. Don’t let him have a life other than the life I know he has with us, with me. Don’t let me lose him. 

What I didn’t realise was that wanting to test desire is nothing more than a ruse to get what we want without admitting that we want it. 

When I’m with you and we’re well together, there is nothing more I want. You make me like who I am, who I become when you’re with me, Oliver. If there is any truth in the world, it lies when I’m with you, and if I find the courage to speak my truth to you one day, remind me to light a candle in thanksgiving at every alter in Rome.

I didn’t know what I was so afraid of, nor why I worried so much, nor why this thing that could so easily cause panic felt like hope sometimes, and, like hope in the darkest moments, brought such joy, unreal joy, joy with a noose tied around it. 

Is it better to speak or die?

In thirty, forty years. I’ll come back here and think back on a conversation I know I’d never forget, much as I might want to someday. I’d come here with my wife, my children, show them the sights, point to the bay, the local caffés, Le Danzing, the Grand Hotel. Then I’d stand here and ask the statue and the straw-backed chairs and shaky wooden tables to remind me of someone called Oliver.

No one likes being alone. But I’ve learned how to live with it. 

All I had to do was list the works I’d read here and he’d know all the places I’d travelled to. 

The light of my eyes, I said, light of my eyes, light of the world, that’s what you are, light of my life.

Mr. Perlman: Mistaken turns, that is. Everyone goes through a period of traviamento - when we take, say, a different turn in life. The other via. Dante himself did. Some recover, some pretend to recover, some never come back, some chicken out before even starting, and some, for fear of taking any turns, find themselves leading the wrong life all life long. 

Oliver: Sometimes the traviamento turns out to be the right way, Pro. Or as good a way as any. 

Do I like you, Oliver? I worship you.

This is where I dreamed of you before you came into my life.

For you in silence, somewhere in Italy in the mid-eighties. 

If I could have him like this in my dreams every night of my life, I’d stake my entire life on dreams and be done with the rest. 

People who read are hiders. They hide who they are. People who hide don’t always like who they are. 

From this moment on, I thought, from this moment on - I had, as I’d never before in my life, the distinct feeling of arriving somewhere very dear, of wanting this forever, of being me, me, me, me, and no one else, just me, of finding in each shiver that ran down my arms something totally alien and yet by no means unfamiliar, as if all this has been part of me all my life and I’d misplaced it and he had helped me find it. 

Call me by your name and I’ll call you by mine. 

He was not allowing me to forget him. 

To be who I am because of you. To be who he was because of me. 

This was the best person I’d ever known in my life. I had chosen him well. 

Perhaps we were friends first and lovers second. But then perhaps this is what lovers are.

I squirreled away small things so that in the lean days ahead glimmers from the past might bring back the warmth. I began, reluctantly, to steal from the present to pay off debts I knew I’d incur in the future. 

Because that heart and his shirt were all I’d ever have to show for my life. 

He came. He left. Nothing else has changed. I had not changed. The world hadn’t changed. Yet nothing would be the same. All that remains is dreammaking and strange remembrance.  

Like soldiers trained to fight by night, I lived in the dark so as not to be blinded when darkness came.

Parce que c’était lui, parce que c’était moi.

I think he was better than me, Papa. 

Nature has cunning ways of finding our weakest spot.

In your place, if there is pain, nurse it, and if there is a flame, don’t snuff it out, don’t be brutal with it. Withdrawal can be a terrible thing when it keeps us awake at night, and watching others forget us sooner than we’d want to be forgotten is no better. We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should. 

Time makes us sentimental. Perhaps, in the end, it is because of time that we suffer. 

Every time I go back to Rome, I go to that spot. It is still alive for me, still resonates with something totally present, as though a heart stolen from a tale of poe still throbbed under the ancient slate pavement to remind me that, here, I had finally encountered the life that was right for me but had failed to have. 

They can never undo it, never unlive it, or relieve it - it’s just stuck there like a vision of fireflies on a summer field toward evening that keeps saying; you could have had this instead. 

And on that evening when we grow older still we’ll speak about these two young men as though they were two strangers we met on the train and whom we admire and want to help along. And we’ll want to call it envy, because to call it regret would break out hearts. 

You are the only person I’d like to say goodbye to when I die, because only then will this thing I call my life make any sense. And if I should hear that you died, my life as I know it, the me who is speaking with you now, will cease to exist. Sometimes, I have this awful picture of waking up in our house in B. and looking out to the sea, hearing the news from the waves themselves; he died last night. We missed out on so much. It was a coma. Tomorrow I go back to my coma, and you to yours.

Cor Cordium, heart of hearts, I’ve never said anything truer in my life to anyone. 

In the weeks we’d been thrown together that summer, our lives had scarcely touched, but we had crossed to the other bank, where time stops and heaven reaches down and gives us that ration of what is from birth divinely ours. We looked the other way. We spoke about everything but. But we’ve always known, and not saying anything now confirmed it all the more. We had found the stars, you and I. And this is given only once. 

Every time I read through these quotes, I’m left winded and utterly speechless. 

[suzanneshannon]

Accessibility for Vestibular Disorders: How My Temporary Disability Changed My Perspective

Accessibility can be tricky. There are plenty of conditions to take into consideration, and many technical limitations and weird exceptions that make it quite hard to master for most designers and developers.

I never considered myself an accessibility expert, but I took great pride in making my projects Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) compliant…ish. They would pass most automated tests, show perfectly in the accessibility tree, and work quite well with keyboard navigation. I would even try (and fail) to use a screen reader every now and then.

But life would give me a lesson I would probably never learn otherwise: last October, my abled life took a drastic change—I started to feel extremely dizzy, with a constant sensation of falling or spinning to the right. I was suffering from a bad case of vertigo caused by labyrinthitis that made it impossible to get anything done.

Vertigo can have a wide range of causes, the most common being a viral infection or tiny calcium crystal free floating in the inner ear, which is pretty much our body’s accelerometer. Any disruption in there sends the brain confusing signals about the body’s position, which causes really heavy nausea, dizziness, and headaches. If you’ve ever felt seasick, it’s quite a similar vibe. If not, think about that feeling when you just get off a rollercoaster…it’s like that, only all day long.

For most people, vertigo is something they’ll suffer just once in a lifetime, and it normally goes away in a week or two. Incidence is really high, with some estimates claiming that up to 40% of the population suffers vertigo at least once in their lifetime. Some people live all their lives with it (or with similar symptoms caused by a range of diseases and syndromes grouped under the umbrella term of vestibular disorders), with 4% of US adults reporting chronic problems with balance, and an additional 1.1% reporting chronic dizziness, according to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

In my case, it was a little over a month. Here’s what I learned while going through it.

Slants can trigger vestibular symptoms

It all started as I was out for my daily jog. I felt slightly dizzy, then suddenly my vision got totally distorted. Everything appeared further away, like looking at a fun house’s distortion mirror. I stumbled back home and rested; at that moment I believed I might have over-exercised, and that hydration, food, and rest were all I needed. Time would prove me wrong.

What I later learned was that experiencing vertigo is a constant war between one of your inner ears telling the brain “everything is fine, we’re level and still” and the other ear shouting “oh my God, we’re falling, we’re falling!!!” Visual stimuli can act as an intermediary, supporting one ear’s message or the other’s. Vertigo can also work in the opposite way, with the dizziness interfering with your vision.

I quickly found that when symptoms peaked, staring at a distant object would ease the falling sensation somewhat.

In the same fashion, some visual stimuli would worsen it.

Vertical slants were a big offender in that sense. For instance, looking at a subtle vertical slant (the kind that you’d have to look at twice to make sure it’s not perfectly vertical) on a webpage would instantly trigger symptoms for me. Whether it was a page-long slant used to create some interest beside text or a tiny decoration to mark active tabs, looking at anything with slight slants would instantly send me into the rollercoaster.

Horizontal slants (whatever the degree) and harder vertical slants wouldn’t cause these issues.

My best guess is that slight vertical slants can look like forced perspective and therefore reinforce the falling-from-height sensation, so I would recommend avoiding vertical slants if you can, or make them super obvious. A slight slant looks like perspective, a harder one looks like a triangle.

Target size matters (even on mouse-assisted devices)

After a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan, some tests to discard neurological conditions, and other treatments that proved ineffective, I was prescribed Cinnarizine.

Cinnarizine is a calcium channel blocker—to put it simply, it prevents the malfunctioning inner ear “accelerometer” from sending incorrect info to the brain. And it worked wonders. After ten days of being barely able to get out of bed, I was finally getting something closer to my normal life. I would still feel dizzy all the time, with some peaks throughout the day, but for the most part, it was much easier.

At this point, I was finally able to use the computer (but still unable to produce any code at all). To make the best of it, I set on a mission to self-experiment on accessibility for vestibular disorders. In testing, I found that one of the first things that struck me was that I would always miss targets (links and buttons).

I’m from the generation that grew up with desktop computers, so using a mouse is second nature. The pointer is pretty much an extension of my mind, as it is for many who use it regularly. But while Cinnarizine helped with the dizziness, it has a common side effect of negatively impacting coordination and fine motor skills (it is recommended not to drive or operate machinery while under treatment). It was not a surprise when I realized it would be much harder to get the pointer to do what I intended.

The common behavior would be: moving the pointer past the link I intended to click, clicking before reaching it at all, or having to try multiple times to click on smaller targets.

Success Criterion 2.5.5 Target Size (Level AAA) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)’s WCAG recommends bigger target sizes so users can activate them easily. The obvious reason for this is that it’s harder to pinpoint targets on smaller screens with coarser inputs (i.e., touchscreens of mobile devices). A fairly common practice for developers is to set bigger target sizes for smaller viewport widths (assuming that control challenges are only touch-related), while neglecting the issue on big screens expected to be used with mouse input. I know I’m guilty of that myself.

Instead of targeting this behavior for just smaller screen sizes, there are plenty of reasons to create larger target sizes on all devices: it will benefit users with limited vision (when text is scaled up accordingly and colors are of sufficient contrast), users with mobility impairments such as hand tremors, and of course, users with difficulty with fine motor skills.

Font size and spacing

Even while “enjoying” the ease of symptoms provided by the treatment, reading anything still proved to be a challenge for the following three weeks.

I was completely unable to use mobile devices while suffering vertigo due to the smaller font sizes and spacing, so I was forced to use my desktop computer for everything.

I can say I was experiencing something similar to users with mild forms of dyslexia or attention disorders: whenever I got to a website that didn’t follow good font styling, I would find myself reading the same line over and over again.

This proves once again that accessibility is intersectional: when we improve things for a particular purpose it usually benefits users with other challenges as well. I used to believe recommendations on font styles were mostly intended for the nearsighted and those who have dyslexia. Turns out they are also critical for those with vertigo, and even for those with some cognitive differences. At the end of the day, everybody benefits from better readability.

Some actions you can take to improve readability are:

Keep line height to at least 1.5 times the font size (i.e., line-height: 1.5).

Set the spacing between paragraphs to at least 2.0 times the font size. We can do this by adjusting the margins using relative units such as em.

Letter spacing should be at least 0.12 times the font size. We can adjust this by using the letter-spacing CSS property, perhaps setting it in a relative unit.

Make sure to have good contrast between text and its background.

Keep font-weight at a reasonable level for the given font-family. Some fonts have thin strokes that make them harder to read. When using thinner fonts, try to improve contrast and font size accordingly, even more than what WCAG would suggest.

Choose fonts that are easy to read. There has been a large and still inconclusive debate on which font styles are better for users, but one thing I can say for sure is that popular fonts (as in fonts that the user might be already familiar with) are generally the least challenging for users with reading issues.

WCAG recommendations on text are fairly clear and fortunately are the most commonly implemented of recommendations, but even they can still fall short sometimes. So, better to follow specific guides on accessible text and your best judgement. Passing automated tests does not guarantee actual accessibility.

Another issue on which my experience with vertigo proved to be similar to that of people with dyslexia and attention disorders was how hard it was for me to keep my attention in just one place. In that sense…

Animations are bad (and parallax is pure evil)

Val Head has already covered visually-triggered vestibular disorders in an outstanding article, so I would recommend giving it a good read if you haven’t already.

To summarize, animations can trigger nausea, dizziness, and headaches in some users, so we should use them purposely and responsibly.

While most animations did not trigger my symptoms, parallax scrolling did. I’d never been a fan of parallax to begin with, as I found it confusing. And when you’re experiencing vertigo, the issues introduced by parallax scrolling compound.

Really, there are no words to describe just how bad a simple parallax effect, scrolljacking, or even background-position: fixed would make me feel. I would rather jump on one of those 20-G centrifuges astronauts use than look at a website with parallax scrolling.

Every time I encountered it, I would put the bucket beside me to good use and be forced to lie in bed for hours as I felt the room spinning around me, and no meds could get me out of it. It was THAT bad.

Though normal animations did not trigger a reaction as severe, they still posed a big problem. The extreme, conscious, focused effort it took to read would make it such that anything moving on the screen would instantly break my focus, and force me to start the paragraph all over. And I mean anything.

I would constantly find myself reading a website only to have the typical collapsing navigation bar on scroll distract me just enough that I’d totally lose count of where I was at. Autoplaying carousels were so annoying I would delete them using dev tools as soon as they showed up. Background videos would make me get out of the website desperately.

Over time I started using mouse selection as a pointer; a visual indication of what I’d already read so I could get back to it whenever something distracted me. Then I tried custom stylesheets to disable transforms and animations whenever possible, but that also meant many websites having critical elements not appear at all, as they were implemented to start off-screen or otherwise invisible, and show up on scroll.

Of course, deleting stuff via dev tools or using custom stylesheets is not something we can expect 99.99% of our users to even know about.

So if anything, consider reducing animations to a minimum. Provide users with controls to turn off non-essential animations (WCAG 2.2.3 Animation from Interactions) and to pause, stop, or hide them (WCAG 2.2.2 Pause, Stop, Hide). Implement animations and transitions in such a way that if the user disables them, critical elements still display.

And be extra careful with parallax: my recommendation is to, at the very least, try limiting its use to the header (“hero”) only, and be mindful of getting a smooth, realistic parallax experience. My vertigo self would have said, “just don’t freaking use parallax. Never. EVER.” But I guess that might be a hard idea to sell to stakeholders and designers.

Also consider learning how to use the prefers-reduced-motion feature query. This is a newer addition to the specs (it’s part of the Media Queries Level 5 module , which is at an early Editor’s Draft stage) that allows authors to apply selective styling depending on whether the user has requested the system to minimize the use of animations. OS and browser support for it is still quite limited, but the day will come when we will set any moving thing inside a query for when the user has no-preference, blocking animations from those who choose reduce.

After about a week of wrestling websites to provide a static experience, I remembered something that would prove to be my biggest ally while the vertigo lasted:

Reader mode

Some browsers include a “reader mode” that strips the content from any styling choices, isolates it from any distraction, and provides a perfect WCAG compliant layout for the text to maximize readability.

It is extremely helpful to provide a clear and consistent reading experience throughout multiple websites, especially for users with any kind of reading impairment.

I have to confess: before experiencing my vestibular disorder, I had never used Reader Mode (the formal name varies in browsers) or even checked if my projects were compatible with it. I didn’t even think it was such a useful feature, as a quick search for “reader mode” actually returned quite a few threads by users asking how to disable it or how to take the button for it out of Firefox’s address bar. (It seems some people are unwittingly activating it…perhaps the icon is not clear enough.)

Displaying the button to access Reader Mode is toggled by browser heuristics, which are based on the use (or not) of semantic tags in a page’s HTML. Unfortunately this meant not all websites provided such a “luxury.”

I really wish I wouldn’t have to say this in 2019…but please, please use semantic tags. Correct conversational semantics allow your website to be displayed in Reader Mode, and provide a better experience for users of screen readers. Again, accessibility is intersectional.

Reader Mode proved to be extremely useful while my vertigo lasted. But there was something even better:

Dark color schemes

By the fourth week, I started feeling mostly fine. I opened Visual Studio Code to try to get back to work. In doing so, it served me well to find one more revelation: a light-text-on-dark-background scheme was SO much easier for me to read. (Though I still was not able to return to work at this time.)

I was quite surprised, as I had always preferred light mode with dark-text-on-light-background for reading, and dark mode, with light-text-on-dark for coding. I didn’t know at the time that I was suffering from photophobia (which is a sensitivity to light), which was one of the reasons I found it hard to read on my desktop and to use my mobile device at all.

As far as I know, photophobia is not a common symptom of vestibular disorders, but there are many conditions that will trigger it, so it’s worth looking into for our projects’ accessibility.

CSS is also planning a media query to switch color schemes. Known as prefers-color-scheme, it allows applying styles based on the user’s stated preference for dark or light theming. It’s also part of the Media Queries Level 5 spec, and at the time of writing this article it’s only available in Safari Technology Preview, with Mozilla planning to ship it in the upcoming Firefox 67. Luckily there’s a PostCSS plugin that allows us to use it in most modern browsers by turning prefers-color-scheme queries into color-index queries, which have much better support.

If PostCSS is not your cup of tea, or for whatever reason you cannot use that approach to automate switching color schemes to a user’s preference, try at least to provide a theming option in your app’s configuration. Theming has become extremely simple since the release of CSS Custom Properties, so implementing this sort of switch is relatively easy and will greatly benefit anyone experiencing photophobia.

Moving on

After a month and some days, the vertigo disappeared completely, and I was able to return to work without needing any meds or further treatment. It should stay that way, as for most people it’s a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.

I went back to my abled life, but the experience changed my mindset for good.

As I said before, I always cared for making my projects compatible for people using keyboard navigation and screen readers. But I learned the hard way that there are plenty of “invisible conditions” that are just as important to take into consideration: vestibular disorders, cognitive differences, dyslexia, and color blindness, just to name a few. I was totally neglecting those most of the time, barely addressing the issues in order to pass automated tests, which means I was unintentionally annoying some users by making websites inaccessible to them.

After my experience with vertigo, I’ve turned to an accessibility-first approach to design and development. Now I ask myself, “am I leaving anyone behind with this decision?,” before dropping a single line of code. Accessibility should never be an afterthought.

Making sure my projects work from the start for those with difficulties also improves the experience for everyone else. Think about how improving text styles for users with dyslexia, vertigo, or visual problems improves readability for all users, or how being able to control animations or choose a color scheme can be critical for users with attention disorders and photophobia, respectively, while also a nice feature for everybody.

It also turned my workflow into a much smoother development experience, as addressing accessibility issues from the beginning can mean a slower start, but it’s also much easier and faster than trying to fix broken accessibility afterwards.

I hope that by sharing my personal experience with vertigo, I’ve illustrated how we can all design and develop a better web for everybody. Remember, we’re all just temporarily abled.

Accessibility for Vestibular Disorders: How My Temporary Disability Changed My Perspective published first on https://deskbysnafu.tumblr.com/

[psikes21-blog]

Ten Years Gone

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the day Clemson Football changed forever. It was Oct. 13, 2008, and it felt like a normal Monday workday to those of us in the Jervey Athletic Center. Yes, Clemson had suffered a terrible 12-7 defeat at the hands of Wake Forest the previous Thursday night, but a few days had passed since the disappointment. I think many of us could have seen a coaching change coming at the end of the season. But this?

Little did we know, just a few feet away next door in the McFadden building, the football program was about to be turned upside down. Tommy Bowden stepped down and after a short meeting with Athletic Director Terry Don Phillips, a 38-year-old assistant named Dabo Swinney was given the keys to the car as interim head coach.

Other than the man himself — literally the most optimistic thinker I’ve been around — who could’ve predicted the decade that followed?

Swinney, of course, went to work and ultimately won the job. In the years that have followed, he not only restored the program to relevancy, he elevated it to a rarefied air.

I was fortunate to be around Swinney’s program a lot over the past decade, particularly from 2014–16 as one of the team’s media relations contacts. I was blessed to work both National Championship Game appearances and witnessed coach and his players hoisting the College Football Playoff trophy in Tampa. I was in the locker room for many great celebrations -- yes, including the above image where I’m seen on the left filming Swinney whooping it up after winning the 100th game of his career, the 2015 ACC Championship Game over North Carolina.

And while I never formed a close relationship with Swinney, I was afforded several opportunities to be in close proximity to him — media functions at his house, IPTAY Prowl and Growl events, community service opportunities, even the 2016 Heisman Trophy presentation. But one opportunity I’ll never forget was when we went to Bristol, Connecticut in July 2015 as part of the ESPN “Car Wash.” I boarded a charter plane at Oconee County Airport along with Swinney, Athletic Director Dan Radakovich and staffers Nik Conklin and D.J. Gordon.

In recent years, Swinney hadn’t done as many 1-on-1 interviews. This was my chance, I thought. As editor-in-chief of Orange The Experience, I wanted to write an article encapsulating the program’s rise to prominence. We were coming off a fourth straight 10-win season and a dominating win over Oklahoma in the Russell Athletic Bowl. Plus, we knew we’d have a good team in 2015, so the timing was perfect.

It’s fun to look back in retrospect — now 3 1/2 years after that flight — at Swinney’s answers and see how he views those early years of growth in the program. Now, the Tigers have won three straight ACC titles and made three consecutive appearances in the College Football Playoff. Swinney and I talked for about 20 minutes on several topics, mostly about transforming the program into relevancy once again. I could’ve continued the interview for hours, but with the AD and head football coach sitting beside me, I wanted to respect their time. I thought I’d include the full transcript below of my Q&A from that flight.

As expected, and much like what we’ve seen from him in the decade following that fateful day on Oct. 13, 2008, Dabo didn’t disappoint.

Enjoy.

1. I was there at your opening press conference on Oct. 13, 2008 — in your mind what was the biggest thing missing from the program at the time you got the call to be interim head coach?

“To me, the biggest task was to bring everyone together. Clemson felt divided, and there was a ton of negativity all around our program. There was some pain involved. I needed to first get the team to buy in. The guys on the team didn’t come to Clemson for me to be their coach. We wanted to make it a new beginning. We couldn’t do anything about what had happened. We had an opportunity to unite our fan base. But we had to get everyone on the same page and create some positive energy. That was the biggest thing, right out of the gate. We had to do some things to bring the Clemson Family together. That’s where ‘All-In’ came from, that week. That’s when we started Tiger Walk.

“I had no idea what to expect, but I told the team we had six weeks to do things a certain way. I wanted all-in commitment from the players. We were going to do things differently, and we were going to have fun doing it. Some things we did really resonated with the fan base. I had no idea what to expect that first Tiger Walk. It was the only time we ever came the route we took that day. I changed that to go through campus the next week. We came over the hill by the McFadden Building (from Seneca) and it must have been 15,000 people there. The guys on the bus immediately came to life. It was a celebration of Clemson and our players, and embracing the journey that was ahead of us. There were no losers that day. I was proud of our players and fans, by the effort that was put forth. I have really fond memories of that first Tiger Walk.”

2. Looking back, how important was rallying the fan base that week leading up to the Georgia Tech game? Obviously a lot of ideas were set in motion right from the start, and a foundation was established.

“Fear is a motivating thing. I’d never run down The Hill. I’d never been on the bus and come around the stadium. Any time I hire a new coach to this day, I require him to come down The Hill that first home game. Even if it’s a former player. It’s important that everyone understand the magnitude of that moment so you can articulate the message on the recruiting trail. I had seen it done for five years and it always made the hair on my arms stand up, but I had no appreciation for the bus trip around the stadium. I hadn’t seen the stadium from that vantage point.

“That game, I didn’t want to be a blooper. I really don’t remember it. It was so intense, but you could feel the support and unity for the first time in a long time. I felt like people were behind the program again. It brought tears to my eyes walking up to the Rock. It was an emotional week. It was such a privilege and an honor. I don’t remember getting down. I just knew to pick ‘em up and put ‘em down. Don’t fall, don’t get trampled. I got down and was at the 50 and the team was still coming down. It took The Hill for me to experience running a 4.5 forty.”

3. The things you have done with the program — from Tiger Walk to postgame celebrations to all the signage and verbiage you use with the team on a daily basis — where does that come from?

“I coach the team the way I always coached my position. I just have a bigger group. The verbiage comes from my background and the things I believe in. I read and see things that I like. It’s mostly just who I am. I’ve tried to coach the same way I did for 16 years as an assistant.”

4. How instrumental have your hires been for the program in the long term, specifically Coach McCorvey, and some of the Clemson alums that you’ve been able to bring back?

“You truly are only as good as those you surround yourself with. If I have to be there to articulate the message, then I haven’t done a good job. I don’t want to be a bottleneck. I believe in empowering great people. I give them the tools they need to be successful, and hold them accountable. You challenge them and correct things along the way. But my job is more of a servant leader. I’m here to serve the staff. For a young person to be successful, you have to make the right decisions with who you allow in your circle. Who do you choose as a wife?

“I hire everyone in our organization. I don’t let assistant coaches hire their staff. We spend three and a half days each year installing the fundamentals of our program. I install the vision, the core values, and the philosophies — because we all have to be on the same page. The staff has to take that preparation and execute it. The message has to be the same. We’re very fortunate because we’ve built a great staff. Our administrative support and resources are maximized. We’re all on the same page. We hear that reinforced all the time, from coaches and parents. We can’t have gaps, everyone has to understand our purpose. We spend a lot of time reinforcing our culture. You really should focus on your employees. If you do a great job there, they take care of the customers. If the assistant coaches do a great job with the players, it will resonate. It’s a philosophy we have in place, and it’s served us well. We’re different in a lot of ways. At the end of the day, you are who you are and you stick to what you believe in.”

5. The 2010 season was admittedly difficult with so many close games, how did the team manage to turn it around that next season with so many young players?

“Some people see it as a disappointment, but it was one of the best things to happen to our program. You can’t always measure your development or growth by a scoreboard. You may have a great season, but how did you do it? With all my heart, I knew we were in great shape. We lost five games by less than six points. We lost in overtime to Auburn on the road, and they won the National Championship. I saw a team grow closer and care about each other, despite our struggles. We transitioned offensively and had help on the way, but we weren’t quite good enough. We were average in the kicking game. (Chandler) Catanzaro had a tough year, so a lot of things didn’t go our way. But I saw the fruits of our labor taking root through the process.

“I saw the recruiting class not flinch — Stephone Anthony, Sammy Watkins, Grady Jarrett, Charone Peake, Tony Steward. All those guys came to Clemson. We came back the next year and won the ACC, and the rest is history. It’s been a great run ever since.”

6. How critical was validating the ACC title with two 11-win seasons and bowl wins over powerhouses like LSU and Ohio State?

“In three years, we played for two ACC Championships and won it in 2011. Our guys had to learn how to win, though. We were in a BCS bowl for the first time, and our guys didn’t know how to win. We didn’t handle success. We learned how to handle adversity, I saw that. But learning how to win is a huge part of building a program. It (2012 Orange Bowl vs. West Virginia) was a disaster, but if you really study it, the game got away in a total of three minutes on some fluky stuff. It got out of hand. Sometimes you need your butt whipped to be able to grow. But we had 42 freshmen. After the game, everyone was embarrassed and down. I told the team, ‘At the end of the day, we accomplished a lot. We didn’t finish the way we wanted.’ I told the team it wouldn’t be 31 years before we were back at the Orange Bowl. And when we come back, we’d have a different result. We flushed it. We didn’t want to lose sight of the growth we had. We were beat up by the media. We developed some mental toughness from that. We come back, beat LSU in the bowl game, and finish 11-2. The next year, we go back to back 11 wins and face Ohio State. They’re 24-1 under Urban Meyer, and we win the game. We don’t win that game without the experience two years earlier. If you handle adversity the right way, you can build the right kind of culture.

“We’ve beaten Auburn, Georgia, LSU, Ohio State. Our guys suddenly expect to win. The consistency we’ve had is unbelievable. We’ve won 27 straight versus unranked opponents. We’ve established a level of consistency that only two or three teams can match at this point. We have to stay committed to what we believe in.”

7. As you look at this four-year stretch, the record 42 wins, what are you most proud of as coach?

“In six years we’ve had 120 seniors, and 115 of them have a degree. Brandon Thompson just graduated. That’s what I’m most proud of. We’ve developed outstanding men. We’re not perfect, but we have a great group of guys. Eighty-one percent of guys that have gotten a shot to play in the NFL (44 of 55) have made a roster. That speaks to the growth they’ve gotten as a man at Clemson. We’re in the love and serve business, we just happen to coach football. We’ve had great wins and moments, but how are we impacting players’ lives and educating them? People don’t like me saying that, but it means more to me than any win we could ever have.”

[d2kvirus]

The other day I came across the following article on Den of Geek discussing the La La Land backlash.  Now to be honest I hadn’t really noticed any kind of backlash, at least in the British press, although I have noticed in the past few weeks the discussion about which film will win Best Picture has gone from being a slam dunk for La La Land to talking about how both Moonlight and Hidden Figures stand a chance of upsetting the odds - although this may just be the bookies trying to rake in a little more money for themselves, as I doubt they could get away with taking bets on whether or not Jeff Bridges will eat a pie during the ceremony.

So for the sake of hoping to actually get some notes for once, here’s my take on the film itself as well as the backlash, which in no way makes me look like a smartass...

i.) Before I begin...

One thing that may seem obvious to me but probably is worth saying is that I saw La La Land on its UK release, which was 12th January 2017 - while the US release date was December 25th 2016.  This may seem insignificant to some, but it does go some way to explaining how the backlash hasn’t really been felt in the UK as by being released six weeks out from the Oscars the narrative skipped straight to its chances at the ceremony, while in the US there’s been extra time for the other potential winners to connect with audiences - especially when you take into account that both Moonlight and Hidden Figures were released in the UK on 17th February, two weeks out from the ceremony with the La La Land juggernaut still performing well at the box office and with several weeks extra hype behind it, while in the US they were released on 2nd September and 25th December respectively.

But anyway...

ii.) The film itself

With all that out of the way, let’s talk about the film itself.

If we’re going to break it down into simple Yes/No questions and ask whether I liked La La Land, I’d say that I did - but this is a case of qualitative data and not quantitative data and here’s where things get a little complicated, because while I can say that I liked La La Land I’m not so sure I can say I loved it or, to put it another way, I’d say it was good, maybe even very good, but I would not say it was great.

It’s certainly worth bringing this up as we live in a world where people freak out when they see reviews that award 7/10 scores as if being given a score of 7/10 is the same as giving it a bad review.  It isn’t, it’s significantly above average.  If anything is a bad review, it;s throwing out 10/10 scores like confetti, which not only fuels hype culture to the point that we end up with situations like the nuclear fallout that greeted the realisation that No Man’s Sky wasn’t up to much, but it also makes awarding a 10/10 score meaningless if, like certain publications I could name, every month’s major release receives one.

So while some people may be appalled that I wouldn’t give La La Land anything above 8/10, that’s on them for thinking that 8/10 is an insult.

Yet at the same time I do think 8/10 is a touch generous on my part, and that’s because the film forgot to have two important things: an opening and an ending.

Let’s start with the film’s opening, as there’s a fair few people who have raved about the Another Day of Sun number that opens the film, and my issue with it: it was pointless, as it failed to introduce a single character or set up the film’s plot.  It was fluff for the sake of fluff, almost as if the film was telling you “Fuck you, this is a musical”.

This may be personal preference, but using the film’s script and trying to remember the film’s opening style as a guide, here is how I would have opened La La Land:

FADE IN...

Sat behind the wheel of her 2005 Prius is MIA, 27, Nevada-raised, holding her phone to her ear.  As she listens to whoever is on the other end of the line, the picture expands and the CinemaScope logo is displayed on screen, disappearing as Mia finally has a chance to talk

MIA ...and I swear to God, she was wrecked.  It was pure insanity.

Mia pauses, looking down at the passenger seat, and as she does so she’s interrupted by the loud blare of a car horn as we discover we are not witnessing the opening scene of a movie, but someone who has spent six years of being told “no” trying to rehearse her lines for another audition while stuck in the LA traffic

The sudden jolt causes Mia to drop the script she was reading from in the passenger seat’s foot well, and as she tries to compose herself she looks out of her window towards the motorist who blasted her with their horn

Looking right back at Mia is SEBASTIAN, 32, shaking his head at Mia from behind the wheel of his 1983 Dodge Riviera.  In that moment we hear that Sebastian is listening to a tape of Thelonious Monk’s “Japanese Folk Song”, yet as he has finished his silent admonishing of Mia he looks over to his sound system and stops the tape, rewinding it to the same spot the tape was at when their eyes first met, before he drives away

Having collected the script from the foot well, although unsure if the pages are in the correct order anymore, Mia turns into the lane that Sebastian was just in and we follow her car

In a scene which would take two to three minutes the main characters are introduced, we get a hint of their backgrounds and motivations, and the film can continue as it did in reality.  That’s how pointless the Another Day of Sun number was, as it can be chopped out of the film and nothing would be lost.

Similar can be said of the other major number early in the film when Mia’s friends take her to the party.  While it could be argued this does set up Mia and Sebastian’s meeting, given the first time the two characters actually spoke to one another was at one of these parties, again it feels like this number existed solely to get some more froth for the trailer - a feeling supported by various clips from these scene being bolted into the various trailers.  So, as before, the whole segment could be lopped from the film and nobody would notice.

Another issue with these needless large-scale song and dance numbers is they actually dilute from what would have made be La La Land unique, as the various songs and themes that plot the course of Sebastian and Mia’s relationship as it grows from those first awkward interactions through the pair warming to one another and letting their guard down to full-blown love work so well, so why they made the decision to throw in some overblown numbers that have no bearing on this central plot point is baffling to me.

There is one of these numbers that didn’t work for me, though, namely the one at the end of the film that showed a “What if...?” scenario (through the medium of dance) about what would have happened if Mia and Sebastian got together when they first met instead of their greatly elongated courtship, which served to tell me one thing: at no point did they consider how the film would actually end.

The setup to the scene worked perfectly, with Mia discovered that Sebastian had achieved his dream of opening his own club and had taken on her suggestion of not just the name but the logo, and the ending where the two share one final look as they consider what might have been also works - but while similar scenes have certainly worked in the past - case in point the scene in 500 Days of Summer where they play Tom’s expectations of being invited to a party at Summer’s alongside the reality of the situation was beautifully done - the version in La La Land was just a five minute hop, skip and jump through the film’s major plot beats that didn’t particularly work.  Mia entering the club with her husband and seeing Sebastian worked, the mournful rendition of one of Sebastian’s musical motifs that ended the sequence worked, and the final look between Mia and Sebastian worked, it’s just the part in the middle didn’t.  What would have been more effective is if they mirrored the earlier sequence of Sebastian in Keith’s band: in that sequence they had Sebastian play in front of a large, enthusiastic crowd yet in the middle of it Mia was looking on knowing this was not what he wanted, so if they flipped that and had Sebastian play in front of a small, intimate crowd as Mia looked on knowing that is what Sebastian wanted all along that would’ve been the more fitting end to that arc, especially if they showed the smallest glances and reactions from the pair of them as Sebastian played.

I know this comes across as stamping down some of the film’s more creative flourishes, but in reality what I’m saying is that Damien Chazelle couldn’t resist over-egging his pudding, so instead of some smaller, more intimate moments that would resonate better with the audience he went the exact opposite direction and, honestly, it weakened moments that could’ve been that much stronger as a result.

iii.) "Look at me, I’m being contrary!”

One of the many, many, many issues with the internet is that it encourages that most heinous of passive aggressive beasts: the needless contrarian.  No matter what the subject, there’s always someone lurking who wants to vociferously disagree with everyone else no matter how many holes their argument is riddled with, and there’s certainly a hint of this with some of the criticism aimed at La La Land.

...and, yes, I do realise that I’m suggesting this after saying at great length how some of the film’s most creative flourishes should’ve been dropped during the writing stage.

While I’m not dismissing all criticism as being needlessly contrary for the sake of imaginary internet points, as I personally know a few people who weren’t particularly enamored with the film, yet the point is that their reasons for having this opinion was based on seeing the film and not liking certain aspects of it rather than seeing how many people they could wind up by posting something needlessly contrary on Reddit.

I can’t help but wonder if a certain amount of the backlash against La La Land, coupled with the sudden talking up of both Moonlight and Hidden Figures, is less about any of those films’ qualities compared to one another and instead related to some people looking for an excuse to reignite last year’s OscarsSoWhite synthetic outrage, something that a La La Land victory in the Best Picture category will give people the excuse they’re looking for to stoke the fires - and this ties in to the criticism that Sebastian, a white character, standing up for jazz in a world which is telling him to leave it behind.

The latter argument is something I take issue with, because regardless of your opinion of the Sebastian character - and let’s be honest, it isn’t unfair to say he’s a retread of Ryan Gosling’s aloof-yet-assholish screen persona he’s most notably used in films such as Drive, The Place Beyond The Pines and The Big Short - to say that a musician’s passion is not dictated by the music he loves and wishes to preserve but his skin pigment is not only the sort of comment that comes across as divisive for the sake of divisiveness, but it overlooks the contributions that Ronnie Scott, Bix Beiderbecke, Jack Teagarden, Benny Goodman and others made to the genre and also the efforts to bring jazz to a wider audience for the sake of scoring points rather than trying to make one.

iv.) The part where I lose the readers completely...

There’s one final aspect of La La Land that I believe is worth discussing, yet at the same time I know that it’s probably going to work out pretty badly for me, but here goes...can somebody explain to me Hollywood's determination to make Emma Stone an icon, because I just cannot see it.

I saw her in Zombieland, and I thought her performance was flat.  I saw her in Birdman, and I thought her performance was flat.  I was her in Gangster Squad, and I genuinely forgot she was in it until I started putting this half-baked stream of consciousness together (although a lot of the blame for that can be leveled at...well, Gangster Squad)  And I saw her in La La Land, and I thought her performance was flat - yet she’s on the ticket to win Best Actress at the Oscars, even though the role of Mia could have been played by any number of actresses to similar or better results.

For example, while I am fully aware that Jennifer Lawrence is the most obvious name I could mention as an alternative, there’s a reason for this: she’s a damn good actress, and has shown this in a multitude of roles in recent years.  Not only is she a damn good actress, but in several roles she has displayed great chemistry with her co-stars, most notably Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook and Chris Pratt in Passengers - the latter being one of the few saving graces of an otherwise poor film - which would have made the Mia and Sebastian romance resonate on the screen.  On top of that, she’s also covered in regards to the singing portion of the role, considering she sang for The Hunger Games’ soundtrack.

The alternatives don’t end with Jennifer Lawrence, either: Carey Mulligan has not only demonstrated considerable acting and singing ability in her previous roles, as well as onscreen chemistry with Ryan Gosling in Drive, but she would have added a sense of vulnerability to the Mia character that we didn’t really see from Stone’s performance, while if Elizabeth Olsen wasn’t locked in to the next few dozen Marvel movies she would have been another viable option for the role.

As with cutting down on the visual flourishes that do a poor job of trying to paper over the gaping hole where some plot development should have been, Stone’s flat performance at the heart of the film is what wedges La La Land into the “good not great” category as a more nuanced performance would have developed the character while also adding that little bit extra to the moments which required it.

So in conclusion...

Again, in case you missed it the first time, I am not saying La La Land is a bad film, because it isn’t - but it was also short of being the masterpiece that it’s being promoted as, which not only raised expectations which may or may not be met, but also serves as a red rag to the needless contrarians of the wi-fi bullring.

Some of its flaws can be forgiven, others should have been addressed during pre-production as they could have been easily fixed, and it’s fair to say that there were elements that could have been improved upon with some judicious rewrites and smarter casting, yet the film still hits enough peaks that it’s not going to go down in history as a missed opportunity.  As for what else it may go down in history for, we’ll find out on Sunday night.

[scucore-blog]

Grace Upon Grace

Have you ever heard or seen or read those stories about two people that were best friends their whole lives? At some point they realize they're in love with each other, or one person realizes the other is in love with them and then their relationship deepens in a greater way beyond that friendship, but then still has the solid foundation.

That's what my relationship with God was like.

I grew up with Him. I have always known Him and appreciated Him and wanted Him in my life. There was never a time where I rejected Him or didn't believe in Him. I had doubts. I yelled at Him a lot. I didn't speak to Him on occasion, but He was my best friend. I knew He was there. Then one day I was sitting reading this book that was required for an internship I was in, and it was like the moment in the story when you realize your best friend is the love of your life. Which may sound so dumb, but I am completely serious.

This is what happened.

I was doing a summer internship program at PBC where a group of 9-12 young adults serve in different youth ministries for the summer and are trained in various aspects of ministry. You attend classes taught by pastors and read books and have discussions. This was the summer before I started college and the ministry I was placed in was children's ministry because at the time that's where I had the most experience and passion. Here's the thing about children's ministry that I did not know at the time; it was the most demanding and time consuming of the ministries, and the circumstances of that summer were made worse by the fact that our children's pastor and supervisor got very sick and needed to undergo treatment. So on the one hand we were trying to love and support her through a crazy difficult time, but on the other we suddenly became the backbone of this ministry that needed to keep functioning for the summer. It was myself and three other interns in children's ministry, but for the purposes of this story I just need you to remember the name "Haley."

Haley was my coworker and we became fast friends because we bonded over feminism and our type A personalities and the fact that our other two coworkers never showed up to things? All summer the majority of pressure was placed on me and her. We would show up early and stay late and in those early and late moments Haley would tell me about what she was reading in her "free" time. She told me she was reading a book about the gospel and about how we are enslaved to ourselves and to the curse of this world, but that there was God's grace. I thought she was nuts. I appreciated everything she was saying and would listen to her talk through it, and was really glad it was helping her out, but I knew God. He was my best friend. I needed to focus on this ministry so I could prove I loved Him and so He knew I wasn't slacking off in our relationship. I was pulling my weight. I was a good Christian.

Well one day Haley had a complete meltdown on me. She started crying and telling me she finally got it and knew now how broken her heart was. Nothing we were doing even came close to this love and grace that He had for us. She kept trying to tell me "Bon, we're saved by grace. We can't do anything it's just there. We're saved by grace." I just hugged her, and nodded. Like I understand what she was saying. But I kind of felt bad for her. She had gone all this time without having God as her person.

(This is when we all chuckle at how small and silly Bonnie is because we all know where this is going.)

In this internship we were assigned two books to read. One on sex and one called The Reason for God by Timothy Keller. (Side note: the sex book was awful in my opinion as are all Christian sex books and that's a rant I would love to give y'all later) but for now I'm gonna focus on the second one. The deal with the books is you read them and have discussions with all the other interns, and a few pastors and directors at the church. This book discussion was scheduled for the last week of our internship. Which meant every children's intern waited till four hours before the discussion was planned to finish the book.

I was sitting in this room with Haley and another intern named Matthew Marks. Both of these people are extremely important to me for having witnessed this moment. I was laying on a couch. I have three hours to finish like 150 pages. We've all been there before. I get to the second half of this book which is presenting the gospel message to people that have been believers their whole lives. People like me. People that are so desensitized to the gospel or who may have not ever heard the gospel extended to them because we were just always there. We already knew Him. I'm reading and it talks about the kind of faith that achieves salvation by avoiding sin. The kind of faith that says I can have God as a companion, as a friend, as a leader, but not as a Savior. I don't need saving. I'm pulling my weight. I'm giving you a reason to love me. I'm investing my talents so I can receive the reward. And I get to these words in the book.

"You are trusting in your own goodness rather than in Jesus for your standing with God. You are trying to save yourself by following Jesus."

I have a lot of flaws. I mean a lot. But I think the greatness sin I struggle with is rejecting the gospel by trying to earn the love and grace of God. In that moment I was talking to Him, and I told Him how sorry I was for not realizing sooner how in love He was. Before I even asked Him I knew it was forgiven.

So I'm on this couch and I start sobbing because I realized I'm in love with Him and and He's in love with me and all this other stupid crap I had been wasting my heart on legitimately did not matter. Haley and Matthew look up from over their books at me like I've lost it. And I have. I am crying my eyes out. I lock eyes with Haley and shout

"We're saved by grace?!?" And the look on her face went from pure confusion and concern to joy and excitement. And she shouted back

"BON WE'RE SAVED BY GRACE."

After that there was zero chance of me finishing the book that day. Slowly everyone else started filing in, and I had to check with every single person to make sure they all understood the situation. A lot of them gave me that same look I had given Haley and a little nod, but some of them, some of them knew what I was saying. Some of them rejoiced with me.

After that… nothing was the same. Once you realize that you're fulfillment is in Christ it's like… nothing else can touch me. All the things that broke my heart have been redeemed. Every person that has wronged me is forgiven. When I don't have a single ounce of love left to give, God loves me and God loves for me. The only way for me to look at life now is with a 'COME AT ME' attitude. I have everything when I have Him.  I have the best.

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me." 2 Corinthians 12:9

Matthew and I quoted this verse back and forth to each other until we memorized it.

I have spent my whole life trying to earn what He has given me freely. What I can never earn, what I do not deserve, but what I have wanted all this time: to be saved.

Some of you may hear this and it resonates a lot with you. You've had a similar understanding and experience. Some of you have not had that realization or experience and that's okay too. Some of you know exactly what I'm saying when I say there is no way to salvation besides the gospel, and some of you may be feeling the same way towards me that I felt towards Haley. That's okay too. We are all finding Him in different ways.

I work in ministry now. (I used to have very long talks with God about how I would not go into ministry. I would not work in a church long term and four months ago I was hired as the high school director of the high school ministry at my church. The Lord has a great sense of humor) Now my working in ministry, and my service anywhere for that matter, is not this obligation or pressure to try and prove that I deserve to be in this relationship. I don't deserve to be in this relationship and I can never give Him what He gives me. BUT I give all I have because that's all He asks of me.

One of my many life mottoes and one that I repeat to myself often is "grace upon grace."

From the fullness of His love we have all received grace upon grace. John 1:17

Bonnie Smith