#maybe you can find them on the internet archive?

[librarylexicon]

In no particular order:

The Westing Game – Ellen Raskin The Phantom Tollbooth – Norton Juster Walk Two Moons – Sharon Creech The Wednesday Wars – Gary D. Schmidt The Seventeenth Swap – Eloise Jarvis McGraw In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson – Bette Bao Lord The Winged Watchman – Hilda van Stockum Seven Daughters and Seven Sons – Barbara Cohen Shadow Spinner – Susan Fletcher The Good Master – Kate Seredy The Singing Tree – Kate Seredy (sequel to above) The Sherwood Ring – Elizabeth Marie Pope Strawberry Girl – Lois Lenski Number the Stars – Lois Lowry The Endless Steppe – Esther Hautzig Sarah, Plain and Tall – Patricia MacLachlan The Witch of Blackbird Pond – Elizabeth George Speare Understood Betsy – Dorothy Canfield Fisher Hope Was Here – Joan Bauer

Looking for book recommendations!

But a very specific type.

So as some light fun between horror novels, I’ve been re-reading or reading for the first time classic books that are generally read by 10-12 year olds. Newberry medal-type stuff.

Recently I have done:

My Side of the Mountain Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH Island of the Blue Dolphins The Giver Holes Pax Lord of the Flies Bridge to Terabithia and currently reading Hatchet

Bought but haven’t read yet: War Horse and Beyond the Bright Sea

So any book recs along this line that you enjoyed as a child (or as an adult!) are welcome! Any genre really.

Thanks!

P.S. - If you haven’t read these at all or haven’t read them recently, I would recommend it. It’s been a delight.

P.P.S. - Feel free to reblog this so I can get more recs :) ty

[doodlemancy]

Hey, so, Patreon is lying to you about Apple forcing their hand.

Patreon is getting rid of 1st-of-the-month/per-creation billing, claiming a new decision by Apple has forced their hand. This will hurt a lot of creatives, and their excuse is bullshit. Allow me to explain.

In 2018, Patreon tried to impose a new ill-considered fee structure on everyone that would have cost creators a lot of smaller pledges. They ended up apologizing for this profusely; they have now deleted this apology from their website and unfortunately I was unable to find it on the Internet Archive. This was shameful, but to their credit they backed off quickly when things got ugly.

Back in 2021, Patreon discussed plans to force all creators into a rolling bill structure and get rid of first-of-the-month/pay-up-front billing. The community once again very decisively shouted them down, and they had to walk it back again. This whole fiasco damaged the already shaky trust between Patreon creators and staff.

This week, Patreon announced that, along with extra fees, Apple's policies were supposedly forcing them to move everyone over to the rolling fee structure that they first tried to get us to agree to in 2021. Patreon will tell you they are not happy about this. As a person who spent a long time watching Patreon make terrible decisions, I can tell you-- they are probably very happy about this, because it's exactly the smokescreen they needed to do what they've been trying to do for years, which is pull ALL Patreon creators away from 1st-of-the-month and per-creation billing.

The spin in the news I've seen so far is "Apple bullies Patreon, boo hoo hoo poor Patreon". This is very obviously not what's happening. Mind you: Apple does suck, and they are doing something bad here. Fuck apple. But Patreon and Apple are BOTH the asshole in this situation; Everyone Sucks Here. Patreon has options: they can make the iOS app a reader app and do billing through the browser to avoid the restrictions and the extra fees (Netflix and Amazon, notably, both do this), or they can allow creators to opt-out of iOS billing if they want to use billing models that don't work with it.

It seems most likely to me that the Apple situation is a real fire that Patreon has chosen to use as a convenient smokescreen to do what they've been wanting to do since at least 2021, and maybe since 2018.

What do we do?:

They have a feedback form specifically about this.

They also have a creator discord.

And they have lots of social media pages where they probably really, really hope that this doesn't blow up again, because they never learn. The incidents I've described here aren't the only two other times Patreon has pissed off their creators. They know if they don't contain the noise it'll be harder to get away with it, so make some noise. They've done a lot of work to spin this cleverly so you'll have sympathy for them and they won't get the kind of backlash they know they deserve.

Please don't misuse these links and make threats or spam or something. All you have to do is give well-reasoned feedback. Patreon hates feedback. Make sure they get a nice heaping helping of their least favorite vegetable.

[overheaven]

ohhhhh i see, tumblr. this is bait to make me go ad free huh

[ravenscosmos]

THE ROLL OVER SIGNAL & SLEEP PARALYSIS

Hi ! I found yesterday a very interesting post on the internet where someone was talking about the roll over urge and its connection to sleep paralysis. I hope it may helps some people and maybe give a new perspective on it !

( cr to Nick Newport ! )

In the post he talks among other things about having discovered two types of sleep commands : "SLEEP STARTERS" & "SLEEP TRIGGERS" and I will get later a bit into them <mostly quoting him> , and how I personally understood them .

— SLEEP STARTERS !

" Sleep starters are what you use to get the body to start thinking maybe it’s time to fall asleep. For instance , using stop drop and roll is a sleep starter because it makes your body ask for permission to fall asleep artificially creating the roll signal. "

So basically , when you do certain things ( such as going to bed , lying down , stop moving as much as you do when you’re not planing on resting ) you‘re sending signals to your body which causes it to start thinking about falling asleep. [that’s also one of the reason many people experience the roll over urge , hot- and cold flashes , random itches,… these are all tricks your brain sends to you to figure out if the mind is asleep!]

— SLEEP TRIGGERS !

"Sleep triggers are how you then tell it :'Yes: fall asleep right now’. SDR has an implicit sleep trigger: when you simply ignore the roll over signal the body interprets it a trigger to enter sleep paralysis"

I am not really sure what SDR means , but : if you ignore the signals (roll over urge/ urge to move, urge to scratch,…) you‘re basically confirming to your body that you‘re asleep and if it‘s convinced it starts to put the body into a sleep paralysis to prevent your body from acting out in dreams ! — they also help to convert from a 'partial paralysis' into full paralysis

Before I explain a couple of triggers and starters I wanted to add that he said in his video that he did not meditate or that he was totally relaxed (in fact , he stated he was fairly tense) as he got a sleep paralysis! He simply just ignored the roll over urge . And due to him being extremely surprised that a wave of sleep paralysis rolled over him, he decided to experiment several months with different techniques , variations & ways to command the body into sleep !

SO : YOU DON‘T HAVE TO BE VERY RELAXED AND TO HAVE A CLEAR MIND INORDER TO EXPERIENCE SLEEP PARALYSIS !<3

of course it can make it waaay easier to archive a sleep paralysis and make things probably more comfortable and faster , BUT it’s not needed !

— ★ . SLEEP STARTER

" Stop Eye Micromovements "

"During the day the eyes are searching for changes in motion. Because of this they make tiny micro movements all the time and at the end of they day they are still making these micro movements even though you may want to go to sleep.

If you close your eyes and try to keep them still you'll find that after about 30 seconds they are still twitching very slightly. It's not easy to totally relax the eyes. However if you can keep them at complete ease for several minutes the body will interpret that as a signal that the mind may have fallen asleep. In fact if you keep your eyes still your body will often fall asleep even if the rest of your muscles are fairly tense "

He also says that you can before sleep , relax your eye muscles by rolling them around in wide circles in both directions several times to ease the tension and letting them rest !

[ Nick Newport also talks about another sleep trigger : mimicking sleep breathing & different breathing styles in order to trick the brain ! ]

• I tried it earlier myself , and I have to say that it really helps !

— ★ . SLEEP TRIGGERS

" Pause Breaths "

"The first trigger is pause breaths. When you reach 90% paralysis, the reason the body doesn't go to full paralysis is it has a bit of doubt about just how asleep the mind really is. This is because of muscle tension. The best solution is to relax more deeply but sometimes that's not possible.

What you can do is exhale and pause for 2 or 3 seconds. Relax as much as you can and then begin breathing again like normal. By relaxing your breathing you reduce your overall tension just barely enough to send a signal to complete the paralysis. During those 2 or 3 seconds you'll feel the paralysis deepening. Sometimes you may have to use 2 or 3 pause breaths about 15 seconds apart. When you do this, you're not trying to alter your blood oxygen levels or anything like that. The purpose is to simply lower your overall muscle tension just long enough to paralyze completely."

[ screen taken from his video ! ]

" Muscle Twitching "

"The second sleep trigger is muscle twitching which was actually the first sleep trigger I ever found. I reached partial paralysis and on a whim decided to try twitching my right forearm to see what happened. To my surprise my entire arm paralyzed. I then twitched my right calf and my right leg paralyzed. I gradually paralyzed my entire body that way and completed the separation.

In other words muscle twitching only paralyses the surrounding muscles. I've actually found that I could paralyze just a single finger by twitching it when in partial paralysis."

" How To Do Muscle Twitching "

"To do this twitch once every second or two when you're in about 95% paralysis. The twitch is very gentle and only lasts the smallest fraction of a second. If you twitch your forearm the rest of your arm should not move at all. If you twitch too hard you'll wreck the paralysis so keep it very light.

Probably the reason this works is when you dream you try to move your muscles but sleep paralysis prevents you from moving. However you do move your muscles just a bit when dreaming which causes muscle twitching. This means the body associates muscle twitching with deep sleep so one way to mimic deep sleep is to use muscle twitching."

" Up and Down Eye Movements "

"The third sleep trigger is up and down eye movements. With your eyes closed you simply move your eyes up and down as fast as you can for about 10 seconds. I've never been able to get it to work using left and right movements. However there is actually a type of hypnotic psychotherapy called "eye movement desensitization and reprocessing" or EMDR which uses side to side eye movements. You may try experimenting with side to side movement to complete partial paralysis but I find up and down is a safer bet."

— ★ . The "Order" to use Triggers

The most reliable strategy coming from him is to start with a few pause breaths , which usually is all it takes to get to 100% paralysis ! If that doesn’t work , he suggests using the twitching method. For the case that it’s still no use : the up and down eye movements. " If that doesn't work just relax for a few more minutes before using the triggers again. "

I want add at this point a couple of things : first of all , I think it totally depends on you , what you want to use first and also that you DON‘T need any of this methods to get into a sleep paralysis and that there are also countless other techniques. Not to forget,that your body experiences every time it goes into REM sleep, a sleep paralysis, just we‘re not aware of it because our minds aren‘t awake. So having a sleep paralysis is something normal and there is no need to overthink or beat yourself up over !<3

— ★ . When to use Sleep Triggers

"I've experimented using sleep triggers to go directly from awake to asleep but that doesn't seem to work. I find that for up and down eye movements to work you need to be in about 99% paralysis, muscle twitching works at about 95% paralysis and pause breaths work at about 90% paralysis. So it's best to start out using sleep starters and then switch to triggers for the last step."

— ★ . SUMMARISE

There are two types of Sleep Commands ( starters & triggers ) :

— Starters : help to think the body about falling asleep

— Triggers : indicates that the mind is probably asleep and grants the brain to put the body into sleep paralysis

If you ignore the signals your body sends you ( roll over signal ,… ) you end up in a sleep paralysis!

It doesn’t matter if your body is tense, ; your mind unfocused- filled with thoughts or empty — your body will still go one way or another in a sleep paralysis ! ( patience is key ! )

Sleep triggers ( eye movements , pause breathing, muscle twitching… ) can help to trick your mind even faster and help to erase any doubt of your mind , to induce a full paralysis !

You don’t need any method to induce sleep paralysis, but it can help !

⋆⋆⋆ good luck !

ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁 other cool sleep paralysis posts !

++ her entire acc

[clarenecessities]

He-man.org will close in 5 days.

He-man.org has been a staple of the Masters of the Universe community since the early days, originating as an email list that worked to document episodes before anything (not footage, not lists, nothing) was available online. It grew into a sprawling, multi-faceted beast of a thing, including an encyclopedia (an in-house wiki), merch lists, a marketplace, forums, anything you could think of.

Several years ago now, the main site went down for updates/maintenance. For a few weeks, we were told, maybe months. The forums remained open for fans to communicate, and barring a period of downtime earlier this year things were going smoothly.

Yesterday, the owner of the site, Val Staples, announced the site would be closed on November 14th, 2023. Six days later. We are currently attempting to contact him, to see if he’s interested in selling, and if he means closed as in “no new posts” or closed as in deleted entirely. Regardless of its eventual fate, the archiving of these forums is essential to preserving the history of the franchise, the fandom, and the brand.

TO SHE-RA (and MotU) FANS SPECIFICALLY: I have personally used these forums to answer questions that could be answered nowhere else. Had I not had access to them, I would never have been able to prove that Purrsia was fake, or found so much unpublished concept art, or discovered that Scott “Toyguru” Neitlich personally wrote Catra’s MOTUC bio (even if he’s put off answering my questions about it for over a year now). Forum members have conducted interviews with the likes of Jon Seisa, Cathy Larson, Janice Varney-Hamlin—essential figures in the very foundations of POP, and those interviews revealed and recorded priceless information for future generations (me! you! us!) to find. Did you know Cathy Larson named Adora? That she originally pushed for “Dorian”, after her own daughter? We cannot let this treasure trove disappear into the ether(ia).

TO THE UNAFFILIATED: Please help. Pretty please. If you’ve ever liked my art or my writing or my haphazard blogging, ever, at all, consider archiving just one board. Just one page. Literally anything helps. I am spiraling into madness & this is my library of Alexandria. The mythical one that was totally unique and persevered nowhere else and was destroyed in a single cataclysmic event. Pretty pretty please help.

HOW TO HELP:

Archive.org has several ways to upload shit but most of them are longer term than “a few days” so we’re focusing on two (which can be run simultaneously): Save Page Now, and browser extensions. From their help page:

1. Save Page Now

Put a URL into the form, press the button, and we save the page. You will instantly have a permanent URL for your page. Please note, this method only saves a single page, not the whole site.

We want to keep outlinks and screenshots wherever possible. The Archive does not keep your IP address, so your submission is anonymous.

2. Browser extensions and add-ons

Install the Wayback Machine Chrome extension in your browser. Go to a page you want to archive, click the icon in your toolbar, and select Save Page Now. We will save the page and give you a permanent URL.

One plus to installing the extension is that as you surf around, when you run into a missing page they will alert you if we have a saved copy.

More extensions, apps, and add-ons:

Firefox add-on

Safari Extension

iOS app

Android app

I strongly encourage you to use these tools even if you aren’t helping with this project/after it ends. Documenting and preserving information is essential in this day and age & The Internet Archive is at the heart of it. Please support them however you can.

I’m serious about paying you, though I may need more communication with folks I don’t know so we can coordinate/verify shit gets done. I think this is a worthwhile pursuit in itself but I recognize your time is valuable & like, people gotta eat. DM me if you’re interested and we’ll talk. I may need to adjust pay depending how many people bite but I’ll do what I can

[hotvintagepoll]

which streaming service has the most vintage movies? If you don't know, maybe your followers could answer? 🙏

Ooh hoo hoo you asked and I'll answer!!

I actually made a post like this for the hot men tournament, but I can't find it now so I'll do it again from scratch. The short answer is that I don't know of any one streaming service that has all the old vintage movies—but most streaming services have a "classics" genre category that can get you started. Here's a small selection of what you can find on different streaming services:

TUBI (free):

The Adventures of Robin Hood (Olivia de Havilland)

A Streetcar Named Desire (Vivien Leigh)

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (Jane Powell, Julie Newmar)

North by Northwest (Eva Marie Saint)

The Music Man (Shirley Jones)

The Women (Norma Shearer, Rosalind Russell, Joan Crawford, Joan Fontaine, Paulette Goddard, several other hotties in small parts)

The Philadelphia Story (Katharine Hepburn, Ruth Hussey)

Notorious (Ingrid Bergman)

Bell, Book, and Candle (Kim Novak, Elsa Lanchester)

The Talk of the Town (Jean Arthur)

Dark Victory (Bette Davis)

Stray Dog (Keiko Awaji)

Some Like It Hot (Marilyn Monroe)

Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (Sophia Loren)

Dirty Girtie From Harlem USA (Francine Everett)

Passport (Madhubala)

Dark Passage (Lauren Bacall)

Sepia Cinderella (Sheila Guyse)

On The Town (Ann Miller, Vera-Ellen, Betty Garrett)

The Bandwagon (Cyd Charisse)

Devar (Sharmila Tagore)

Reet-Petite and Gone (June Richmond)

The Postman Always Rings Twice (Lana Turner)

KANOPY (free through some libraries):

Dial M for Murder (Grace Kelly)

His Girl Friday (Rosalind Russell)

Ball of Fire (Barbara Stanwyck)

Black Orpheus (Marpessa Dawn)

Flower Drum Song (Reiko Sato, Nancy Kwan, Miyoshi Umeki)

Marriage Italian Style (Sophia Loren)

The Rose Tattoo (Anna Magnani)

Tokyo Story (Setsuko Hara)

War and Peace (Audrey Hepburn, Anita Ekberg)

Salt of the Earth (Rosaura Revueltas)

Metropolis (Brigitte Helm)

The Red Shoes (Moira Shearer)

HOOPLA (free through some libraries):

The Court Jester (Angela Lansbury, Glynis Johns)

Sunset Boulevard (Gloria Swanson)

A Place in the Sun (Elizabeth Taylor)

Barefoot in the Park (Jane Fonda)

The Barefoot Contessa (Ava Gardner)

Wings (Clara Bow)

YOUTUBE (has a lot of older movies that have slipped through copyright/are still up for some reason):

Charade (Audrey Hepburn)

Story Weather (Lena Horne)

Gilda (Rita Hayworth)

Rebecca (Joan Fontaine)

This entire playlist of Indian cinema that I just found (Madhubala, Waheeda Rehman, Nargis, Meena Kumari, etc.)

And that's just a small sample. There is also always your local library for physical DVDs, the Internet Archive, and....other methods.....if you know exactly what you're looking for.

I haven't seen all of these movies, so don't consider them personal recommendations—these are just famous movies with our hotties in them, so please be careful if you have content warnings. Good luck and have fun!

EDIT 5/16: Added a few more movies to the different sections, but this is still just a small selection of what the different streaming services have. Good luck!

[aziraphales-library]

Hi! Thank you so much for all the work you put into this archive. I've spent so many hours reading fics lately and enjoying every second thanks to you all!

I wonder if you have any recs for human!au fics where Crowley and Azi meet either online, as penpals or some other way that's anonymous, but maybe they don't know each other in real life or they don't know the other is their online friend/penpal. I really like the build-up towards meeting each other and things like that! I hope it's not too confusing. Any suggestions with those themes would be wonderful ❤️

We have loads of fics along these lines on our #social media tag, a specific pen pals post here, and you'll find similar kinds of fics our our #mistaken identity tag. I've got a bunch now, but I'm sure these'll all be on the tags mentioned, because there are only so many (unfortunately; I too love this trope!)...

Texts from an Unknown Number by GaryOldman (T)

The human wrong number AU I have been craving. Trapped at a boring Halloween party, Aziraphale tries to get in touch with Gabriel but his text ends up in the wrong place.

Press L in the Chat (for Love) by Phoenix_Soar (E)

Bickering fan-content creators Aziraphale and Crowley only have three things in common — they are both avid fans of a new revolutionary TV series about pirates, they are popular for their fantastic fanfiction and fanart… and they are members of the same discord server. Neither of them likes the other, but across the chaotic virtual world of a discord chatroom, who knows what can happen when these two unlikely fans are paired up for an exciting collaboration? Us. We know ;) Discord Server AU — a collaboration between Phoenix_Soar (fic) and Djapchan (multivoice podfic organization & editing) for Pod-Together 2022

A Tricky Situation (Entirely of his own making) by sixbynine (E)

"Crowley stood up and went to leave, he turned back just as he opened the door and took a deep breath. “You know I was quite excited to come here and work with you. I enjoyed reading your work. I disagree with a lot of it, but your writing style is lovely and every so often you’d let that privileged rich white boy mask drop and it was fantastic. I was hoping to meet that Professor Fell, but I’m beginning to think maybe he doesn’t exist and I’m going to be stuck with a rude stuck up arsehole for the next five years.” He slammed the door behind him before Aziraphale could respond. Aziraphale gaped, open mouthed, at the shut door." -- Aziraphale is teaching at Kings College London. He's been teaching at King College London for a long time now thank you very much and he does not take kindly to new Professors being sprung on him suddenly. Especially when this one has quite publically made his opinon of Aziraphale's work known. Luckily Aziraphale has an understanding penpal...

Readings From the Books of Ashtoreth by Quefish (E)

Vicar Aziraphale Bookman has a comfortable life. He lives in and serves the small village community of Tadfield. He enjoys contributing to local businesses, taking walks, and of course reading. His 'guilty pleasure', which gives him no guilt and all pleasure, is a series of novels by one AJ Ashtoreth. But what happens when he reaches out with an innocent bit of fanmail?

The Anon Before Christmas by foolishlovers (E)

When Crowley’s friend, blogging buddy and business partner Anathema announces her annual Secret Santa Exchange on Tumblr, she is very adamant Crowley should join this year. The old-fashioned (but admittedly compassionate) man he gets assigned to send anonymous messages to every day until Christmas sounds awfully similar to the fussy bookseller that his friends adore, yet Crowley tries to avoid at all costs. But surely his friends would have mentioned if Aziraphale had taken an interest in the Bad Omens fandom as well… right? Or: An Enemies to Lovers Secret Santa Tumblr AU.

I Knew I Loved You by AppleSeeds (E)

In September 1999, when his family gets connected to the internet, prospective Marine Biology student Crowley discovers an online forum where he can actually talk to people who share his passion for saving the whales. He begins corresponding with a kind stranger he knows only as Ocean_Angel, and is incredibly excited when the opportunity arises to meet this mysterious person in real life. As their friendship develops, Crowley shares things with Angel that he can't talk about with anyone else, and Angel's insights help him to explore and embrace his own identity. As Crowley works towards finding a place in this world where he feels like he really belongs, he realises that a big part of the answer to that question might actually be right in front of him. What if where he belongs is with Angel?

Big Name Feelings by ghostrat (E)

FANDOM AU! • Crowley is a BNF fic writer, and Aziraphale is a lurking artist who might be just a little parasocially in love with him. How they ever became friends is beyond him, but here they are: One month out from Prophet Con, and Crowley is asking him to be his boyfriend. Just for the weekend, of course.

- Mod D

[foone]

hiya foone! i'm working on the surprisingly lofty task of modding barbie fashion show 2004 and i've been told twice to ask if you have any leads on how to get to the game files. i don't know how to simplify it because i'm so in over my head at this point. here is the thread

okay so here's how you reverse engineer an arbitrary game, the quick version:

Research. Who made the game? what else did they make? Maybe they made a game with the same engine, and someone already figured out that one? (not that I saw on a quick look, but you may be able to dig deeper) Also, look in the game files. There's a PowerRender.dll and a sipEngine.bc file. Nothing for sipEngine, but PowerRender has a hit on the internet archive, maybe that download includes some info on how it encodes files?

Look at the files (with a hex editor, like HxD). KAR files seem to be the main storage mechanism, and they've got a RIFF header. RIFF is a standard, though they're not using it exactly. But this might help. Another thing you can spot in the KAR files is a bunch of english strings (CreditsTb.kar is lousy with them). That's a good sign: it means the files aren't compressed, so you don't have to figure out the compression method.

Static analysis of the EXE. Get Ghidra and load up the EXE. Find where it opens files (CreateFileA/CreateFileW on windows), trace back from there. Check the strings. Hey look, function FUN_004e6260 is called with "KAResource.kar". so FUN_004e6260 is probably a function to load arbitrary resource files. Dig through that, figure out how it works.

Dynamic analysis of the EXE. Stick it in a debugger and see what it does. Set a breakpoint on CreateFileA/W and follow the execution. I don't have a good recommendation for what tool to use here, I'm from the past. I've used Ollydbg a lot but it hasn't been updated in 9 years.

Hijack the EXE and make it do your work for you. One thing I noticed while looking around was references to Python. This game apparently embeds a python interpreter, version 2.2. Maybe you can find where it loads the code from, or inject your own code?

Anyway those are some introductory ideas. feel free to ask any follow-up questions, but this hopefully gives you some idea of where to start?

Good luck!

[olderthannetfic]

I love Ao3 donation season because it truly brings out the most unhinged people.

Suddenly, these people whose blogs revolved only around fandom and memes turn into the most vocal activists, the most involved protesters. There's not a single cause they don't root for, there's not a GoFundMe they don't advertise.

Oh, you think you can donate 10 dollars to a site that provides you with hours of free entertainment and doesn't ask you to sell your soul through data mining? Well, then you should kill yourself and go to hell, because look at these *insert request of money from someone you've never heard of before, isn't part of your online social group, and you share nothing with* causes need it more!!!

I'm far more likely to donate to my mutuals/people I follow/causes I care about than random people (especially when the request comes from Tumblr users, the same breed that gave us people pretending to have AIDS and of being attacked in a mall bathroom for shipping the wrong ship).

But how dare we enjoy life when JonBenet Ramsey's killer is still on the loose, am I right?

--

Yuuup.

And half the time, the gofundmes they link to are dodgy as fuck. I don't reblog e-begging almost ever. I barely post about organizations fundraising, aside from OTW and maybe the Internet Archive once in a blue moon. Very occasionally, I'll find someone's "I'm a disabled, trans POC" post compelling enough that I'll donate myself, but I'm still not posting it here.

Mostly, I don't post such things because if I did, I'd never stop getting pestered to post more. But a lot of it is that many, many, many of them smell of bad money management of the "Oopsie, I spent all my money going to a con and buying merch! Now rent is due!" or "I adopted 57 disabled pets I don't have the means to care for!" (Yes, I have known many fans of both types. And all of them needed to beg again a month later.) I don't doubt that something is wrong in their life, but I just don't think it's money well spent. I'd rather donate to an organization or, on rare occasions, somebody I'm pretty sure is telling the truth about being from a poor-ass country where my few bucks might actually make an impact. That's not the majority of posts that I see.

[dspacefear]

Hypnospace Outlaw is probably my favorite fictionalized internet. This is, partially, because it is genuinely just an entire fictional corner of the late-90s web in all its Web 1.0 glory, rendered in incredible detail. But maybe more importantly, it's filled with genuine love for most of the people it portrays, from confused old people to edgy teenagers getting in online slapfights to super-nerds mad enough at The Man to build their own system (as much as you can when you're still on The Man's servers, because of the scope of the game).

It would be so easy for a game about alternate universe Geocities to be extremely mean-spirited. And Hypnospace can make its characters into jokes, at times, but it doesn't feel like there's serious disdain for these people (with a few notable and IMO deserved exceptions), and especially not for their real life counterparts. They can be silly because people are silly sometimes, and even characters that seem silly at first often have a genuine side you can find with a little reading. Carl is a boomer and his page is badly made, but he clearly loved his wife dearly and misses her every day. All of these people are part of a community that brought a lot of joy to the world, enough for people decades later to go hunting for rare hardware models to try to archive it.

It's so common for online comedy, especially about the internet, to be mean. To view its subjects as essentially a pack of morons that we'd all be better off without. Hypnospace portrays a lot of people that usually get that treatment and it goes out of its way to humanize them.

[beautiful-basque-country]

This is random, but someone reminded me that governments all over the world are shutting down their archives / access, so then i thought i'd ask before it's too late: do you know where one would start to look for an ancestor who shipped off to the Philippines, sometime during the colonial period? as far as i know we have a big blank on this fellow. i admit i should have more homework done, but again - i don't want to line it all up, and then find resources vanished. thanks!

Kaixo anon! Thanks for your ask!

If your relative traveled to the Philippines once the Suez Channel was operative, I'd contact the Catalan Government or the Barcelona City Council because that's the city the ships to Manila departed from. Maybe they have their archives online or they can give you more info or steps to take than I can.

If this person moved there before the Suez Channel existed, I'd do the same but with the Andalusian Government and the Seville City Council, since most of the ships to America or the rest of the colonies started their voyage here.

If these institutions fail to have their archives available online, then I'm sorry to tell you you ran out of luck to investigate via internet. If you know where your ancestor was from, the other option would be the Church - baptism and marriage registration - but don't count on them to have any of these online because it's the fucking Church and time doesn't work at the same speed for them.

I'm sorry I can't be of more help.

[yasmeensh]

Book rant? Anthropology, apes, and racism discussion.

I started reading a book titled "Bonobo Handshake" by Vanessa Woods. I picked it up because a) I want to learn more about bonobos since my knowledge of them is minimal. b) the author had interacted with bonobos in person so it's an interesting perspective to read. c) the book had positive reviews.

I was not expecting the author to start off telling us about the 'discovery' of bonobos in this way.

W-what do you mean, in Belgium? The author makes it clear that bonobos live in Congo and she gives us a few examples of local bonobo lore. Meaning, people in Congo know the bonobos very well. Way to go to give a colonizer the credit??? wtf. In this perspective, she is letting us know THAT was the moment when Bonobos entered western science, which is true. But I was really hoping the author would give it a more holistic view than this, but it seems she really believes in this??? And let me tell you, from what I am picking up between the lines, she ONLY accepts western science. Here is an example:

This is the page that confuses me immensely. I don't know if she is trying to come off as sarcastic or not. She sets out for us that Takayoshi Kano is the star of Bonobo research, but in the next paragraph says there is no one studying Bonobos. "there was never a Jane Goodall or Dian Fossey for bonobos." UHM NO? YOU JUST SAID THERE WAS???

[highlighting and writing over a picture of the page (32) since it's a library book and I can't write on it.]

She says Japanese researchers are responsible for all we know on Bonobos, but then starts talking about de Waal's zoo discoveries in detail, and they seem pretty minor compared to Kano's work with wild bonobos. She did point out that scientists don't take de waal's observations seriously because it's from a zoo, but she doesn't remedy that by telling us if it can be supported by Kano's work or not when compared. Kano is ignored. He does have one book available in English, so it's not like we can't ever learn about what he observed. you said western mainstream media don't want to listen to a man who only spoke Japanese??? UHM. You are too??? Why did you jump to de waal? If it's a book about bonobos, then please give Kano a little spotlight and tell about his research. (I actually want to read Kano's book now but I can't find a borrowable copy of it. It's a complicated long loop to get one. But it's possible T-T!!!!)

I very much dislike her tone in 'oh it's the Japanese that tell us about bonobo'. It is as if no one is actually researching them at all. They are 'foreign' so it doesn't count. Meanwhile, if it's a white person's discovery, it is humanity's. But if it's someone else theeennnn well we are not sure if it's actually real :/ Not until a white person observes this can we really put this into humanity's archive of knowledge. Otherwise, whatever they learnt is not very important or worth talking about.

I'm not gonna drop the book, because it does get me thinking about stuff and that's what I read books for. I guess it reminds me of University days, of how irritated I get when we are assigned a problematic reading to pick apart and present to class. I hope I'm not picking this apart too much 😭 I'm not sure if I'm enraged and reading too much into it. I might be totally wrong. idk... I think I need to join an anthropology book club to have people to talk with about this. Only way for now is to share on the internet and maybe a discussion starts. Want to see what others think of this (especially if they read the book).

[uwabbittuwabbit]

Eterna's Iceberg of Race Replays

I keep seeing people asking about how to watch MotoGP race replays in a financially responsible way, so here's my guide on where to find them!

TIER 1: MotoGP YouTube Channel Playlist MotoGP is probably one of the better racing series in that there are race replays readily accessible on their YouTube channel. They also do have some replays on their Facebook if you have the time to do an archaeological excavation, which I forgot to put on the iceberg (for example the 2014 Qatar GP). Since it's on their official accounts, it's at the top.

TIER 2: Motomundo Many a motoheads' trusted source for replays! Motomundo also has various documentaries, as well as practice, qualifying and testing replays. Motomundo also has a VKVideo account that which you can use if you are so inclined. Unfortunately, it has been reported of late that many of the videos have stopped working, with most of the older races not accessible at all. On the second tier since it is widely recommended and an open secret.

TIER 3: BiliBili (1) (2) This one is kind of unusual! Some endeavoring fans have done a great work of philanthropy by uploading entire seasons of MotoGP replays onto BiliBili, which is basically the Chinese equivalent of YouTube...but more. It can be overwhelming (they have a function where users can write comments which then are displayed on the screen while the video plays, for example) and maybe when I have more time, I could write a guide. Another circumstance of these replays being Chinese reuploads is that the commentary is also in Chinese, and there are some really very ugly watermarks from the broadcast itself that cannot be readily edited out. However, the archive is VERY extensive, although it only comprises of races. On the third tier since BiliBili is very popular in China, but more obscure in the West, and I only found this because I am Chinese and already had knowledge of the platform. The first link leads to a collection in which all the races from 1979-2019 have been uploaded. The second is from the same user, however it is just footage of 2020 testing. Unfortunately it seems that their uploads have paused there, at least for now.

TIER 4: This suspicious ass looking website If you've ventured this far down into the iceberg, I'm assuming that suspicious looking websites that have the potential to give you a virus don't phase you. But nevertheless, as a disclaimer, this website is a little hard to navigate. However, not only does it provide MotoGP coverage (in English), it also covers the feeder series as well and includes them in their race weekend compilations. There are options to view the race in varying resolutions, as well as links to various other uploads on Meta (not THAT Meta) and the like. Unfortunately around 2018 are where the uploads become a bit spotty, with many of the videos being unplayable and the links also leading nowhere. A very warranted tier four rating.

TIER 5: ArchivoGP (1) (2) (3) The reason I placed this one so low is not necessarily because it's better than the rest of the sources (in fact, at time of writing this post a good portion of their videos have been taken offline) but because the story in finding it was actually pretty funny. For context, I was on the hunt for a clip of Marc Marquez giving reigning world champion Pecco Bagnaia the thumbs up at the end of Mugello Q2 (thank you tumblr user suzuki-ecstar for replying to me about this...) and none of the sources I was using (so, any of the above already listed) had that clip. I was gnashing and gnawing my teeth in pain. So where else does one go to find something that is presumably lost? Internet Archive! I really thought this was the end of the road and I would have to clip that moment from a shitty vertical YouTube Short or something. Pain. But then I happen upon a full MotoGP replay. It wasn't of the session I wanted, but when I looked into the user a little further, I saw that they had uploaded various other full race replays. In their bio it was stated that they had a Telegram channel under the same name (ArchivoGP), so I did a Google search and found that they indeed did. Happily, their uploads (which are DAZN broadcasts consisting of pre-GP, practice, qualifying, sprint, feature race, post-GP and also cover the feeder classes) DID have that moment and that is the story of how I finished a fancam with the help of Internet Archive, which once again has saved my life. The three different links above lead to their old site, their new(?) one, and their video archive in question which is hosted on TokyVideo. Unfortunately their archive only dates back to 2020, and as I have stated previously some of them have been taken down.

MISCELLANEOUS: (1) (2) These are some assorted Internet Archive sources which I found while trying to backtrack how I found the previous source. I haven't had the time to actually sort through and vet the videos except for one, the original ArchivoGP user uploads (which is the first link, though I'm not entirely sure because they have since changed the name of the channel).

I hope with this masterpost I have saved you guys a lot of time that you (and me, to be honest) do not have. If you want to know where to watch races LIVE, user kingofthering has a very handy dandy masterpost here which you can go check out.

Psst: in general, if you want to very legally watch something, this is a good resource that I recommend. Cheers! ;)

[tanoraqui]

the thing is... JK Rowling did write the books. She certainly did write the books, which was the pivotal first step.

However, here is an incomplete list of people who meant more to my experience of reading and enjoying the Harry Potter books than JKR ever did:

My grandmother, who read them because she loved to read and because she wanted to understand what the hell her granddaughter - whom she'd recently moved 3,000 in part to live near - spent 90% of her time talking about; who passed away this past fall.

My other grandmother, who read them for more or less the same reason except without the cross-country move; who passed away in 2014. It was in her honor that I bought the current set of books I own.

The uncle-shaped family friend who always listened to me expound on my latest theories for the next book, and told me his own like an equal in intellectual debate

That one writer on Mugglenet's fanfiction archive who wrote a crack soap opera fic in which Professor McGonagall got pregnant from Crookshanks, and the children were cat-human hybrids whom they called "kiddens." That haunts me to this day.

Honestly, collectively every single person who wrote content, be it recordkeeping, fic, or analysis, for MuggleNet circa 2005-2008. Some people spent their internet-childhoods on Neopets or Club Penguin; I read every single page on MuggleNet.com.

The summer camp counselor who'd read HBP when I hadn't yet, and who responded to my positively tsundere attitude toward spoilers by telling me straight-faced that Harry started dating Luna [not Ginny]. A) The fucking audacity! she lied right to my annoying 10yo face! B) I got to experience the giddiness of finding out what happened twice, once then and again later when I read the book! Thank you, Natalie(?) from Y-Camp!

The two friends with whom I went to the DH midnight release party at my local secondhand bookstore, in closet cosplay. We were all in the first 5 people to get our books, and we promptly started reading them while standing outside the bookstore, in the light coming through the front window. 1 of them was parentally required to go to bed but the other and I stayed up all night reading, until we finished the books sometime mid-morning.

My dad, specifically when he (still) tells the story of having to make a "walk of shame" (his words) back to the bookstore the next afternoon, to ask if they had the broom we'd accidentally left behind.

The tourists from America, England, France and China who were all waiting in line at the Platform 9 3/4 overpriced photo op in King's Cross Station the same time I was, in the summer of 2013, which unironically made me feel more spiritually connected with humanity as a whole than possibly any other experience in my life. Like, this is embarrassing. It's a pure tourist trap. Yet people from LITERALLY all around the world had all made the same journey I had to be there, just because we all loved the same books. and that's...really special.

...you know? So, JKR is doing real harm to the trans community now, and will continue to do more and maybe even worse in the future; and I am so, so sympathetic and angry about that. I have no intention of giving her money or any other support ever again, nor of encouraging anyone else to do so.

But all her present vitriol is only drops in the lake of my warm memories. I don't let them give me a falsely rosy view of her, but nor will I let her poison them. And I encourage others to let themselves find the same balance, if they can.

[padmestrilogy]

Do you know any good sources for behind the scenes stuff for A New Hope? I’m doing a big project on the making of Star Wars and wanted to make sure I was getting stuff right. I know Empire of Dreams but was wondering if there was anything else that would be good.

there’s also “light and magic” which tells the story of a new hope’s vfx team (genuinely good watch, very funny, and less lucas-heavy than “empire of dreams”). jw rinzler’s “making of star wars” book series is known for going in-depth on each film. i haven’t read through all of them but he’s the gold standard for star wars historians, and you can find his anh book on the internet archive.

other, optional recs:

“the star wars archives episodes iv-vi” by paul duncan: these are beautiful, informative books that are also quite expensive and look at full trilogies as opposed to just a new hope. i can’t find any 🏴‍☠️ link, presumably because scanning a big glossy volume like that takes time.

“the secret history of star wars”: a mammoth of a book. maybe more controversial in fandom for its central thesis (lucas & co made stuff up as they went along) (shocker), its the product of a head-spinning amount of research, and though it goes into the production of every single star wars film, there’s tons of stuff on anh in there. x

“skywalking: the life and films of george lucas”: a really great biography of george, written on the set of “return of the jedi”, one of the most unbiased looks at him that was still published. you can get it dirt cheap at thriftbooks.

carrie fisher’s memoirs: these are great and frequently heartbreaking reads. she was simply a fantastic writer. i have to rec them. x x x

bonus: i’ve heard really good stuff about “star wars: the annotated screenplays”, have not caught up to that one in my reading list though

[riathedreamer]

I did celebrate in the server yesterday, but I forgot to scream here!

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of the official Footnotes server! I remember being so anxious about attempting to start a Discord server for my fic - would people be nice, would there be drama, would people care, would people even join?

I expected maybe a handful of readers and I would be grateful for every one of them.

And now, a year later, we are almost 150 people in there, and I cannot imagine not having this amazing community full of kind, supportive, funny talented people! People who comfort each other, who hang out, who praise each other, who inspire each other! All the lovely movie nights and voice chats! The chaos after dropping a chapter, and the speculation - Oh the speculation! Writing a mystery fic, I always hoped readers would have fun finding and playing with clues. I am forever amazed seeing how clever and observant my readers are when they share their thoughts in the Spec Hub - which has *28K messages alone* in that channel!

The fact we have a channel dedicated to resources - timelines, summaries of theories, conspiracy board!

That we have a fanart *archive* because we ran out of pins in the main fanart channel!

But most importantly - that I wake up always having someone to talk to. It's been a tough year personally, and according to my parents, this server has saved me. This place has given me friends, a sense of purpose, so many souls willing to listen and be supportive! The fact that I see people in the server becoming friends with each other is so so heartwarming. The fact that some have met in real life - and that more are planning to do so!

The internet can be a rotten place most of the time, but the Footnotes server is such a light in the dark, and I am so grateful for all of you.

Man, this post is just pure gushing, but I still cannot believe I am lucky enough to have all of this.

Anyway, join the fun and become a sad, gay bird in the Footnotes server!

To the stars we haven't seen yet!