#which should be obvious since i even changed my url for a while etc etc

[scottspack]

my wife @got2ghost tagged me to talk about my 10 favorite ships and why!

yall know i LOVE to talk so lessgo!!!!

KIRK/SPOCK - Star Trek: I know this is a very unpopular opinion with some of my mutuals (I apologize Phoenix and Amy) but as someone who grew up watching TOS with my grandma and next gen with my parents, AOS, which came out when I was 13, was MY Star Trek. It was cool and sleek and pine/quinto were hot and at 13 years old I was like This Is Mine Now and have loved it ever since even though I fully recognize what makes it hard to love for classic trekkies! THAT BEING SAID, the reason i love spirk so much (besides the TOS version and the history and love they have) is because AOS spirk was the first pairing that i ever read fic for that was BEAUTIFUL and MOVING and GUT WRENCHING! this was the pairing that made me realize that fic could even be good! that it could not only be good but be AMAZING! even though the AOS movies fumble the spirk bag over and over and over, the things that fic writers have done with these characters and the stories they’ve created around the differences in AOS made a huge impact on me as a young teen and they still have a huge space in my heart!!!!!!!

Sterek- Teen Wolf: there is absolutely a reason that this pairing got so popular so fast and it’s because their dynamic is genuinely so GOOD and funny and there’s so much to work with!!!! Jeff Davis If Not For The Laws Of This Land I Would Have Slaughtered you, etc, etc, BUT regardless of what was done to them in canon, shipping sterek in 2012-2014 was the most fun ive had online in my entire life and i’ll love sterek forever! on this i swear!!!!!! no homo deserves a nobel peace prize!!!!!!!!!

Ruth/Idgie - Fried Green Tomatoes: i think it was phoenix who reblogged something recently about how so much historical gay rep is tragic and sad and doesn’t focus on the reality that gay people have always existed and not every single one of them lived tragic and sad lives. THAT’S WHAT MAKES RUTH/IDGIE SO IMPORTANT TO ME!!!! the importance of historical gay love that was happy! and accepted by their community! and beautiful! and romantic! they fall in love and start a business and raise a child and live in a happy home together! in 1930s alabama! their dynamic in both the book and the movie is unbelievably sweet and hot and i want to cry just thinking about the TENDER LOVE AND CARE!!!!!!!!!!!

Mulder/Scully - The X Files: they’re my parents and i love them! the skeptic/believer dynamic at it’s absolute fucking best! you want to talk about blueprints? mulder/scully is the fucking blueprint. “scully, is this demonstration of boyish agility turning you on?”

Jack/Bitty - omgcp: everyone on tumblr had already moved on by the time i got into omgcp last november, so it feels like im the only one who cares about them anymore but AHHHHHHHHHH i love jack/bitty so much and jack zimmermann in particular (not surprising since spock and lan wangji are two of my other favorite characters, you can see a pattern here) ANYWAYS i think that they are such a fucking good pairing. bitty unconsciously bringing jack out of his shell and making him want to open up and be receptive to love and to be a braver person just by virtue of being apologetically bitty is SO SWEET!! I THINK ABOUT THEM ALL THE TIME!!!!!! read Something Like This by emmagrant01 on ao3!!!!

Destiel - Supernatural: i mean what the fuck do you want me to say. its a man in gay love with an angel. if you’ve followed me for any length of time you’ll know two things: im gay and i love the abstract idea of christian mythology. destiel ticks all of my stupid boxes! one of my fave pastimes is going on ao3 and sorting destiel fics oldest to newest and reading all the really good super early fics when no one knew where the show was going with their angel mythology so fic writers relied on the actual bible and took angels seriously and it was GREAT!

Nick/Jess - New Girl: they’re soulmates from SEASON. ONE. EPISODE. ONE. baybee!!!!!!!! aint nothing else to say! 

Flint/Thomas - Black Sails: this is a ship i dont talk about THAT often but is extremely important to me for what it represents. ive written about 500 tag essays about how black sails is important for many reasons, one of which is that it’s a show that believes in gay joy and happy endings for gay people. the fact that flint spent a decade in mourning for thomas, burning down as much of the english empire as he could in retribution for how thomas was treated, killed all of the people who called him a monster for being in love, and then at the end of it all STILL got his happy ending? absolute catharsis. extremely close to my heart.

Larry - One Direction: [explanation redacted]

Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji - The Untamed: new comers and heavy fucking hitters WANGXIAN!!!!!!!! there was no way in hell that i was ever NOT going to be fully in love with them once i started this show. not only are they ancient chinese kirk/spock, but everything else about their dynamic is just so fucking good!!!! childhood enemies to reluctant friends to shy crushes to soulmates in pursuit of justice and Doing The Right Thing to them against the world to one of them dies and the other wears white in mourning for 16 years to one of them is resurrected and the other knows its him immediately to a stronger connection than ever to once again them! against! the! world! to LOVERS to MARRIED to DOMESTIC BLISS AND RAISING THEIR CHILD TOGETHER. its..............a lot! and its so good! 

this was super fun and im going to tag @wolfbuddy, @significationary, @curlytemple, and @nicolegendary (nicole i want to hear your essay on the gay alien cw show very badly) if you guys are interested in doing this!!!

[hepalien]

Ao3 Tips and Tricks

So I thought I would make a post about some cool stuff you can do with Ao3 and userscripts, and some tips I’ve learned from setting them up for myself! I promise it's not hard, though this is a lot of info. I'm happy to help if I can.

What You’ll Need:

First, you will need the Tampermonkey extension for your browser (depending on what browser you use, Greasemonkey is the equivalent). On Android, you can even run Chrome extensions on mobile with Kiwi Browser! It is easiest to configure the scripts on your desktop and then sync to mobile with Tampermonkey’s cloud sync feature or by exporting the configured scripts and importing in your mobile browser (I will explain how to do this later in the post). If you use any of the tweaks I outline below, be sure to backup your scripts in case your settings are lost.

Once you have Tampermonkey installed, you can get scripts from GreasyFork. The inimitable @flamebyrd also has some great scripts and bookmarklets and has been incredibly helpful while I figured all this out.

Find a script that looks interesting, click on it, and then click “install this script.” Pretty straightforward. Once you have it installed, you can go to Tampermonkey to configure it (only necessary for some scripts) by clicking on the Tampermonkey extension icon in your browser (under the three dot menu in Kiwi) and clicking “dashboard”, then clicking the edit icon next to the script you want to configure. When you’re done, click File->Save.

Scripts and instructions under the cut

Some of my favorites:

Flamebyrd’s Incomplete Works script - fades out WIPs on works listings, and displays the work stats (wordcount, chapters, etc) in red on single works to make it more obvious that they’re WIPs as you’re browsing:

Flamebyrd’s Ao3 to Pinboard bookmarklet/script - if you click the bookmarklet while on a work’s page, it opens the Pinboard save screen and prefills the title, tags, description, word count, etc, and adds ?view_full_work=true&view_adult=true to the URL so Pinboard’s archiver will archive the complete work and not the adult content warning screen (note that Pinboard still cannot correctly archive works locked to Ao3 users, so you may want to download them as a backup. I’ve asked him about fixing that.), based on your selections when configuring the bookmarklet on the linked page. If you use the userscript, it adds a button to the works listings page so you don’t even have to open the work to save it:

I tweaked this script so that it only grabs the first pairing tag, since I don’t typically care about secondary pairings and they were clogging up my Pinboard tags. It’s a simple fix (though I know nothing about coding so I had to do some googling and inspect-sourcing; kinda proud of myself tbh):

Just change this part of the script

if ( options.relationship_include ) {

- $(".relationships a.tag", $work).each(function () {

To this

if ( options.relationship_include ) {

- $(".relationships a.tag:first", $work).each(function () {

I also found this cool mobile-optimized Pinboard bookmarklet called Pincushion and combined it with Flamebyrd’s script. Everything works except the auto-tagging, but I’ve reached out on GitHub to see if he can help (according to Flamebyrd, there’s no tag field ID attribute to map to). However, this bookmarklet has tagging autocomplete features that make it easy to tag manually. For example, if you type “steve 21st” it will suggest “steverogersvsthe21stcentury” rather than having to type out “steverogersvs…” in order for it to autocomplete like it does on the regular Pinboard bookmarklet. I actually have two buttons set up (which you can see in the next screenshot) - Flamebyrd's to quickly grab the tags and close without me having to do anything, and then the Pincushion one to quickly edit the tags. If anyone's interested, I can explain how to do that.

To combine Pincushion with Flamebyrd’s script (so it works from the Ao3 works listings page as mentioned above), simply change this part of Flamebyrd’s script:

t = t.split(" ").join( options.space_replacement );

var pb_url = "https://pinboard.in/add?url=" + encodeURIComponent(q) + "&description=" + encodeURIComponent(d) + "&title=" + encodeURIComponent(p) + "&tags=" + encodeURIComponent(t);

void(open(pb_url, "Pinboard", "toolbar=no,width=700,height=350"));

To this

t = t.split(" ").join( options.space_replacement );

var pb_url = "https://rossshannon.github.io/pincushion/?user=YOURUSERNAME&token=YOURAPITOKEN&url=" + encodeURIComponent(q) + "&description=" + encodeURIComponent(d) + "&title=" + encodeURIComponent(p) + "&tags=" + encodeURIComponent(t);

void(open(pb_url, "Pinboard", "toolbar=yes,width=600,height=700,left=50,top=50"));

You’ll need to get your API Token from your Pinboard account and plug it in where it says YOURUSERNAME and YOURAPITOKEN (number part only) above.

FanFictionNavigator - mark fics as Like/Dislike/Mark/InLibrary, highlight with colors based on which option you select, hide/show based on category, like/dislike author and highlight with color. Only you will see how you've marked things.

You can tweak the colors for the highlighting by configuring the script (I find the default colors make the text hard to read because I use the Reversi skin on Ao3 for white-ish text on a gray background). I also changed it so that when I click “hide likes” it only hides liked fics and not liked authors (i.e. hides fics I’ve read, but not unread fics by authors I like), changed the color of the like/dislike/etc links to match the highlighting color and to show up better, and changed the way it highlights authors (I think the default is bold/strikethrough which doesn't really catch my eye. I changed it to highlight the author name in red/green):

Here are my configured scripts if you’d like to use them instead of tweaking yourself (you need to install both):

FanFictionNavigator

FanFictionNavigator - Colors

Note: Your settings for this script will sync via Tampermonkey but not your data (i.e. fics you’ve liked/marked/etc). If you ever switch between browsers, you’ll need to go to your Ao3 Dashboard and click FFNOptions, export your data, then go through the same process to import it into the new browser.

AO3: Kudosed and seen history - highlight or hide works you kudosed/bookmarked/marked as seen. If you want to use this with FanFictionNavigator, you’ll need to turn off “highlight bookmarks” from the settings under the “Seen Works” dropdown that gets added to your Ao3 navbar or FFN’s colors won’t show. Again, data doesn’t sync between browsers but you can copy it from the dropdown settings. However, it pulls your kudosed and bookmarked fics from Ao3 itself, so that will always show. It's just seen/skipped that doesn't sync:

Ao3 download buttons - adds a download button to the works listings page so you don’t have to open the fic to download it. However, it also doesn’t play nicely with FFN’s colors, so I’m using AO3 Review + Last Chapter Shortcut + Kudos-sortable Bookmarks script which also has a download button that works with FFN (a small down arrow next to the author name). The download button doesn’t work as-is from that link, so here’s my tweaked version based off of this comment. You can configure what format you want it to download by default in the script. There’s also a tweak in the comments to fix kudos-sorting, but it overloads Ao3 and you get a “retry later” error for a few minutes when you try to open Ao3, so I don’t recommend it. I don’t know if any of the other functionalities of the script work because I don’t use them, but it looks like there are tweak suggestions in other comments you can try:

I was using Ao3 Replace Words to replace words in fics that bug me but I realized it wasn’t working on mobile, so I’m using zensurf instead which is not Ao3-specific but works basically the same way. If you want to limit it to just Ao3 (so it doesn’t change words on non-fic sites), just add this

// @include http://archiveofourown.org/*

// @include https://archiveofourown.org/*

Above this line

// ==/UserScript==

(function() {

You can // @include other fic sites like ffnet that way too.

AO3: Links to Last Chapter and Entire Works does what it says on the tin, but the creator was kind enough to give me a code snippet to add that makes the “E” (for Entire Work) appear next to all works and add ?view_full_work=true&view_adult=true to the work URL so that I can easily right-click and share to Instapaper and have it be saved correctly (not just the first chapter but the whole work + not the content warning screen for NR/M/E works). Here is the script with this tweak applied:

I think those are the only ones that I’ve done special tweaks for. Here are some others that I find useful that either don’t require any configuration, or should be pretty straightforward to configure and are explained on the script page.

AO3 author+tags quick-search - doesn’t require configuration

Generates quick links from AO3 fics to more by the same author in the same fandom (or character/pairing/any other tag):

Remove leading spaces in AO3 - doesn’t require config

Removes the leading indents for paragraphs in AO3 works.

Ao3 Only Show Primary Pairing - you have to enter the pairings you want in the script, and you can change how early in the sequence they must appear before the work is hidden. Also works with character tags.

Hides works where specified pairing isn't the first listed. Hidden works show a placeholder that you can click to unhide:

AO3: highlight tags - have to enter the tags you want highlighted, as well as the color you want. It matches case so you may have to enter both “Dog” and “dog”, for example.

Configure tags to be highlighted with different colors. This makes a tag more obvious to your eye when browsing. I use it to highlight things I’m wary of in red so I don’t miss them and start reading a fic I might not want.

AO3: Tag Hider - configure how many tags you want to see before it hides them

Hide tags automatically when there are too many tags. Add hide/show tags button to browsing page and reading page.

AO3 Remove Double-Spacing - no config

Removes awkward double spaces between paragraphs on AO3. Doesn’t smush together paragraphs that have a single line break - it leaves those alone.

ao3 series collapser - no config

Collapse works that are later than part 1 of a series. Leaves a placeholder so you can uncollapse if you want to see it.

AO3 Blocker - no config, but you enter what you want to block from the added navbar dropdown in Ao3

Fork of ao3 savior; blocks works based on certain conditions. I find this simpler to use than Ao3 savior.

FYI there are also style scripts for Pinboard on greasyfork and userstyles.org (this site is slow af for some reason, so be patient while it loads). I use show unread bookmarks more clearly and Modern Pinboard Style (basically a dark mode). Neither require config unless you just want to tweak the settings to your liking. To install to Tampermonkey from userstyles, scroll down to “Install style as userscript”.

I also use these extensions in Kiwi:

Ao3rdr - Adds a star rating system (pictured in some of the screenshots above) to Ao3 works that only you can see. This one will sync your data between devices if you use the cloud sync option, which I recommend so you don’t lose your data if something happens to your device or browser.

Dark Reader - not really necessary for Ao3 if you use Reversi skin, but does make all browser pages dark mode if you want it on sites other than Ao3.

Speaking of Ao3 skins, I have another one set up in conjunction with Reversi that shows all the fandoms on a user’s profile, rather than having to click “expand”:

Unfortunately, I can’t remember where I found this. To set it up yourself, go to your Ao3 -> Dashboard -> Skins -> Create Site Skin, fill in the Title (has to be unique), and paste the code below in the CSS box:

#user-fandoms ol.index {

padding-bottom: 0;

text-align: center;

}

#user-fandoms ol.index li {

display: inline;

margin-right: .5em;

line-height: 2.15em;

}

#user-fandoms ol#fandom_full_list {

padding-top: 0;

padding-bottom: 1.5em;

display: block !important;

}

#user-fandoms p.actions {

display: none;

}

Then hit Submit -> Use. There are ways to hide or highlight various elements (ships, characters, blurbs, work stats, etc) on a works listing page using skins on Ao3. This is getting long so I’m not going to go into that, but I’m happy to help if you want to try it. It’s very easy.

Once you have everything configured on Tampermonkey on your desktop, you can migrate it to your mobile device in one of two ways:

Option 1: Go to Tampermonkey settings and change Config Mode to Advanced

Go down to Script Sync and select your preferred cloud service and save

It will ask you to log in to said cloud service

Install Tampermonkey in Kiwi and do the same thing

Wait for it to sync (this can be slow)

It should sync any changes you make moving forward, but again, it’s slow

Option 2: go to Utilities and check all 3 checkboxes under general (include script storage, include Tampermonkey settings, include external script resources)

Either export to your preferred cloud service or

Export as a zip file, move it to your mobile device, go to this same screen and import

I would recommend exporting as a zip for a backup even if you don’t use it to migrate your scripts

You can unzip and upload individual script files (.js) on this page if you ever need to reinstall a single script with your settings instead of all of them

Let me know if you run into any issues and I can try to help! The script writers are also super nice and helpful if you reach out to them. Yay fandom!

[dmitri-smerdyakov]

The Fantastic Beasts Franchise and JK Rowling

Alright, so...hi everyone.

I don’t know how many people follow this blog anymore because my main blog of operation is now @alwaysahiccupandastrid - I still try to keep this blog relatively active though, just because it was my original blog, I’ve had it since I was 13, and I have so many memories attached to it.

I’m aware that a lot of the people who follow me, especially since late 2016, do so because a) I was a loud and proud Fantastic Beasts fan, b) I wrote some Newtina and Jakweenie fic, and c)...I don’t know. I literally don’t know why people bother following me anywhere because I don’t feel like I have a lot to say. But, anyway, many people probably follow me due to Fantastic Beasts and my posts/fanfics within the fandom.

Those who follow my active blog will already know my feelings and thoughts, but because of the fact many things about this blog - me, the posts for the last four-ish years, the url itself - are Beasts related, I felt it was necessary to come and write an actual post here instead of just reblogging things and calling it a day. I’ve always been very outspoken online, but I’ve been avoiding a certain topic of conversation on this blog for years now, and I’m finally in a place where we can discuss it.

I am, of course, talking about the hot topic that is JK Rowling.

Back in the days between FBAWTFT and FBTCOG, I was a very outspoken defender of JK Rowling and her decision to defend Johnny Depp’s inclusion in the films. Now, this is something I still stand by to this day, and due to the evidence that has since come out, I’m even more steadfast in the opinion that keeping Depp was a great decision. I am fully in support of him and the way he’s currently battling against his abuser. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about right now. As I was saying, back in the day, I was outspoken about the opinion that “we don’t know the full story” etc., and as a result I received very colourful anon messages. Now, to my knowledge, none of these were about JKR being a TERF/transphone, but I think it’s important to mention that at the time I scoffed at the idea she could be one. I openly admit that I didn’t listen to what other people - including actual trans individuals - were saying about JKR and her transphobia because I frankly didn’t want to admit it. I didn’t want to admit that the person who wrote something that saved my life could be so hateful and a bad person - that, and at the time I passed it all off as “wokeness out of control”.

It is now 2020. Up until last Saturday night, I was still in support of JK Rowling - I didn’t agree with some of the stuff she had said, but I was trying to be positive and have hope by telling myself that she didn’t mean to be transphobic, that she just didn’t know what she was doing was wrong, even though the evidence clearly showed otherwise (I.e. her liking transphobic / radfem tweets). I said to my followers on my Beasts page that instead of cancelling people outright, we should be attempting to educate them instead, and if they choose not to learn then fine. And, being 100% obvious, I didn’t want to admit it because I frankly already was feeling annoyed at two different Beasts cast members for different reasons: Ezra Miller (for choking a girl) and Dan Fogler (for his tweet about BLM - admittedly that was probably him being well intentioned but not saying it right). So yeah, I didn’t want to cancel another member of the Beasts “family”.

I had JKR’s tweets on notifications, and for the most part over the last few weeks, it was all about the Ickabog. However, on Saturday night I noticed that she had suddenly tweeted something completely different, and I looked at it. Given that I had adamantly defended her and said “freedom of speech” for so long, it’s telling that my first thought upon seeing her tweet was literally “for fuck sake, Jo, why”.

I won’t post her tweets here but to sum that first tweet up, it was her being annoyed over the term “people who menstruate” being used in an article instead of “woman”, and mockingly saying “there used to be a word for that” before pretending she didn’t know the word. She knew that tweeting it would start arguments and anger, and yet she still made the decision to do so. Her follow up tweets frankly dug the hole deeper; she tried to defend herself by saying, to sum it up, “I have a butch lesbian friend who agrees with me” “I just care about women’s rights!” And “IF trans people were marginalised I’d march with you!” (“If”, of course, being the real kicker here because what do you mean IF. They ARE. Every DAY.)

Since then, JKR has written an essay on her website defending herself and her opinions, and yes, I read it. I read it a few times, in fact. At first, I felt my anger simmer and felt I had been too hasty to make anti JKR jokes, that I was wrong...but then I read it again properly and realised that what she had written was a piece that turned herself into the victim, and that despite putting on the appearance of her saying she supports trans people, including the phrases “I support trans people” and “of course trans women are real women”, she still spewed much transphobic vitriol and hate. She cited no sources for any of her proclamations or statements about statistics, implied that trans men transition to escape their “womanhood”, that trans women are men in dresses, that trans women are dangerous to “real” women (aka cis women) and shouldn’t be allowed into women’s changing rooms or toilets. There was also the autism comment, and the implication of autistic girls somehow not being able to make decisions or whatever.

I’m going to get straight to the point: I don’t support JK Rowling or her radical feminism.

As someone who is a proud feminist (libfem?), I can honestly say that never have I felt threatened or like I was being silenced by the inclusion of trans women in feminist spaces or conversation. Never. In my second year at sixth form, I was in charge of the LGBTQ+ club until a new leader with better leadership skills could step in, and - put simply - that year, the club was made almost entirely of first year transgender students. Even though I had called myself a trans ally for years, I realised there was a lot I didn’t know, and I learnt quite a lot from these students. I continue to still learn today. They were some of the nicest and most intelligent people I got the chance to meet, and I can truly say that at no point was I ever worried to be in a room alone with a trans woman, nor was I concerned about which bathroom they went in - bathrooms are bathrooms. Speaking of bathrooms...when I was at uni during a particularly tense rehearsal a few weeks before our final show last year, a guy in our group made me cry and I ran to the women’s bathroom to escape. Not only did the other girls come to comfort me, but you know what? The guy came in and apologised profusely to me. Did any of us girls give a shit about having a guy in our toilet? Absolutely not. It’s a fucking toilet. And, on that note, I was never worried about a trans woman or even a cis man attacking me in the toilets. You know who DID attack me in the toilets regularly? Other cisgender women.

As a feminist, I fully support trans women and am not threatened by the inclusion of trans women in women’s spaces or in women’s rights discussions. While I agree that cis women and trans women inevitably go through different struggles, at the end of the day, we all identify as women and are women. I think that if your feminism is so threatened by the existence of trans women - TERFs, RadFems, JKR, looking at you - then your feminism is flimsy and not feminism at all.

As a woman, I find it highly offensive that JKR and many RadFems focus so much of womanhood and feminism on an involuntary biological function that, frankly, many of us would rather do without. Yeah, I’m talking about periods - no matter how proud I am to be a woman, I still fucking hate periods and would get rid of mine if I could without erasing my chance of having kids someday. I can hear the RadFems accusing me of “internalised woman hatred” for saying I hate my periods, but you know what, they suck and they hurt and fuck them. The fact that JKR (also the the radfem movement) reduced “women” to just people who menstruate and can have children, and vice versa, is incredibly offensive and misogynistic. For a start, trans men menstruate, intersex people can, non binary can etc. Next, not even ALL cis women have periods - women who are menopausal, young women who haven’t started puberty yet (some do start very late), some women don’t have regular cycles, some women have medical problems that affect their cycle, some women are on birth control that can stop their cycles. So the idea of women being defined as “those who menstruate” is offensive not only to trans/intersex/non binary individuals but also to cis ones too.

As I write this, I’m a 22 year old woman who is still learning and changing every day, and one of the things that I’ve found myself thinking about recently - especially since we’re in lockdown and we have nothing BUT time to think - is about myself and my identity as a woman. What prompted this was when I saw Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s beloved book, “Little Women”, which I’ve since read, for my birthday back in January, and I left the cinema feeling exalted and powerful with my own identity as a woman. (I’ll be returning to LW in a bit)

After some thinking, I’ve realised some things. For me, my identity as a woman is not just because once a month my uterus decides to shed; I do not identify as a woman just because I have certain physical features. I am not a particularly feminine person either, and I’m what some may call a “tomboy” (a phrase I actually don’t mind but I know a lot of people do for understandable reasons since it’s a phrase designed to differentiate people who don’t conform to society’s expectations etc) because I prefer video games and more geeky stuff to shopping or dressing up or make up.

For me, there is no one way a person has to be or appear in order to identify as a woman. Women are beautiful, complex human beings; we are not defined by our genitalia, by an involuntary biological process. Women are strong, intelligent, and interesting people - no two are the same. For example, some decide to raise families, some choose to pursue a career, some do both - all of these are valid and none are more “feminist” or “womanly” than the others, because it’s our as women. I guarantee that if you lined up every single woman in the world - cis AND trans - no two would be the exact same.

I mentioned “Little Women” earlier, and as I was pondering over what makes me identify as a “woman”, I thought a lot about a certain quote from the 2019 film that has stayed with me since it was first said in the release of the trailer. It’s spoken by Jo March to her mother, and I’ve started to understand what for me makes me a woman.

For me, being a woman is all of this: having minds, hearts, souls, ambition, talent, and being beautiful each in our own ways. Women are capable of love and empathy, capable of desire, capable of the most complex and human feelings and emotions, and coming out the stronger for it.

Sex is one thing; gender identity is another.

I won’t dissect every single thing JKR wrote in her essay, but I will just say this: her comments regarding autistic girls are extremely tone deaf and she does not speak for those with autism. I’m going to be honest and admit something here I haven’t before: I have not been diagnosed with autism or aspergers but I AM currently on the waiting list to see someone who COULD diagnose me. Apparently I show signs of a potential diagnosis, so...we’ll have to see. But I have friends who are autistic, and they’re disgusted by JKR trying to use them to support her TERF arguments. Autistic and other neurodivergent people are absolutely capable of making decisions and are NOT people who need to be babied or have their hands held, to be told who they are. It’s incredibly ableist of JK Rowling frankly.

I would also like to point out... I’ve seen people saying “but she doesn’t hate autistic people, Newt is autistic!!!” - yes, but JKR didn’t write him as autistic. Eddie Redmayne chose to play Newt as autistic - JK Rowling didn’t do shit.

It’s also time that I acknowledge that both Potter and Beasts inevitably hold JKR’s problematic views, and that by denying her ownership of her work, we’re not holding her accountable for the horrible things she’s done. This includes - but is not limited to -:

Anti-Semitic stereotypes in the goblins

Lycanthropy being used as a metaphor for AIDS - an illness that is heavily associated to the gay community, and also there was the panic of the AIDs crisis in the 90s where much misinformation and homophobia was generated and spread because of it.

Adding further to the lycanthropy point, one of the infected individuals - Greyback - is stated to have a sick preference for infecting children. Not only are werewolves tied to harmful gay/AIDs stereotypes, but also to the disgusting and frankly wrong notion that gay people are pedophiles.

The only Asian character is called Cho Chang. Cho Chang. That’s two steps away from outright just calling her “Ching Chong”. It’s not a name an actual Asian person would have.

The Goldstein sisters are probably distantly related to Anthony Goldstein, who JKR confirmed (on Twitter of course) is Jewish, meaning that Tina and Queenie are most likely Jewish too (and Goldstein is a Jewish surname). However, despite the fact that the first FBaWTFT is set DURING Hanukkah in 1926, there’s zero signs of them celebrating or observing it. Maybe that’s more on set design than anything else, but come on - if I, a fanfic writer, can do some research, JK/the crew of a major movie can too!

Adding on from that, gotta love how one of the JEWISH main characters then decides to join the Wizarding world equivalent of Hitler. I already had problems with Queenie’s characterisation in CoG, but that’s the icing on the cake.

POC/Black characters - in both series but since I’m a Beasts blog... Seraphina Picquery, a Black female president serving a term during a MAJOR wizarding world crisis, is severely reduced to have only 3 lines in CoG. Nagini’s only purpose is to be the only friend of Credence, a white man, before he joins Wizard Hitler and abandons her; she’s also an Asian character who we know one day permanently becomes a SNAKE, and who goes on to actually have a piece of Voldemort’s soul inside of her?? And some do see her as his slave, though you could argue that she’s actually the only being that he holds any love or respect for. Leta Lestrange is a half-black woman who is killed/literally sacrifices herself for TWO WHITE MEN, and who’s death was literally confirmed to have been added in last minute.

Also, the whole Lestrange storyline was fucking nasty: white Lestrange Sr imperius-ed a black woman (Yusuf Kama’s mother), raped her, and she then died in childbirth. I’m sorry, what the fuck??

In Harry Potter, Seamus is a terrible stereotype of an Irish person - he likes to blow things up. Look up the IRA and their bombings. Fucking Irish stereotype. As someone with Irish grandparents and who is proud of their Irish heritage, this really pisses me off.

Let’s not forget the whole Native American cultural appropriation. That truly speaks for itself.

So here is where I speak candidly to everyone who follows me and/or sees this post. While Beasts is no longer my No. 1 fandom these days, it and Potter still hold a huge piece of my heart. I have 5 wizarding world tattoos, so much merchandise, and I can safely say that being a fan of both series has shaped me as a person. Both of those series helped me get through the darkest days of my life, including bullying at school, my Nan passing away, and my mental health struggles.

This is why what’s happened has impacted me so much and broken my heart. For me, it feels like it’s tainted now because of Jo and her views. I know that we should separate the art from the artist, but when her views are so clearly woven into the very fabric of the Wizarding world, it’s a huge problem.

Here’s another part of the dilemma - I do not wish for the Beasts films to be cancelled. I’m well aware that the *cough* people who dislike me will say I’m trying to be negative, trying to boycott the series blah blah blah, but that’s truly the last thing I want. I still love the story, the characters, the soundtrack, and I want to know how it ends, if only for my own piece of mind. It’s also important to add that by boycotting Beasts, it’s also harming the hard working thousands of others who worked on the films: the cast, the crew, the extras, the musicians, etc., not to mention the fans who actually are invested in the series and have taken solace in it. It’s not fair for them to all suffer over the actions of one TERF.

This is one of my biggest worries, however: the Fantastic Beasts films do NOT have a good reputation as it is. The second film was boycotted by some due to Depp, and now there’s talk of people boycotting number 3 because of JK Rowling. Lots of people already talk hatred about it, and this will only fire that hatred up even more.

There’s also talk of Eddie Redmayne potentially being kicked from the franchise due to a “leak” that he doesn’t want to work with JKR anymore, but this could be sensationalist news reporting. But if it came down to it, I can honestly say that I would rather continue to have Eddie play Newt than keep JKR as a writer. Eddie has done more for Newt than even JKR has, and if he goes, then that will be the last straw for me within the fandom. That will be when I take a sharp exit out, sell my FB merch and have my tattoos covered.

To add, the Fantastic Beasts scripts are...not great. Or, at least, what we saw on-screen wasn’t. Maybe that’s David Yates being the literal worst (fuck you, Yates, you suck) and cutting all the parts with strong female characters, but I honestly don’t think that JKR can write screenplays well at all. I think she’s clearly better at writing books, and that’s fine - books obviously allow for more time to explore characters and story/plot arcs etc, and film scripts offer way less of those chances. I don’t think screenplays allow her to write what she needs to in order to tell the story she wants to, hence why CoG was kind of a hot mess. So maybe it’s just that she’s not suited for screenplays and should stick to books.

Honestly, I kind of just wish that WB would hire another person to finish writing the Fantastic Beasts movies - obviously they’d have to keep JKR on board to tell them the actual plot, but get someone who can actually write screenplays and not be problematic to write them.

By now I’ve gone on long enough that I’ve forgotten my original intent while writing this, so I’ll try to sum up and end now. In short, I am extremely disappointed in JK Rowling and do not support her or her views any longer.

I don’t know how any of you guys are feeling but I would be interested to hear other people’s thoughts, especially other Fantastic Beasts fans. I want to also add that, as always, my DMs and inbox are always open - if not here, then always at @alwaysahiccupandastrid where I’m more active nowadays.

Finally, you guys don’t need me - a white cis woman - to tell you this but you’re all valid and magical and fuck JK Rowling. Her characters would all be ashamed of her, and the characters we grew up with would not stand for the bigotry and vile hatred she spreads under the guise of ““protecting women””. Several of the amazing actors from Potter and Beasts have spoken out against her and her tweets: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Bonnie Wright, Katie Leung, Chris Rankin, Eddie Redmayne. Some have been...less inspiring (Tom Felton, Evanna Lynch, looking at you two 👀)

I’m sending love to everyone right now. I wish I could say something more useful but I’ve spoken enough - I’ve made my opinion clear. I love you all, please stay safe.

[wesleybates]

7 Interactive Elements That Will Help You Get Users Attention

Getting user's attention and getting them to convert is not an easy job. Most of the users are just passively scrolling through web pages and leaving them without actually doing anything. But you can get them to be more actively involved by using interactive elements on your landing page, so keep reading this blog post if you want to find out how.

Since landing page is a standalone web page explicitly created for the marketing and promotion purposes, it shouldn't be just a simple static page with a call to action at the bottom. It needs to spark interest in users right away, so they don't leave immediately. 

According to the NN Group article, average page visit last less than one minute and users often leave within 10-20 seconds, which means that you don’t have much time to grab their attention. I often find myself in that situation - visiting a website for the very first time and if it is not what I expected, leaving within seconds unless there is something eye-catching such as fun animations or videos. So using interactive elements like these to transition between sections or to show off the key parts of your site will make users (like me) more engaged and willing to convert.

An interactive element is anything that a user can interact with. Or in other words, anything that is clickable. This doesn't mean that you should make anything and everything on your site clickable. Elements that should be interactive are the ones that help your users pay attention to the most critical aspects of your site. So here are seven interactive features that will help you improve your landing page 

1. Animations make a page more unique and interactive

Simple and easy way to create visual interest and draw attention towards content is by adding animations. They make landing pages much more unique and interactive. Also, the whole purpose of animation is to enhance the design and fill in the gaps, so you should use this opportunity. When doing so, identify which elements to animate, which animation to use and when it is going to be triggered. Afterward, apply all that consistently to create a great experience. CSS transition and transform properties or keyframes are great to develop simple stuff like making a scroll down arrow bounce on hover or making paragraphs fade in on the scroll. Keep in mind that there are so many possibilities to explore with animations and it is easy to overextend, so be careful.

2. Don’t ignore buttons

Buttons are interactive elements that every landing page has and they are an essential part of every web page. But even with simple elements, you can create very unique and creative follow-ups. Usual challenge is that buttons might not be so obvious, easy to find or they are not indicating to users what happens after they click on them - this way users lose trust.

Having a cursor change on hover will point out that something is clickable and that way users can easily identify which elements are interactive. Having an animation to make it more noticeable or call-to-action text can help increase the clicks.

A simple example of a button is the one which reveals an additional text after the click. It helps your landing page stay clean and gives users a way to engage with your content. However, a more creative example would be the one on the Typeform site where they show different ways of their product use cases. On the right side, there are buttons, after they are clicked on, show one way of using Typeform and that part is also interactive.

3. Forms - fewer fields, more conversions

Forms are seen as the most popular method of conversion and standard part of landing pages. But it appears that their median conversion rate is somewhere between 3-5.5%, which means that forms are not as high-converting as they could be. Common mistakes people make with forms are: too many fields, confusing instructions, asking for personal information user is not comfortable to share, etc. Besides that, users are more prone to scanning than in-depth reading, and if they take a quick look at form and feel like it requires too much effort they won't fill it out.

To get users to fill out the form, they need to be interested in your content, and then you build up their interest with interactive elements. However, once a user is at the fill-the-form point, it should be very easy to fill it out, so they don't have time to change their mind. This means only asking for the necessary information and no distractions. Also, make sure to provide appropriate labels and other instructions if needed to avoid any misunderstandings.

4. Video sends a stronger message

The video is another common interactive element which is considered to be highly engaging. And that should not come as a surprise because people like to watch videos, they love stories, and they can relate to them. User remembers 95% of the message when it is viewed and only 10% when it is read (according to post by Monica Carvalho), which means that video often makes more sense then just necessary information and it can have a more significant impact. Having autoplay on a video is a good idea because it draws more attention that way. But it can be annoying for users who don’t want to watch the video or if something very loud starts to play - it can also drive them away from your site.

What you want to do is have autoplay on, but with audio turned off (a common practice seen on most social media platforms). That way users who want to watch it will have no problem looking for the unmute button, while ones who don’t want to watch it can easily skip it. Another option is a few videos with a possibility to choose before playing them. This way user can engage and get content based on their interest which will make them stay on your page.

Amazing video examples can be found on the Benchmark site. They have five different banners that serve as navigation and hovering over each plays a different video which makes you interested in exploring more.

5. Social media sharing buttons remind users to share the content

Lately, there have been more and more blog posts about people removing social media sharing buttons from their sites, claiming that users don't engage with them and that if users love your content they are gonna share it anyway. But even those say that having social media sharing buttons can remind users to share the content - so why remove them? In my opinion, they are still useful, because there are still plenty of users who would rather be just one click away from sharing something then having to copy URL and then going to their social media profiles to paste it and share it.

So yeah, you should still encourage users to find and share your product, business or idea on social media. And by doing so, these sharing buttons can bring you more users who will be easier to convert. But you can go beyond that and include share icons, latest Instagram photos, Tweets, etc., or even make parts of text shareable when highlighted. Also adding call-to-action text next to social media actions can help increase engagement.

Cheetos web is a great example of good practice. At the very top, they have the bar with Tweets from other people. Their main content includes lots of their Tweets, which when clicked on, also give options to share while in the footer, they got links to their social media accounts.

6. Quizzes, surveys, and polls provide valuable data about users

Interactive elements like quizzes, surveys and polls don't work for every site, but if they fit with your content, they can be really interesting for users - especially quizzes and polls which are super popular. Two reasons why people like quizzes are that we like to talk about ourselves and we like to learn about ourselves, which comes from a study by Harvard University researchers that showed how we are psychologically addicted to talking about ourselves. Quizzes are also specific because they can prolong users attention span to longer than 2 minutes and given that user already spent the time to take the quiz, there is a greater chance that they will leave the email. For you, quizzes are helpful with selling your product or getting opinions from users about a specific thing. They work similarly to forms in a way that once the user starts to engage with them, you shouldn't distract them and interrupt the flow with additional content. Instead, keep interface clean and minimalist so they can focus on what they are doing.

The Two Chimp Coffee has an amazing quiz example. It takes only a few questions to find out which of their coffee is best for you, and of course, you will be more likely to buy it afterward because the solution is personalized to your needs and they are giving you a value in return.

Surveys can be a quick and relatively easy way to get data about your users. But they tend to be lengthy and boring and research found that respondents tend to spend less time on each question the longer the survey is. Also if a survey is longer than 7-8 minutes, completion rates drop by up to 20%.

To have a higher response rate with surveys, you should try to have more closed than open questions so users have to type less. That makes a survey easier to complete and also easier to analyze, but if a survey needs to be lengthy, it is best to separate it into steps or just one question at a time.

7. Interactive Infographics can be a great communication tool

Infographics are a fantastic tool to show an idea or how something works in just a few seconds. They also present statistics in a much more appealing way than just looking at plain numbers. So if your site needs to showcase some analytics or communicate some lengthy topic, consider using infographics. Especially interactive ones, cause it will definitely be more interesting for users to explore and interact with them. They’re easy to understand and visually compelling, which will leave a great impression on a user.

A great example is one at Serio Verify site. They use interactive infographics to show how their platform works, its’ features and benefits.

These were some interactive elements that can help your landing page deal with user's short attention span and help to get them interested and more engaged with your content. Even the most basic interactive elements, like buttons and videos, can be made more fun and bring more engagement and conversions. 

Before you go crazy on implementing all these elements, try to decide which ones best suit your website and business goals. Then try to make them eye-catching and easy to understand so users know instantly what is clickable and what isn't. Last but not least, keep in mind best practices for each in order to get the most out of them.

Wherever your business is located or whether you are targeting customers locally or nationally, the professional  Web Designing St Petersburg, FL can help you engage more audiences. No matter the size of your business there is always a right plan and package to satisfy your requirements.

[ask-jumblr]

Thank you so much to everyone who’s been constructive.

Both commenters, and the anons below who were open about what they’re struggling with. Since all of the asks were either hateful, or seemed to be addressed at me, the mod, I’m going to handle them. 

Before you get too upset that I didn’t give all y’all equal chance to answer: I’m encouraging the anons to send in some asks dealing with the issues they’re mentioning, formatted in such a way that it’s easier for jumblr as a whole to constructively help. Based on their current asks, I can only ask questions about what they practically need.

Because I’ll be addressing the asks chronologically and the constructive asks come later, I’m going to put it all below the cut. If you don’t have energy today, don’t click through. Even the constructive stuff is heavy.

Here were the first two anon’s received:

Isn't Orthodox just exclusionary extremism? Aren't those the homophobes and transphobes who think you shouldn't be allowed to marry a non-Jew? Why aren't we staying focused on reform/recon Judaism?

It’s okay not to know things, although the assumption was a little harsh so I didn’t want to post it directly. In response I made a myth-busting post. Yes, it is American-centric, but here’s why: I can be pretty darn sure anon is American, or at least North American.

Given that you’re upset about intermarriage, you’re probably not Israeli. Given that the U.S. has the largest diaspora population, anon is likely American. Given that anon is referencing “Reform” Judaism as an alternative, they’re probably not in Britain (”Liberal Judaism”) or outside U.S./Britain/Canada/Israel (”Progressive Judaism” everywhere else).

Realistically speaking, I can’t call up every community everywhere. As an American coming out of a mediocre, Anglo-centric education system, I can only speak one other language with any competence and blurt a few words of a few more. If you want to know about a community in a specific place then please, please ask. There have been folks on here asking about communities all sorts of places who have gotten answers here. Jewish geography + the internet is amazing! When anon is American, with misconceptions about American Jews I’m going to assume such.

Orthodox Jews should probably stop existing. 

This ask is hateful and non-constructive. Hence the threat to block.

After this, I got some anons who are getting at some problems that we can really work on. They aren’t American, so I’ve assumed they aren’t the first anon.

hey if your responses and views could stop portraying us jewery as being the only way things are done and that we somehow all have access to the stuff you do, that would be grand

(cont) or where there zero chance of finding a group of that community that'll accept me and not treat me in hateful ways. I'm sorry that Jewery outside the US/NA is that unfamiliar to you and that our viewpoints and experiences makes you uncomfortable but I guess that's the way US Jews deal with Jewish "outsiders".

I’m going to start with part 1 to stay in order even though part 2 is what gets me antsy to help ya. You’re right. I don’t have a ton of experience with non-U.S. Jewery. That’s why I tag thoroughly and encourage folks who don’t know the answer to signal boost. If you’re specific, someone else on jumblr can help you. 

When anon asks are vague and, as they often do, reference U.S./North American terms for branches (”reform” rather than “liberal” or “progressive”), I’m going assume the anon us in the U.S. or greater North America. Most other respondents likely will too. Anon askers who want otherwise need to use terms that are more globally (”progressive”) or locally (”liberal”) appropriate, or give a little more locational information (e.g. city, country, region). Re-my new explanation above about American-centrism. I respect that you didn’t have the benefit of seeing the language in that ask, but I’m here to help you as much as I can without superfluously emailing every rabbi in every country for another anon who’s linguistically and statistically likely to be in New Jersey or Ohio or somewhere else in the U.S..

Now for part 2 (after “(cont)”), your concerns. (Getting something out of the way: Since you’re saying “Jewish “outsiders”” I’m going to assume you’re Jewish. However, many people reading this might not be; this audience has a lot of prospective converts. I want to point out that prospective converts aren’t entitled to conversion via any particular community. I might personally be dismayed, but it’s that community’s prerogative. Getting that community to a place where people who are already Jewish who are LGBTQ, have disabilities, etc. are accepted is going to be my priority if I were to harangue a community that’s not my own. In other words, people like anon. On that note...) I received another ask with a concern similar to part 2, by someone in a similar situation as a Jewish person under the LGBTQ umbrella whose only option is a community that won’t accept them. I’d like to answer these together. Here’s that second ask:

Not your first anon but there's no non-homophobic Orthodox community where I live. I live in Europe and maybe it is different in the US but the Orthodox communities here do NOT accept lgbt+ people. Or if they do it is under the "don't ask, don't tell" form of homophobia where you're accepted as long as you don't display it publicly or ask them to treat you as an equal in any way. So sorry for not feeling endeared to a group that have always hated me.

This means we’ve got a heck of a problem. There are Jewish people who don’t have a community and need one. Y’all (You all) don’t know me irl, but making sure Jewish people who want Jewish communities have Jewish communities is something I’m very big on. I’ve gotten some flack for being too welcoming or too focused on making sure synagogues are welcoming. I want you to know that we want you here. Unfortunately you aren’t close enough for me to personally offer you that hug.

You see, I’m a U.S. Jew, but I’m not one from a place like New York City where there’s a wealth of Jewish community options. (hint: #SouthernJews #ShalomY’all) I know those people near me who feel forgotten, ignored, scoffed at, or unvalued don’t always have another option (or that it’s a loooong drive and lots of gas money away). I am someone who has had to put in the work to build the community she wants and needs, and a community that is welcoming for the people she cares about. 

Putting aside the extent to which I’ve had to patch up my own education while trying to make sure others aren’t on their own doing it, I’ve also had an obstacle you’ll find more relatable. I know it’s not obvious, I’m also under that LGBTQ umbrella (sexuality, not really gender from my current self-understanding). I’m largely closeted irl because being Jewish makes me enough of a target and is harder to hide. I don’t discuss it much on the internet because I don’t want #woke #discourse about myself as I figure out my own identity, and don’t want my own processing  (yay for internalized -isms!) to hurt someone else. It’s fine that you didn’t know, but I want you to know now so that you can understand my experience:

Yesterday, I had a conversation with a friend in Israel who’s had to make community choices too. My friend (who is also under that umbrella) convinced me that I should go to a shul with a rabbi who was openly homophobic in the past because it’ll be the best balance between programming that meets my needs (adult learning! services!) and driving distance. The rabbi stopped being openly homophobic, so I know I can be in that community. But it’s not exactly my dream. I don’t plan on relying on that rabbi for psak or life-cycle events--at least not until I know more. Then again, I’m lucky. I’m lucky in that there are rabbis I feel comfortable getting psak from who speak my native language. I’m lucky that I know enough to know that a non-rabbi can officiate a commitment ceremony (and actually a Jewish wedding too...), and that I’m from a well-connected extended-family that is friends with rabbis elsewhere (whoot! Jewish geography!) who would happily come in to officiate for me (though it might be costly and they might only do commitment rather than marriage). And I’m lucky that my extended family would be supportive enough to do so for me (they’d be getting eager enough for me to marry anyone...).  I’m also lucky in that I could drive even farther and hit a Reform community that’s been more accepting for much longer. It doesn’t have the resources or programming I need, but I would have hypothetical access to a place with other Jews that has gender-neutral bathrooms and a rabbi who hasn’t said anything (recorded) that’s unaffirming of my existence.

But what about people who don’t have access to an alternate community? Or for whom that other community is even father from being a good fit?                   With work, it is possible to make change. Do you know why that shul’s rabbi stopped being openly homophobic? Maybe compassion. But there was an outside trend too: the community shifted away from homophobia to embrace its LGBTQ members, and he was forced to follow. It’s quite likely that movement stances and responsum helped, but community organizing, changing minds one-at-a-time, those were definitely pieces of the puzzle.

I want this blog to be here for you in figuring out how to make those changes. I began an initiative on here called Tikkunity. It’s a goofy name for an important mission: help people find strategies to make their communities more vibrant, more welcoming, more supportive, more accessible, more whatever someone needs. The ones I’ve put out so far aren’t as heavy as your topic, but Tikkunity is also here for what you’re looking for. I’ve gotten in touch with some other blogs about topics that are less obvious for communities, and a bit heavier too. If either of y’all feels comfortable messaging me from off anon (just make a side-blog with a random url), I’d love to draft a post with you. Alternately, if you send something constructive and specific enough such as “I only have one choice of community and I don’t feel safe or accepted there as a [insert LGBTQ identity/ies] person. How can I make my community more accepting of [my existence/my partnership/my pronouns/etc.]? FOR: Orthodox and [LGBTQ accepting/affirming/or other word or phrase of your choice that describes people who would be in-line with your goal]” or “ I only have one choice of community (there aren’t many Jewish people near me) and I don’t feel safe or accepted there as a [insert LGBTQ identity/ies] person. Does anyone have recommendations of what to do and tools to help me do Jewish stuff to do without the big community? How can I find people from that community willing to join me so it isn’t as lonely?” then I can post it off the bat

As much as I’m not letting askers generalize Orthodox Jews as individually homophobic/transphobic, the U.S. isn’t a utopia for LGBTQ [Orthodox] Jews looking for communities. “Don’t ask don’t tell” is how many U.S. Orthodox communities function. You’ll notice that the Orthodox LGBTQ-acceptance group I linked (Eshel) is an activist-type group from within the Orthodox community. The most effective change comes from within communities, which is why I’d rather you talk to Orthodox jumblrs than me. There are many LGBTQ Orthodox Jews on tumblr who might be willing and able to help you make that change via advice on a Tikkunity post, connecting you with other activists, or via a longer-term messaging relationship as they make change in their own communities. While I don’t think Eshel formally works outside the U.S. right now, that doesn’t mean you can’t ask them about expansion or see if they can connect you  with other laypeople community builders and shifters to provide mentorship and support.

If you can’t start within the community, you can start building alternate spaces with Jewish people you know who have been willing to engage with you. Even communities that are largely homophobic/transphobic aren’t a monolith. There’s lots of advice out there for people making “start-up” communities or “indepedent minyanim” or “chaburas.” It’s not fair that you have to do the work. But don’t take it out on all Orthodox Jews, individually, especially because some of them are on your side.

And if you’d rather move than make those changes then if/when you are able to move this blog can also be a resource for you. If you send in a message with the cities you’re considering and what you’re looking for in a community, someone in jumblr can likely help give some advice on where you’ll find the best community for you.

[awesomelephuoclocblog-blog]

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[zepdeans]

this is highkey like a month late (i mean wbk im a chronic scatterbrain procrastinator) and she’s thicccc but without further ado. my skam s4 thoughts.

I first just want to say a couple things: im not a muslim woc so my thoughts on s4 don’t hold as much value as those of a muslim, woc, or a muslim woc. I also don’t know to what degree sana’s representation was true to real life. I made an effort to look for posts from muslim woc on sana’s season but to no real avail, especially given it’s been two years since skam ended and a lot of blogs have deactivated, changed urls, or posts have become buried :( [if you know of any good posts regarding sana’s season please lmk!]. from what I can recall in 2017, there were mixed opinions on s4 with most being upset (or at least disappointed) with the ultimate execution of sana’s storyline and I agree w that. while s4 means so much to me and has a really special place in my heart, I do 100% acknowledge its flaws. ok!!!!!! lets get into it😤

ep1 -as much as I wished isak stayed in kollektivet I’m glad he and even had a rlly sweet happy time this entire season. also evak making their friends move all their furniture while they whisper romantic shit to each other and makeout? peak comedy -you fuckin wish!!! -sana is the one to say “of course you should tell noora about william”.. she Knew and still takes the fall for it :( -this opening clip is such a jarring shift into sana’s pov!! e.g. while easy to overlook in previous seasons, sana’s exclusion from the girls is glaringly obvious once we’re looking through her eyes -adding onto that! sana is the friend who notices everyone else- she’s so observant, which hurts even more when you notice her friends don’t do the same (except mayhaps chris- in my heart of hearts I know chris is also the friend who notices and goes unnoticed, but unfortunately we don’t get enough of her and sana’s relationship this season to fully see that) -yousef and the balloon squad’s entrance.... ICONIC! also I cant believe for 2 seasons they presented those dickbag nissen 97s as the be all end all of hot amazing boys when the bakka third years were RIGHT THERE like,, the penetrators vs. balloon squad + even? no contest ma’am -also! it’s so interesting that we literally had no idea sana had a brother, or that yousef etc existed until now? it’s as if she has a whole private world at home, separate from her friends and nissen (and I think a theme of this season is those two worlds merging) -im obsessed w the yousana train scene but yousef being the only one who notices sana standing off to the side? ;-; -fy faen is such a stunning clip oh my god. when sana leaves to pray? possibly my favourite skam scene ever. it’s exquisite.  -sana is so cute and awkward squeezing thru the crowd shsdhgfhshdf I LOVE her love her -the last shot on yousef and noora... oh my GOD oh my god bc like. being that friend who never ever tells your real feelings or your crushes or is vulnerable with your friends?? and then having to listen to them talk about how good your crush would be with someone else (especially one of ur friends) while ur sitting there silently dying inside? and you don’t say anything since you can’t be vulnerable with your friends and u don’t think u stand a chance anyways so. (in the words of s3 noora. I think sana struck a nerve with the emotional unavailability! abbey r u ok) -this episode is a masterpiece and did such a phenomenal job of both introducing us to sana’s perspective while also touching on a multitude of her struggles AND establishing the themes of the season. plus the cinematography, editing, soundtrack and aesthetic...... o baby. (case in point I deadass just rewatched it after writing this)

ep2 -every shot of sana praying is beautiful (and beautifully edited!!) -sana’s room is usually messy... not smart enough to fully analyze this but I’m sure it means something  -an interesting contrast of what’s expected of her vs. of elias- I can’t speak for muslim families, but I know even in non-muslim families girls are always held to suchhh a higher standard (source: I have 2 brothers rip) -”if you find immaturity charming” hilarious bc sana actually does in fact find immaturity charming  -what’s interesting is how noora comes across in sana’s POV- kinda obnoxious, kinda ignorant, seemingly perfect (compared to how noora is portrayed in eva’s season, for example) -even is one of those ppl who uses the bill gates argument on why dropping out of school makes u richer sdfhfsjskfjfsd -sana staring down the pepsi max squad. fuck em up. -vilde adding magnus to the groupchat jfkjsjfdjfsfsdkj -isak missing eskild :’) sidenote I fucking live for isak and sana’s chats this season. they’re literally my lifeblood like.... 

ep3 -the kiss me scene god I go FERAL -“you need to pull it towards you, not push it away. okay?” yall mind if i SCREAM!! YOUSEF!!!!!!!!!! -there rlly is something about seeing sana, who in everyone else’s POV comes off as cold and harsh and stoic, just absolutely meltinggg when she talks w yousef like she doesn’t stop smiling she’s so sweet!!!! ah🥰 and yousef is 100% that guy who ppl tell “your gf is so intimidating and ruthless bro” and he’s like are y’all talking about sana??????? my baby?? my fuckin cinnamon apple????? -yousef’s lil smile watching sana peel carrots. 911 it’s me again -vilde and sana’s relationship has a really interesting dynamic bc like.. vilde says ignorant shit to sana while also genuinely looking up to her. and sana is probably the harshest to vilde within the group but it’s because she actually values their friendship a lot  -IM HURT BECAUSE YOU NEVER REPLIED TO MY MEME -sana pulling 2yr old receipts off the top of her head to defend vilde. god I stan -sana doin research taking notes..... shameful she isn’t canonically a virgo (honestly her and isak both but like-) -she’s so soft and smiley w her mamma awh... “of course he likes you, who doesn’t like you?” her mamma only knows the real, gentle, beautiful loving sana oh im CRY -even is so kind and loving and thoughtful yall mind if i....... -”you can’t escape the internet girl” foreshadowing mayhaps?

ep4 -david and ulrikke together are fucking hilarious -noora’s “you’re lucky you don’t have to think about this stuff, heartbreak and that” :/ it’s not just vilde who says ignorant things to sana! -that being said sana and noora are cute asf in the exper5 scene.. dorky noora rise (omg josefine and her yogurt in the bloopers too sjhfkjdf) -I HANDLE BALLS BETTER THAN YOU -the yousana scene is sooo gorgeous whew...... -I always cry a lil bit (ok a lot) when yousef brings up even. and sana knew too. even sweetie ily :( -sana talking about her religion is beautiful. it’s so lovely to learn about how she thinks and sees the world. -yousef’s smile watching sana leave like ur kidding right....... -“flawless since 99″ is so cringey. it’s so cringeyyy -sana uses “smh” I knew we were soulmates

ep5 -eavesdropping on ur parent/brother’s argument is peak sibling culture -when ur always paranoid but ur always right..... -sana’s green jumpsuit sign me up babey -I really really really love elias and sana’s conversation -u dont even realize how tiny sana is until she’s standing next to isak and even -not finding out why yousef avoided the fight and why he kissed noora will haunt me forever (could we not have expanded more on that instead of noorhelm.......) -the parallel of sana washing isak’s blood off her hands vs. her washing her hands during maghrib in episode 1. gotta sit down. -vilde gossiping to the pepsimax girls stings SO bad it’s just such a betrayal?:( -“the other girls seem cool, especially noora! she’s so pretty!” ok much to unpack here but: sana again comparing herself to noora (who she sees as /perfect/)... sana being written off despite putting so much effort and passion into the russ bus while noora, who has done literally nothing and at best is indifferent to russ, is the one they like the most. disgusteng -love will tear us apart.. bitch..... -sana abt to cry god I can’t -if sana is anything like me (I mean I think she is but jkjjkhsdfhfsd). looking stupid is the absolute worst so like, her sending out emails abt being bus boss when she was actually being lied to? being played? and her being “paranoid” about sara being shady, but deciding hey maybe im just being crazy? except she wasn’t she was right and she Knew!! and she’s probably thinking how dumb it was for her to get her hopes up, everything always ends badly anyways and no one actually likes her :((((((( -dont rlly know what my feelings are on the fight. im not against it bc isak does have a temper but his apparent motive always seemed weak to me?? and god I feel so bad for even

ep6 -forgot about sana getting bullied in middle school yall mind if I sob?? -sana lying and getting defensive bc it’s hard to be vulnerable, or because she hates looking stupid? or both?:( -isak looking up dandelions in his textbook just bc even put one behind his ear. I HATE this man -sana’s dad asking if she had a bad day aw :( -all the boys (and sana) wearing black but yousef wearing white.... what does it mean.............. -the carrots are back goddammit -radio station playing during this scene: “if I have to choose between the just non-muslim and the unjust muslim, without any doubt I would choose the non-muslim who is just” -ISAK’S NOSE SFFJDFJFSDKJSDF -sana’s text about chris I’m going to bawl my eyes out.           “yeah! looking forward (to going to nissen) but a bit worried. don’t know               anyone else starting there.”           (J: new friends?) “yes, at least one of them. I have german with her (chris)           and she’s very cool!” -the contrast of how blunt sana came off when we’re first introduced to her vs. how she was really just excited to make a new friend bc she was scared no one would like her :( especially knowing her past with bullying and how nervous she was to start at nissen? chris baby I LOVE YOU thank u ;-; -also sana keeping 2yr old conversations on her phone... same -sana is honestly too smart and scheming and overthinking for her own good. she has these elaborate plans that more-or-less always get ruined by her being more kind than she gives herself credit for (e.g. wanting to protect vilde in s1, clearing isak’s name in s4) -everyone in skam texts back so fast smh -chris calling sana “sonic”...... a moment please -I cannot watch the sana/evak apartment scene without thinking of the bloopers and losing it lmfaoooo.. “this is where we live. just come in” -ik it’s based off fanart but there is little I hate more than their matching outfits  -“remember you’re both geniuses!” 🥺even  -once again isak studying is uhhhh me - “you’re a good person” yall i love isak i really do. he puts his foot in his mouth pretty often and doesn’t have a great brain-to-mouth filter and he can be awkward and rambly and blunt and unsure of what to say in emotional situations but also? he’s so genuine. it’s just his honest thoughts and he says it bc he cares about sana and knows she needs to hear it!! -ᶠᵃᵉⁿ ᵉᵛᵉⁿ -sana’s inner turmoil.. thank u iman for inventing acting (ik I haven’t mentioned it much yet but god iman is SUCH a phenomenal actor I owe her my life) -LETS GO BITCHES

ep7 -sana crying silently in her room breaks my fucking heart (IMAN!!!!)  -idk how I feel about the instagram plot but sana watching as her plan falls into place and then storming up to sara... pretty bada$$ -“it’s creepy it was published but it’s more creepy we have a bus boss who talks shit about everyone” THANK YOU vilde -i love s4 isak thanks -sana and jamilla’s chat aw :~) -how awkward do yall think the walk to the bench was lmfao -what sana tells isak is SO powerful and I love it a lot -isak does actually make a good point- the other girls are like that too.  -unfortunately I have been in situations isak describes, where you want to learn more about your friend’s culture or religion because you care about them and you’re genuinely interested, but you don’t know what questions are okay to ask and you don’t want to sound rude or ignorant, so you ultimately end up asking no questions at all. but I hate that the responsibility is put on sana to constantly educate people bc I cannot imagine how exhausting that must be [[[ok so. I know there are VERY mixed opinions on the bench scene but here’s my dumbass two cents. 1- I genuinely think isak was trying to make sana feel better by attempting to relate to her and pass on advice that really helped him. however, I don’t think isak realized what sana eventually told him- that her experience wearing the hijab is a lot different than isak’s experience as a gay man. do I agree with everything isak said? nooo. do I understand why he said it? yeah. 2- it was not isak’s place to tell sana norwegians aren’t racist, or not to look for racism in questions. I think there’s some truth to ppl often just being ignorant, and he does add that there are probably a lot of racist people in Norway, but yeah. not great. 3- in conclusion I think while isak shared some meaningful advice w sana, he put his foot in his mouth too and said some stupid shit. im not trying to defend that. I will add, though: a. we actually do see some growth on isak’s part. when he and even are yelled at on the street, that’s the moment it clicks for him that oh shit, this is what sana was talking about. this is what she has to experience? and that’s why he texts noora, “in the speech for sana, you have to include how insanely strong she is. I don’t think many people understand how much bullshit she has to take” and b. isak’s (bad) advice of “not looking for the racism in things” is ultimately contrasted by yousef (a moc who lived most of his life as a muslim) suggesting instead to show people what islam really is. and that’s so much more meaningful. I think the root of a lot of the issues isak brought up- i.e. ignorance- is a general lack of education, representation, or effort by non-muslim people to seek out information themselves. so sana leading by example and showing what it means to her to be muslim is so much more powerful.]]] -𝒃𝒂𝒎!  -BEST BUDS 🥺

ep8 -haper du har plass weaving in and out of this episode until the chorus finally breaks when the los losers van shows up...... miss julie 😭 -oh my god the pictures. im a fucking MESS bc they’re not only significant to the scene and to sana but also like,, as part of our goodbye to the girls?? -the balloon squad and even :( while the timeline of them reconciling within just this week is kinda wack, seeing even back with his friends looking so happy makes my heart uwu so i’ll allow it just this once -eva’s message to vilde about her and magnus being able to trust each other w/o reading their texts... growth or irony -chris is such a phenomenal friend (and this is why I wanted more of her in s4!!) -sana’s phonecall to the girls breaks my fucking heart bc like. right off the bat she’s finally being vulnerable with them?? telling them about her fears and insecurities and struggles? typing this im gonna start crying lol but god I love her so much. she’s so brave and she put all that on the line bc all she really cares about are her friends, she loves them SO much even if (she thinks) they don’t love her back -lowkey sobbed so hard during the haper du har plass clip I almost threw up and it gave me a headache :)  -anyways this is one of my favourite skam clips and god just. the moment you hear the girls calling for sana??? I LOSE it. when sana just starts BEAMING omg🤧 the girls love sana and support her and if you fuck with sana you fuck with us!!!!!! god. cannot articulate how dear to my heart this scene is. -haper du har plass feels like the end of the episode and the party clip is kinda just tacked on but I love how happy everyone is!! they’re all drinking champagne (who taught isak how to hold things) and dancing and smilingggg 💛 -yousana rise!!!!!!!!  -ok don’t get me wrong I hate william for crashing the party but their entrance slow-mo kinda slaps.... also sana popping up in between noorhelm SENDS me

ep9 -this is the point in the season where the amount of time dedicated to noorhelm is beyond beyond beyond significantly damaging to the story. this is sana’s last episode!! instead of having them makeout in front of william’s car for 20 minutes mayhaps we could’ve had a conversation between the girls and sana, or with her brother (if they had continued the elias alcoholism plotline rip), or maybe even with jamilla or her mamma? like I don’t care at ALL about noora or william. give me anything else. ple a s e -what makes skam scenes so brilliant is their quiet moments!! julie let the scene breathe. not everything needs a tacky song playing over top. -I’ve said this abt like twenty clips now but MAGHRIB. oh my GOD. an absolute masterpiece and definitely tied for my all time favourite skam clip. can’t rlly put into words how stunning it is. & I love sana and yousef’s conversation so much. -“of course I brought food! my name is yousef!” mr. acar you’re the only man I trust

ep10 -as much as my heart yearns for 10 sana episodes I think splitting up the last episode of skam into individual POV clips for different characters was brilliant and such a poignant way to say goodbye :( -okay don’t think about what sana could’ve written in her texts to everyone or ur heart will go sicko mode -I won’t write anything abt this ep since I’ve already written too much but like.. (elias should’ve gotten a clip instead of william. pchris can stay because his clip was funny but he’s on thin fuckin ice) -kjaere sana was such a beautiful way to say goodbye to skam. so yeah. bye skam. i miss you. 

overall ➔I’m not really sure why (possibly a lethal combination of my undying love for sana bakkoush, how much I relate to her, this but my ass was crying EVERY single episode of season 4...... F ➔I’m obsessed with s4′s aesthetic. imo the best editing, soundtrack and cinematography of any season!!!! julie is so talented at making each season feel distinct- to me, sana’s season is cool, vibrant colours (aka the late-night sunset aesthetic- gabie i hear u laughing shut up), crisp electronic/pop music and rap, ethereal city nights..... also sana has the best style of any skam character it had to be said ➔sana’s growth! seeing her open up and be honest and vulnerable with the girls during that phone call. sana sending all of her friends literally the sweetest messages of how much they mean to her and how much she values their relationship. sana being the (MUCH) bigger person and making amends with sara, ingrid etc. I love her so much :’((( ➔I’ve thought a lot about what I would change in season 4 and honestly? im a mf scatterbrain and have no real, structured ideas. my biggest issue is too much noora. dream s4 would be william staying in london and noora being happy on her own (but not rly on her own bc she has the girls and kollektivet!). as :/ as I am about the noora/yousef plotline, I’m not really sure what I’d do to replace the yousana conflict in ep5. maybe involving elias, or the balloon squad and even? related to that- in lieu of all the noora/noorhelm screentime, I would so much rather have a follow-up plot to elias’s drinking problem bc it was kinda just dropped? at the very least, the william clip should’ve been elias’s. I also would've killed for more one-on-one scenes with chris (even vilde or eva!), jamilla, even, members of the balloon squad... there are so many interesting stories that could’ve been explored instead of going down the noorhelm rabbithole again. furthermore, I feel like the social media plot was a bit... weak? again I’ve tried thinking of what I would’ve done instead (while also keeping the haper du har plass clip, y’all can pry that one from my cold dead hands) to little avail. what especially threw me about this plotline is that sana did this in s2 to jamilla, fucked up, and it bit her in the ass. I know that she gets irrational when angry but from a storytelling perspective, it seems repetitive. just.. I feel like there could’ve been a more powerful plot in which sana follows the same character arc. another thing I would’ve loved to see is beyond the los losers van, an apology from the girls to sana. or even just a conversation where they tell her “hey sana, we’re sorry for not paying attention and we’re sorry for being thoughtless/ignorant.” an apology from vilde about things she’s said in the past would’ve been <3. even a gesture! the girls order pizza again but this time it’s halal, or they make an effort to learn about sana’s religion and culture. I know it’s implied through the letter they write for sana, but a final standalone scene would’ve been so nice.  ➔i’ve noticed soo many remakes do this thing where they like.. water down shitty behaviour of their characters. which like- sure. I would love for everyone to be kind and thoughtful and not as horrible as they could be but also... I think that’s the point of skam? to show that people fuck up, but that doesn’t define them as a person. no one is perfect and no one can be thoughtful and considerate and kind all the time. and often these ‘problematic’ actions are integral to the story- e.g. elias saying stupid comments to isak (related to isak’s internalized homophobia and fear of coming out to his friends), the girl squad being ignorant about what sana can eat, etc. so..... your remake is not better because it erased every horrible action every character has done. (nuance.. where r u.........) ➔despite its flaws, I will say- the good moments of season 4? ineffable. I think we sometimes forget that julie literally wrote, directed, and I believe (?) assisted w editing and soundtrack too. i cant imagine doing all that under so much pressure, trying to bring so many storylines to a conclusion whilst simultaneously creating a goodbye-season to a show she put her life into the past two years. I’m so fucking appreciative of her. and you know what? all in all julie wrote some pretty damn beautiful episodes and scenes, and you can tell she loves this show just as much as we do. ➔and honestly this is maybe one reason I’m more wary of watching remake s4′s, bc like.. this season meant SO much bc it was the last season of skam. we knew it was the last season. the final episode is more or less a love letter, a goodbye to the show. whereas w some remakes (do i have to say whomst) its  like.. that love isnt there. it’s just another season. yknow? in conclusion I miss skam so much :(

ok whew if ur reading this ur a champion but also why did you just read 5k of me rambling about how much I love sana bakkoush?? 

[thievesgambit-a]

no1asshole. roast me. i've already prepared my tissues.

open meme / @no1asshole / disclaimer: i’m mean

My Opinion on;

Character in general: I think Deadpool is one of the hardest characters to play convincingly. I didn’t know a lot about him before I met Saige, but I was already aware he was problematic, ran his mouth and said extremely offensive things while knowing they were offensive, was genuinely mentally disturbed, and had a personality that could change on a dime based on his whims. Furthermore, his jokes, while extremely off color and inappropriate, are still funny--often in the most terrible way, which is, of course, the entire point. Therefore, for me to follow, Deadpool roleplayers not only are required to acknowledge his problematic and psychotic nature, but also have at least some degree of morbid, cutting, wit that makes you squirm or laugh uncomfortably. To be frank, I follow about two Deadpools and usually immediately dismiss most Deadpools if they do not impress me with their banter within the first three in-character posts. Deadpool is extremely intelligent and sharp and does things that purposefully gets under other peoples’ skins. If I don’t think that underlying intelligence is not coming through with the way he is going after people or what jokes he is making, I don’t bother following. How they play them: obviously, the fact that I follow Saige means I find their portrayal adequate (this is a joke using understatement. Saige, I like your portrayal). The things I like about Saige’s portrayal are this: they acknowledge Deadpool is fucked in the head, they acknowledge Deadpool’s intelligence, and their jokes using Deadpool’s voice don’t want to make me cringe (in the ‘i just saw a white fuckboy tryna flirt via texts’ way, at least). Saige regularly sends me comic strips or recounts canonical instances where Deadpool’s psychopathy shines through, where he is demonstrated to be problematic and offensive, and in general gives Deadpool zero sympathy. Saige never hides the crimes and disturbing things Deadpool has done, nor do they try to defend Deadpool for them. As for the writing: I think that Saige’s writing interestingly displays Deadpool’s mindset. His inner dialogues or narration tend to be critically observant or analytical, heralding his actual mercenary intelligence and sharpness, but his dialogue and outward persona are regularly displayed as an idiot. It’s what made me like Saige, because Deadpool’s always been very aware of the persona he gives off. Again: he’s not fucking stupid (although he is kinda disturbed). I think you have to have a degree of wit and intelligence yourself to play Deadpool convincingly (to me, at least), and Saige definitely brought out some hilarious and, most importantly, inappropriate wit in their threads. As for the nitty-gritty (and, before I start, I’ll open by saying I’m a writer by trade, and I literally lower my standards to tolerably roleplay with most people on Tumblr based on writing styles, grammar, spelling, structure, etc., or I actually wouldn’t roleplay at all): while the content of Saige’s writing is very good, their grammar and spelling are lacking. As of late, it’s gotten a lot better, but to be frank, I almost didn’t follow them because their work had mistakes that, in my opinion, were obvious or simple mistakes that could be and should be fixed before interacting with other people. This includes the misuse of terms and common sayings, misspelling words or using homonyms for relatively (as I see it) common words, and misplacement of commas (although, frankly, no one on Tumblr knows how to use the comma, so I usually ignore that one when deciding to follow someone unless they’re literally using the thing for decoration and putting it every other word). We also disagree grammatically on how to use apostrophes to denote plurality and ownership, although I’m pretty sure this is a difference in regions; I’m fairly sure southern America tends to use the apostrophe for plurality as well as ownership while northern schools do not teach it that way. Anyways, I know which one I like, but it’s actually a mild debate between grammarians, so I left that alone for Saige, since I knew they were Southern. Anyways, overall, I decided the content and voice of Deadpool that came through outweighed the passing (if not mildly grating) irritation I felt at some of the more obvious grammar mistakes I saw, so I gave Saige a follow. I can genuinely say I do not regret it. The Mun: Saige is a very genuine and chill person. I enjoy speaking to them, especially because I do not have to draw punches on any level on anything. I am a naturally blunt and very scathing person to everything, and (when it’s directed at other things) Saige takes it well and actually appreciates my humor. Liking my harsh humor is always a bonus for me; not only does it encourage my vanity, but to be frank, it confirms for me that you’re not stupid. The only people that haven’t gotten my humor or don’t find it funny in any fashion are people that I’ve found are moronic or have personalities similar to that of doorknobs, and therefore are people I do not enjoy speaking with. Saige is neither of these, and we’ve done extensive plotting that I truly appreciate. It’s rare you get on so well with random people you meet online, and I always love it when it happens. I hope we stay good friends, even if we leave our blogs for some reason. 

Do I:

RP with them: if having five threads and shouting about their gay on discord counts as “roleplaying”, then yes, i doWant to RP with them: i do not roleplay with people i do not want to. 

What is my;

Overall Opinion: Saige is chill and you should follow them for a good Deadpool, because that's the only Deadpool I interact with regularly so if you start talking about another Deadpool I'll actually have no idea who you're talking about--and we wouldn't want to embarrass me, would we?

**Note: Mun’s answer are all to be completely honest. Don’t send url if you don’t want brutal honesty.

[aph-floral-verse]

Hope this isn't awkward, but how would you go about setting up the au? Like as in, how you should set up the main page and things like that, and what should you do if the au doesn't actually grow big? Sorry if this is weird, I just think you guys run the floralverse au really well and think that you'd be the best people to answer this question.

Oh I don’t think its weird at all and thank you so much! We do try our best to run the au smoothly and as best as we can. All the following information will be under the keeping reading section as its a lot. ^^’

 So for setting up an au such as the main page and stuff, you should always include a several things: 

1. Name of au and what the au is: 

For example is it an au rp group, a drawn ask only group, or etc. It may help to prevent anyone from asking about these questions in the future. Or others can include things as Colour Kingdoms - Soulmate Au if there is something that should be known right away about the au if it can be written within a short sentence. 

2. Name(s) of Admin with point of contact: 

Okay so this is technically optional however I feel its always better to have the names of admins so people are aware of whose the admin and who to address when admins have to reply to an ask and what not. I also feel that its always good to let people know they aren’t talking to a nameless person. 

3. Links to Important Information: 

So I can’t explicitly put in what exactly is the type of information will be in it as it depends on the type of au you want to make. If it isn’t obvious by name, I suggest making a link to a page where it talks about the backstory of the au. If you need a map or made one, definitely add that as a link too and list the information about the various areas if needed. Roles are especially important if there is a change in roles or explaining needed for certain roles such as a Chess Au explaining the roles of each piece. Applications and rules also apply under important information and more in detail below.

4 - Rules and Applications: 

So this an obvious thing to most aus but it depends on the type of person you are. With the rules written in the main blog for the Floralverse, its more of a common sense thing and lets you know about whats the url format and stuff. Its general basic rules everyone knows but its there anyways.However applications are a different story especially with how you handle it. 

First of all, I never approve of an application by myself. I always have one other admin approve of the application before whoever posts it. The other admins have just as much say in this au as I do and I want their opinions. Besides, its always good to get another set of eyes on the application to help approve.

Second, its your choice to have an application. The Floralverse at first didn’t have one and gained many members. It was great however there was a slight flaw to it. One: you can gain many members but it also means that you didn’t know how developed their character is or anything. Two: we forgot to require people to state a point of reference for us to contact them so we have anons who asked for things but have never gotten back to us. Three: You also don’t know the type of people who applied. 

However applications can be stressful if you don’t know how to set up one but I always follow a simple format: 

Name of admin, if they are 18+ (this is more of an option if your au doesn’t contain dark elements or sexual activities or if you include an nsfw in a discord chat or such), a blog they run (mainly as a point of contact), muse, muse’s name, personality, and appearance. Jobs are also optional and more can be added depending on the type of au. 

5. Members: 

This is one the most important things and it is a huge pet peeve of mine if the members list isn’t updated. Why? Because when you want to join a blog especially if it has limited positions, you don’t want to be screwed over by “oh yeah that was taken a while back lmao.” We do try to keep the member list up to date and stay on top of it. I now included dates I updated it just because it gives me a reminder of “oh crap I didn’t update and new people joined? Okay i have to update it right now.”And how to organized it is mainly based on your logic and what you think is most important. To me, rules and members come first before the rest usually. I usually do this via pages and do one main tumblr theme.

What do you do if your au doesn’t grow big?

First of all, don’t be discourage! Like any idea, game, or book, there is always a chance your au won’t grow big. Aus grow big for a multitude of reasons as people join for different reasons. I know one au had gained lots of members because this one person had joined the au. I haven’t asked my own au why did they join but it did gain lots of attention and people did join. I’m just lucky I not only have a big au but the fact that everyone that joined was interested and such good people. 

Second, it is sometimes good that your au doesn’t grow big. As time passes, more and more will join but also its also more likely that unwanted people will join- aka people who make the au less enjoyable for a variety of reasons. I know a multitude of big aus that quickly crash and burn because bad people join and cause problems within the au or even the admins running the au could cause the au to burn if they do not manage their au properly. I don’t mean to scare you but managing an au especially when it gets big can cause some problems as admin you need to handle. I know its been about 4 months since this au really opened and so far we had no real big issues that caused people to leave. But the point is, there is no sense in trying to gain a huge au if the people in it are only to cause it to crash and burn. People, both members and admins, have to respect each other and be treated equally no matter who they are, age, gender, or what not. 

Third, if you really want to get your au to gain members and grow big, of course promo the au. I never personally really promoed the au except within the discord chat of the Colour Kingdom au which gained a few members right off the bat. Others helped us to promo the au which gained attention. Get your friends involved and get attention to your au! Hopefully others will want to join. “Famous” people can join your au and can help others also join the au but again, promoting the au really helps to get the au out there to others who might be interesting in joining. 

Fourth, of course if you want a big au, you have to do a concept where multiple people can join. For example, if you wanted to do a Zodiac Au or a Chess au, usually you can only allow a few members because there is only limited positions. Either way, limiting the amount of people who can join limits how big your au will get. 

Honestly this is as much things I can really say that make up a big au? This is two out of the three admin’s first time running an au so this was quite a surprise it grew this big at all. Besides these are mainly suggestions and increased chances that your au will get attention and hold some similar things. Honestly, nothing in any real particular order. I have more personal advice to act as a “proper” admin but that’s unrelated to the topic at hand. I hope this was able to help you out and I covered most questions you had! If you want to talk more in detail feel free to pm/dm me at either @ask-floral-2pseborga or @neetstudioart. 

[dabibliophile]

Venomous is a Shapeshifter and Here’s Why

Venomous having shapeshifting powers, either innately or through self-modification, would answer a lot of the questions surrounding him; most immediately, it would put the “body types don’t match” argument to rest regarding the “Laserblast is Venomous is Shadowy Figure” theory.

We already know shapeshifters exist in this universe; KO’s classmate Genesis is one.

At ten-ish years old, she can already grow new bones and muscles and change her hair color, though her body type remains the same. It stands to reason that an adult shapeshifter might be able to alter their proportions to the point that “Laserblast is Venomous is Shadowy Figure” is possible.

If Venomous was born with shapeshifting abilities, a career in bioengineering would make sense because he’d have a greater understanding of the concepts behind it due to exercising his power over the years, and he’d be able to do even more with it with as the field advanced.

Alternatively, he could have used his skills to give himself shapeshifting powers. We have a few mutated characters in the show, which I’ll mention later, but right now the takeaway is that such changes are possible, though general shapeshifting is likely more difficult to obtain than a singular change. But out of all the things you can do as a bioengineer, why that specifically? The most obvious answer is that shapeshifting is awesome, but Venomous seems to have better sense than to undergo a potentially hazardous procedure for fun.

Rather, Venomous gave himself shapeshifting powers because he initially had no powers at all. Most inhabitants of this universe have some kind of gimmick- super strength, telekinesis, vine whips, etc. Even those with no active ability like Dendy or Potato have benefits such as a turtle shell or rabbit speed.

The OK KO world is very dangerous, to the point that even news reporters and convenience store employees are combat-oriented. Individuals without powers appear to be rare, possibly a genetic throwback from before those two apocalypses and three doomsdays that Crinkly Wrinkly supposedly survived.

To quote tumblr user neddythestylish, “disability exists in the context of the environment”. And in such a violent world, having no powers could very well be considered a disability.

Disabled people have scraps at best for positive representation, both in media and real life. Non-powered people in OK KO may also face this issue. Are there any heroes in the OK KO universe without powers? Who can non-powered kids look up to?

I sifted through the sources on the wiki’s character page and looked at characters who either have no powers or whose powers aren’t innate, and the results were… sparse.

Ginger is a retired thief, no powers.

Nick Army “has two of every weapon ever made”, no powers.

Chip Damage appears to be a cyborg. KO mentioned his powers got upgraded, so they’re likely mechanical in nature rather than innate.

Co-bruh got his form and powers from being dropped into a pit of mutant snakes.

Gladys spliced lizard DNA into herself.

Holo-Jane’s physical form is elsewhere. We don’t know to what degree her holo-form resembles her physical form, but she might have prosthetic legs.

Boxman is a cyborg. Still not sure what’s up with the chicken hand.

Mad Sam is a mutant human, though it’s unclear whether this is innate or a result of living in the Danger Zone.

Ted the Viking carries around an axe and has a magical scarf friend, no powers.

URL: “was a normal kid” until he became living code.

I’m not counting the Hue Troop because they’re from far in the future, and I’m looking at OK KO’s modern society.

What I’m getting from this sample is that if you don’t have innate powers, end up mutated, or constantly carry around weapons, you have a high chance of getting your limbs blown off.

While some of these people may have been born without limbs (especially since there’s radioactive waste in the sewers), that it’s apparently completely normal for small children to fight robots with buzz-saws and lasers suggests violent amputation is more likely.

It’s usually not a good idea to use the experiences of a single person to generalize about a larger population, but the narrative lens is the only one we’ve got right now so that’s what I’m using.

Boxman is a level -10 villain who attacks the plaza almost daily. He could have been bullied as a child for not having powers, turning to villainy out of spite.

Ginger was a dangerous jewel thief. Though she’s level +3, she had no problem manipulating KO. That she called her heists “thrilling” raises the possibility that non-powered people are considered “fragile” and thus discouraged or banned from doing anything potentially hazardous, so Ginger decided to have fun the unconventional way.

Chip Damage is a level +15 hero, but he was only mentioned offhand, and I doubt he would have the opportunity for such heroics without having access to enough money for expensive prosthetics. (Reliable prosthetics can’t be cheap, much less weaponized ones, given that Neil’s keep falling off.)

KO helped Nick Army resolve a pickle problem. I’ve got nothing on that.

KO’s likely interacted with the rest of these characters as well, but I don’t think we’ve seen him so much as say hello to them onscreen. They exist in the background, as extras.

Shunting disabled people and other minorities into primarily antagonistic and background roles (or having them be the focus for one “Very Special Episode” and then vanishing) is an unfortunate byproduct of the ableism and other prejudices society perpetuates. OK KO’s parody elements put it in an excellent position to criticize prejudicial tropes, especially since it’s had episodes focusing on racism against aliens and kappa, and might be gearing up (haha) to do one about robots as well.

Simply put, if a society doesn’t accommodate a group of people, members of that group are more likely to be able to function outside of its accepted norms than to carve a place for themselves within it. Showing prejudice, not disability, as the source of villainy would be amazing, and Venomous’ place in the narrative makes him the best candidate for this (especially since Boxman got punted into the sun).

If my guesses about OK KO’s society are true, Venomous would have one hell of a chip on his shoulder going into this self-modification. The entire project would be a big middle finger to the society he lives in- but, ironically, he would also be bending over backwards to conform to it.

This could explain why Laserblast considered using the red orb on P.O.I.N.T.’s enemies: he used to have no powers himself. His reasoning could have been that “not having powers isn’t so bad, so it’s fine to use this to neutralize a villain”, or he could have succumbed to the “Just World” fallacy that so many fall for: that being disabled is a karmic punishment, and that it is furthermore an acceptable punishment for villains.

Whether his powers are inherent or not, I think he lost them at some point after the Sandwich Incident while further developing the red orbs. Lab accidents commonly give people powers in comics and cartoons, so it’d be an interesting reversal for one to take them away, especially after he could have worked so hard to get them in the first place. Venomous is researching turbonic energy to attempt to reactivate his powers. He’s made some minor progress with Fink- thus the difference between Venomous and Shadowy Figure. (Could he have a collar of his own under his scarf?) But he needs KO’s power to fully bounce back.

(Genes can change from expressed to not-expressed and vice-versa due to environmental stimuli, this is called epigenetics.)

We may have already seen an example of turbonic energy activating dormant genes. KO was conceived while Laserblast still had his powers, so KO has some shapeshifting genes in his DNA. We saw this manifest first in “You’re Level 100!”, and again in “TKO”. Most dramatically, we saw TKO go from baby fat to Ripped™ in the space of half a second in “Mystery Science Fair 201X”.

In other words, turbonic energy temporarily granted him minor shapeshifting powers.

Where does all this lead? With Boxman kicked to the curb for now and his factory turning away from the plaza, Venomous will likely have a bigger role in season two. And if that biochip he gave Boxman recorded anything, he’ll have quite a lot of data to pore over. Furthermore, he’ll know that KO has some control over his power now, meaning he won’t go all-out unless he’s in a situation more distressing than the season finale. Venomous is likely going to have to straight-up kidnap him and emotionally wear him down. But how will he accomplish that? What can Venomous do to get KO away from a plaza full of heroes and his level eleven mother?

“I can tell you about your father” should do the trick.

***

As always, I welcome any additions/corrections/questions/etc.! If I got something wrong or could revise my wording, don’t hesitate to message me!

[ryqoshay]

I was tagged by @lonelypond : Answer the questions below before tagging a fairly random number followers you want to get to know better.

I’ve never done one of these before, so what the heck, why not. First time for everything, right?

► Nicknames: In real life, mostly childish variations of my name, used by family and long-term friends. Here on the net, I’ve gained “Grandpa Ryqo” on Sukutomo, which I find amusing as all get out, so I’ve just gone with it.

► Gender: Meh…

► Sign: Not sure, honestly. And I’m too lazy to Google it atm. The only time I remember caring about astrological signs was when a friend got me into playing a modded version of Final Fantasy Tactics. Oh, and rolling my eyes at jokes about Nico being a Cancer.

► Height: A bit taller than average here in the U.S… I think? At least that’s been my observation

► Time: 14:07 CST at the time that I began filling this out… as of posting this, 16:55… I may have gotten distracted a few… oh look, another NicoMaki post!

► Birthday: In the third month of the year, probably

► Favorite Band/Artists: µ’s (They have maintained their top position for quite a while and likely will continue to do so for a while yet), Aqours, Hatsune Miku, Pentatonix, The Pillows, Queen, Benny Goodman, IOSYS, The Three Tenors, OK Go, Gorillaz, Peter Hollens, 2Cellos, The Supremes, The Beatles, Weird Al Yankovic, Lindsey Sterling, Johnny Cash, 403 Forbiddena, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, The Ink Spots, Buddy Holly, … how many pages are you willing to read?

► Song Stuck in My Head: Dancing stars on me (Probably because it was the last song that was playing as I pulled into the garage a while ago)

► Last Movie I Watched: … Is it wrong that I honest don’t remember? My former roommate’s family owned a theater, so I used to keep fairly current. But ever since I moved, I’ve kinda fallen out of the loop. I mean, I watched just the musical numbers of several movies; Love Live (as if that should surprise anyone who might read this), Oliver, Sound of Music, Camelot, The King and I, etc, etc, etc, over the past however long, but I couldn’t even tell you which one of those was most recent. And on writing this, I realize I haven’t seen a movie in the theater since TLJ… Geez, almost halfway through the year and I don’t think I’ve watched a single move from start to finish. I should probably look into fixing that soon.

► Last TV Show I Watched: Shooter (Not sure what episode of the second season, as it was simply where my mom and stepdad had left off. Can’t say I’m entirely sold on the show, but it’s free on Netflix so maybe I’ll watch the first episode someday)

► What Do I Post: NicoMaki (Currently just my own fic and reblogs of pics I like. However, I really should start reblogging some of the other amazing fics out there.), YohaRiko (Again, my own fic and the occasional reblog of pics I like), and more NicoMaki.

I’m not big on getting into politics or religion or the like on the net, so while I may occasionally hit the Like button, I pretty much never reblog; though I might someday make a sideblog for such things. Also, since it seems some people like my writing style, perhaps someday I might start posting some of my other, non-LL stuff.

I actually started this blog posting non-LL stuff (or rather, not-immediately-obvious-LL, or only-LL-if-you-squint stuff) and honestly didn’t expect it to go anywhere. (14 posts with a grand total of 1 Like among them) Heck, even my first two posts for HtHaN didn’t even reach double digits in Notes. But here I am, almost two years later, posting away, and loving it.

Oh, did I mention that I post NicoMaki?

► Do I Get Asks: Yes. Which reminds me, I need to respond to the last few… I have a bad habit of checking my Inbox while I am on break at work and not having time to reply right away, and then forgetting about it when I get home because the notification is gone. (Sorry for delays in responses)

► URL Meaning: Despite my obvious bias towards NicoMaki stuff, and some YohaRiko as well, my screenname, Ryqoshay came from elsewhere. When I first started playing video games, I often named my character (or one of my characters) Ricochet, if they were a ranged character, as a joke referencing a favored sound effect from movies. However, as I entered the world of MMO’s, that name was often already taken, so in the case of City of Heroes, I added -chan to the end and gave her some Japanese ancestry. Also, as part of her bio, it became a nickname granted to an energetic girl who was “always bouncing off the walls.”

Then came City of Villains and once again, Ricochet was taken so I decided to take a different route with the character name by intentionally misspelling it. But, as I fancy myself a writer, I couldn’t leave it at that and had to give her an in-universe reason. And as she was a villain, I was more than happy to take a romp down the well-worn “tragic backstory” road. Thus, her parents finally got names, Yuri and Quentin, and were sacrificed to the deities of drama. After the tragedy, Rico augmented the spelling of her existing nickname to include the first letters of their names. Through my time with CoV, Ryqo gained a mercenary guild as every character I created thereafter became a member, with bios that expanded my new lore.

Things ended up taking a turn for the medieval when what was supposed to be a two paragraph bio for a D&D game turned into dozens of pages and the entire guild being translated over to the new genre. Strangely, it wasn’t even Ryqo that I was going to be playing, rather a member of her guild that had been hired out. This is the story I mentioned earlier that I am still considering posting someday, either here or on AO3, maybe both. Also, more recently, Ryqo found herself translated yet again, into a modern, LL-style world, as an aspiring idol. These are what ended up as the first posts I ever made on this blog, as I had been inspired by an idea that came up on my other digital haunt, Sukutomo.

TL;DR version: Ryqoshay is an intentional misspelling of Ricochet and actually has little to do with my current obsession with NicoMaki and Love Live in general, but I like the name and see little reason to change it now.

► Average Hours of Sleep: You’re going to make me do math…? Hrm… 4 hours there… 6 there… 3 for those nights (days, since I work nights)… I, uhm… dunno. I work nights over the week and shift to a different schedule when I want to spend time with my day-dwelling family or friends. I haven’t had a regular sleep schedule probably since high school.

► Nationality: North American mutt with lineages tracing back to all parts of Europe.

Alright, so I’m supposed to tag a few of my own followers... ... when the heck did I get over 300? Uhm... as this is my first time making one of these, I’m going to take the easy route and stick with names I recognize from the notes on my posts. Let’s go with: @nicoismywaifu​, @nocturnal-one8​, @sayowo​, @kurotheyamineko, @cupcakedesuwa and @thelegend31 for now. I tried tagging spiritpandora and westomaki as I look forward to seeing them show up in the notes of my fics, but Tumblr won’t let me for some reason.

[briefpainfulandfullofgarbage]

#cluecrewquestionnaire

I was tagged by @hotchkiss-and-tell ten years ago and I’m just doing this now ahhh (my keyboard is broken typing take years :/ )

rules: copy and paste, answer the questions, tag 10 mutuals to do the same!

1. What is your favorite Nancy Drew game and why?

As a kid I really liked DDI, SHA, and CUR but I haven’t played them in years

2. Have you played all 32 games in the series? If not, which ones haven’t you played? If yes, which one did you play first?

I’ve played all the games except WAC and TOT. I really wanna play WAC but I don’t have a PC :/ (I heard there’s a way to make the PC games work on a mac but idk I’m bad at computers) I could play TOT but it doesn’t look that exciting tbh lol I will play it someday tho

3. What is your favorite line from any character in the series?

The one that’s referenced in my url cuz it’s just like.... so true. But also the part in TMB when Nancy asks Jamila what she thinks of Dylan and Jamila says “did I have to have an opinion on him?” and Nancy says “I guess not” and Jamila says “oh good that’s a relief.” And also like anything Joe has ever said

4. If you could change the ending to any game, which one would it be (no spoilers, though)?

Mmmm... idk about a specific game but I liked how in SAW and GTH you had more than one option for what Nancy could do and I wish more games had multiple endings

5. Which game is your least favorite, and why?

tbh RAN but I feel like that’s too obvious an answer?? but it’s true??? Other than that I guess I don’t like CLK much? I just don’t like driving or mini golf

6. Which character is your favorite? Why?

Of the mains Joe cuz he’s hilarious and Bess cuz I really liked her in MED. She was just really hashtag relatable?? Of the others Zoe Wolfe (SPY) and Dagny Silva (SEA) cuz I’m bi af and my type is girls who could kick my ass apparently. I like Henry (CRY) cuz he’s super depressing and funny. Also Gray (DED) cuz his whole existential crisis thing is too real. As an adult I have a newfound appreciation for Emily (CLK) cuz I too never leave my room unless the house is currently on fire. Also Jamila (TMB), Grigor (LIE) Colton (GTH), and Alexei (ASH)

7. Which character is your least favorite? Why?

Richard Topham (CLK) is the worst. So is Red Knott (DOG). And Tino Balducci (TRN), Colin (VEN), Toni (ASH), Lisa (TRT)

8. How do you feel about the whole Nancy/Ned vs. Nancy/Frank situation? Do you ship her with someone else? Who, and why?

Unpopular opinion but I don’t actually have an opinion?? I’m not really upset either way. I’m also here for aroace Nancy who’s in a committed relationship with adventure. (I did tell Ned I loved him in SEA tho cuz I just like... can’t make characters sad??)

9. Do you have any fun headcanons about any of the games or characters?

Mmmm not really tbh I’m boring. But Nancy is aspec, George is gay, and Joe is bi. That’s all I got rn idk about the others. @harpersthornton inspired me with their sims posts so I made sim versions of some of my favs. I’m not quite as good as they are at making them look accurate but sometimes my sims will do things and I’ll be like you know what I bet Frank does that

10. If you could visit any of the locations of the games, which ones would they be and why?

I’ve been to a few but Japan has been on my bucket list forever cuz I’m half Japanese. I really wanna go to Iceland to see the northern lights. Also New Orleans cuz it looks cool and I wanna go before global warming does its thing. 

11. Did you read any of the original Nancy Drew books? If yes, do you like them? If no, would you consider reading one?

I read some of them when I was a kid but I haven’t since so I don’t really remember if they were good or not. I liked them at the time tho

12. What is one thing any good detective can’t live without?

Koko kringles? Lack of tact and boundaries? Kleptomania? A Mary Poppins bag to carry all the stuff you took cuz it’ll ‘come in handy later’?

13. Which game had the best soundtrack?

Ohhh... tbh I don’t pay as much attention to the soundtracks as I should... I thought the SAW soundtrack was really cool tho

14. What is one thing you wish HER would’ve included in any of the games (a conversation, interaction, location, feature, etc.)?

Hmm... more diversity I guess? More lgbt+ and poc characters? Also in GTH I wanted an option to not ask super invasive questions about Colton’s mental health but I guess it’s not really a Nancy Drew game if Nancy doesn’t ask tactless questions

15. Do you have any ideas for a future game? What is it?

MID

16. How long does it take you to finish a game from start to finish?

I try to take at least a few days to finish each game. If I know I’m almost at the end I’ll try to do anything but finish the game lol

17. Did any of the games scare you? If yes, which ones? If no, why?

OMG anything with alarms gives me hella anxiety. Anything that’s timed and idk how much time I actually have. I always made my mom do those parts when I was a kid. Tbh they still make me anxious but I’m an adult so now I just suffertm

18. Why did you join the Nancy Drew fandom here on tumblr?

I got back into the games when I was in college and had no friends and hella free time. I lurked for a while before I finally pulled the trigger piglet

19. What is your favorite Nancy Drew joke (from in-game or even floating around the internet)?

How salty everyone is about her’s terrible marketing decisions

20. Who is someone in the clue crew you’ve always wanted to get to know?

Hmmmm.... everyone tbh?? but i’m gonna tag @hotchkiss-and-tell cuz they tagged me

21. What are three unpopular opinions you hold about the games?

1. I don’t like TRN as much as everyone seems to?? I haven’t played it since I was like 10 but I remember not liking it much. Idk maybe I’d like it now?

2. I thought LIE was pretty fun? Like I know the puzzles make no sense but some of them are just like kind of relaxing? Like the pomegranate puzzle and the art puzzle on Xenia’s tablet

3. I read one (1) Joe/Sonny fic and now that pairing owns my ass but I’ve never seen anyone else ship it

22. Do you have any fun theories about any of the games?

Uhhhh my un-creative ass doesn’t have anything original but this theory about GTH by @nancy-who is my fav

23. Who was your favorite animal character featured in the games?

Tumi (SEA) is the cutest

24. Do other people in your life know about your love for Nancy Drew?

A couple, not really. I did get one of my friends to play one tho! she played CRY and she thought Henry was super hot but the game glitched and didn’t let her finish it :/

25. How long have you been playing these games?

I got FIN for christmas when I was 8 so it’s been... wow 14 years

I did this like super late so idk who has/hasn’t done this... if you see this and you wanna do it consider yourself tagged and @ me in your questionnaire :)

[pinelife3]

Defending Green Book

Green Book, winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture, has had some run-ins with the press:

I want to look at some of these reviews and think pieces, talk about the arguments being made and try to defend Green Book. I’m not planning on talking about the plot or actors or any of the various scandals involving writer Nick Vallelonga. I could write a review saying that it’s funny, the music is beautiful, that it’s hammy at times but generally pretty nice and try to defend it that way, but I didn’t love Green Book - it didn’t suck, but there are other films from 2018 that had burly, surprisingly supple stories, brawny imagery, shredded performances, super jacked action, rippling jokes, rugged special effects, muscle bound implications (i.e. they were very sexy) which I would commend way more highly: Loveless, Widows, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Can You Ever Forgive Me, Burning, etc. Loveless in particular is a film I’ve thought about at least once a week since I saw it (around a year ago). Probably any of these films is more deserving of Best Picture - but I think the level of negative coverage Green Book has received is unfair and I want to try to rebut some of that.

ONE ARGUMENT: Green Book flopped because it’s not the kind of movie people want any more

While sniffing around for content, I noticed the URL for Vulture’s write up on Green Book’s box office performance refers to the film as a flop - a word which doesn’t appear anywhere in the article itself:

I checked the history of the article using the Wayback Machine and found that when the article was initially published in November 2018 it had this title:

How interesting. 

By December 15 the title of the article had been edited:

The actual content of the article hasn’t changed since it was published so this is likely not the writer’s doing and is just some sneaky shit from Vulture. (The writer is Mark Harris - who, just quietly, is a pretty big deal and generally seems like a nice guy. I know it’s wrong to define people based on who they’re married to... but dude is married to Tony Kushner!!) 

I imagine when the film ceased to be a flop, Vulture didn’t want to look like they were wrong. I’m not a journalist so I don’t know what standard operating procedure is in these cases, but from my time reading articles online I’ve observed that when a correction or change is made to a published article, some small text down the bottom of the page says something like “This article was originally published under the title...” or “This article originally misstated the number of fries served with...” or whatever. 

Anyway - here’s what Harris had to say:

Two weeks ago, the movie arrived. The crowds did not. Following a disappointing opening on 25 screens, Green Book expanded to 1,000 for Thanksgiving weekend and finished a somewhat wan ninth. According to IndieWire box-office analyst Tom Brueggemann, its cumulative gross of under $8 million makes it “a work in progress, with a struggle ahead.” That struggle may offer a lesson that after 50 years, a particular kind of movie about black and white America has, at long last, run its course.

This is the top 9 in American cinemas for the weekend of Green Book’s wide release:

Was Green Book expected to compete with Ralph Breaks The Internet or Fantastic Beasts? Considering Green Book’s budget, I don’t think is such a bad showing. Especially considering this is the type of film which typically relies on word of mouth to generate interest - it’s a gentle human interest story. Parents will recommend it to their kids. Kids will recommend it to their grandparents. Families will watch it at home on their sectional sofas with their golden retrievers and one of those 70s wooden bowls full of kettle cooked chips. The awards and nominations may not have been expected (Farrelly’s last film was Dumb and Dumber To), but they helped generate interest as they nudged the film into prestige territory.

Besides, you can see that Green Book’s per theatre average is $5,000 which is better than Widows, Robin Hood, Instant Family and Bohemian Rhapsody. If we’re talking about flops on this weekend, Robin Hood is the obvious candidate - it opened at #7 and grossed ~$14 million internationally against a $100 million budget! Based on Harris’ logic, this is the type of film that audiences are really saying they don’t want anymore: modern takes on heroes from the Late Middle Ages (sounds kind of obvious when you put it like that).

No one should have expected Green Book to be a box office juggernaut, it’s an indie racial politics road trip movie produced by (amongst others) Participant Media - a film studio which produces work intended as ‘social impact entertainment’. That is, films creating a conversation and maybe even spurring reflection and change around current social issues. Other recent films produced by Participant Media include Roma, Spotlight, Deepwater Horizon, RBG, Beasts of No Nation, He Named Me Malala, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and The Cove. A wide range of movies - I’m guessing the social impact element of Deepwater Horizon is that you can have too much of a good thing (when that good thing is millions of barrels of oil tumbling into the ocean, suffocating and poisoning everything it touches). Plus Deepwater is interested in OHS (Did you know BP pleaded guilty to 11 counts of manslaughter?) 

Participant Media occasionally delivers surprise hits (like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) but produces a lot of smaller budget movies (<$30 million) which barely make their money back. Haha even Deepwater Horizon failed to break even (budget including marketing, etc. was $156 million, box office was ~$120 million). When a Participant film gets awards recognition (see: Spotlight) their investment in the film multiplies well. Looking at their 2018 films (including Roma and Green Book) this may well be their strategy moving forward. The point I’m trying to make is that not even the people who made Green Book were expecting it to be a box office hit. 

In the Vulture article, Harris’ general argument is that Green Book’s ‘disappointing’ box office showing on its opening weekend indicates that America is over this type of movie. Harris states that there are two types of audience member: white and nonwhite (I’m sure there are lots of people who would take umbrage with being defined as nonwhite but Harris has a point to make about how progressive and non-racist he is so get out of his way), and that of those groups:

The portion of the white moviegoing audience that needs to be handled with this much care and flattery is getting smaller every year, and the nonwhite audience, at this point, seems justifiably wary of buying a version of someone else’s fantasy that it has been sold many, many times before...  

As one person commented on the article on Vulture:

More from Harris:

There were loud critical complaints that in Three Billboards, the black characters were plot devices, abstractions designed to facilitate the growth curve of the white protagonists. That didn’t matter to Academy voters, nor will it matter to some of them that Green Book is a movie that could have been made 30 years ago. But Academy voters themselves, almost 30 percent of whom have joined only in the last four years, are changing, too, so who knows? It used to be a certainty that you’d never go broke selling white people stories of their own redemption — and that may still be true. But in 2018, it suddenly seems possible that you’ll never get rich that way either.

Should Harris disclose here that he is a white person? And isn’t a white person like Harris rejecting a trite tale of white redemption itself a tale of white redemption? Indeed, Harris’ prescient savviness to not be fooled by ‘a film which could have been made 30 years ago’ is a stirring tale of white redemption to rival Green Book itself.

(I got all raged up about the coverage of Three Billboards last year as well - you can check that out here.)

ANOTHER ARGUMENT: gReN bOOk iS JusT aN iNVerSioN oF dRivInG miSS dAiSy (and that makes it bad - obviously)

From The New Yorker:

From The Telegraph:

From sore loser Spike Lee:

Green Book, like Driving Miss Daisy before it, tells the story of a black character and a white character who forge a friendship in the face of racial hostility while behind the wheel. (In Driving Miss Daisy, the driver is black, and the rider is white; in Green Book, it’s the other way around.) “I’m snakebit,” Lee continued in the press room. “Every time somebody’s driving somebody I lose.” He paused dramatically. “But they changed the seating arrangement this time.”

(Side note: one criticism of Green Book that’s pretty solid is that the story in the film may not be as truthful as Nick Vallelonga and Farrelly insist it is. These arguments could also be made about BlacKkKlansman, so. Provided I’m not watching a documentary, I don’t care how accurate a ‘based on a true story’ film is. See also: The Favourite.)

From The New York Times:

In the above, Wesley Morris (one of the only black writers I’ve seen cover this in a major publication) makes a really strong argument for the issues with Green Book and other films from the interracial friendship genre:

Not knowing what these movies were “about” didn’t mean it wasn’t clear what they were about. They symbolize a style of American storytelling in which the wheels of interracial friendship are greased by employment, in which prolonged exposure to the black half of the duo enhances the humanity of his white, frequently racist counterpart. All the optimism of racial progress — from desegregation to integration to equality to something like true companionship — is stipulated by terms of service. Thirty years separate “Driving Miss Daisy” from these two new films, but how much time has passed, really? The bond in all three is conditionally transactional, possible only if it’s mediated by money.

(FYI, the third film he’s talking about above is The Upside.) Morris actually seems to like Driving Miss Daisy - but he is openly disgusted by Green Book:

The movie’s tagline is “based on a true friendship.” But the transactional nature of it makes the friendship seem less true than sponsored. So what does the money do, exactly? The white characters — the biological ones and somebody supposedly not black enough, like fictional Don — are lonely people in these pay-a-pal movies. The money is ostensibly for legitimate assistance, but it also seems to paper over all that’s potentially fraught about race. The relationship is entirely conscripted as service and bound by capitalism and the fantastically presumptive leap is, The money doesn’t matter because I like working for you. And if you’re the racist in the relationship: I can’t be horrible because we’re friends now.

As a plot device, I think the point of the money or the job is that IRL people from different worlds and communities just tend not to meet. That’s true now - in what other context aside from work, dating apps or maybe sports would you meet people even from a different suburb? Logistically, how do you get them in a room together? There are still real class divides in the world - I went to a very fancy private school with an indoor pool, an equestrian centre, a ‘wellbeing centre’, etc. which is based in Corio, one of the most disadvantaged suburbs in the state. Very few (no?) families in Corio could afford to send their kids to our school. I have no friends from Corio. Probably no friends from ‘working class’ families at all. I work a white collar office job so I don’t meet working class or long-term jobless people at work. I live in a gentrified inner-city suburb. What would be the set-up to get me in a room with a person from a disadvantaged background? Would I be doing volunteer work with elderly people? Serving lunch to the homeless? A school teacher at an inner city school attended by refugee children? Would I be a psychiatrist working with a bright, but angry and confused young man? (Hey, Will Hunting!)

In Green Book, our protagonist Tony Lip (Mortensen) is initially v racist, as are most of the people around him - we hear them use slurs, and we see Tony throw out glasses because black men drank from them. As Tony works for Dr. Shirley, they chat in the car - this is really the only black man he’s every had a one-on-one conversation with. Tony also observes the more extreme racism of the South. All of this undoes his prejudices. And Tony and Dr. Shirley learn from each other along the way: Tony to be a more considerate husband, more restrained in dealing with conflict, and more warm and open-minded with people who are different from those he knows - and Dr. Shirley learns to open up, have some fun rather than protecting his pride, etc. Morris is right, initially “[t]he relationship is entirely conscripted as service and bound by capitalism.” Tony took a job. Which is not a bad or unusual thing to do. Morris makes it sound sinister - ‘conscripted’, ‘bound by capitalism’. But working for someone is pretty normal - Morris himself works for The New York Times, bound by capitalism to be a critic for a great publication! It’s not so bad. 

The common criticism is that Tony only changes through exposure to an exceptional black man, a piano virtuoso with a psychology degree, who is, in the film’s portrayal of him, not ‘typically’ black because he doesn’t like fried chicken or popular music. Critics argue that this microcosm doesn’t prove that Tony won’t be racist towards other black people, it doesn’t deal with larger issues of race throughout America - and worst of all, it depicts Dr. Shirley as so lost, lonely, and broken as a person that he chooses to settle for Tony, a recently and possibly only partly reformed racist, as his new best friend.

Sure! Okay! I think when people are from different races, communities, socio-economic backgrounds, etc. are put together, it’s easy for someone who studied post-colonial literature at uni to get into battle mode. But there has to be a non-offensive way to tell a story about people from different backgrounds being in a situation and getting along. Because those situations happen all the time and it’s a good thing they do. That’s why people talk about the value of diversity. And it’s not bullshit. When people who are different get together, it can work and they can learn important lessons from each other.

Morris also talks about Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing:

Closure is impossible because the blood is too bad, too historically American. Lee had conjured a social environment that’s the opposite of what “The Upside,” “Green Book,” and “Driving Miss Daisy” believe. In one of the very last scenes, after Sal’s place is destroyed, Mookie still demands to be paid. To this day, Sal’s tossing balled-up bills at Mookie, one by one, shocks me. He’s mortally offended. Mookie’s unmoved. They’re at a harsh, anti-romantic impasse. We’d all been reared on racial-reconciliation fantasies. Why can’t Mookie and Sal be friends? The answer’s too long and too raw. Sal can pay Mookie to deliver pizzas ‘til kingdom come. But he could never pay him enough to be his friend.

Maybe there’s something innately American about race relations and black history that I’ll never understand, but - is Morris arguing that black and white people in America can’t get on? Closure is impossible?

In this interview with the Associated Press, Mahershala Ali, as the only black person involved in Green Book, clearly felt pressure to defend it:

Ali grants “Green Book” is a portrait of race in America unlike one by Jenkins or Amma Asante or Ava DuVernay. But he believes the film’s uplifting approach has value.

“It’s approached in a way that’s perhaps more palatable than some of those other projects. But I think it’s a legitimate offering. Don Shirley is really complex considering it’s 1962. He’s the one in power in that car. He doesn’t have to go on that trip. I think embodied in him is somebody that we haven’t seen. That alone makes the story worthy of being told,” says Ali. “Anytime, whether it’s white writers or black writers, I can play a character with dimensionality, that’s attractive to me.”

...

“A couple of times I’ve seen ‘white savior’ comments and I don’t think that’s true. Or the ‘reverse “Driving Miss Daisy’” thing, I don’t agree with,” he says. “If you were to call this film a ‘reverse “Driving Miss Daisy,’” then you would have to reverse the history of slavery and colonialism. It would have to be all black presidents and all white slaves.”

Yet the debates over “Green Book” have put Ali in a plainly awkward position, particularly when Mortensen used the n-word at a Q&A for the film while discussing the slur’s prevalence in 1962. Mortensen quickly apologized , saying he had no right, in any context to use the word. Ali issued a statement, too, in support of Mortensen while firmly noting the word’s wrongness.

I don’t want to wade into that whole mess - but it does feel like a kind of ouroboros trap where you want to condemn a word and the people who used it but can’t say the word, so your condemnation and discussion of the word is really neutered. Like when people talk about ‘You-Know-Who’ in Harry Potter. The word still flashes through your mind.

Gah so Ali had to go on The View covering for Mortensen and explaining why we should forgive him for his just-shy-of-unforgiveable mistake so we could all still go see the film without feeling weird. What a horrible position to be in.

A lot of the coverage of Greek Book is from critics who are saying the film is regressive and offensive, that it uses black people as props, that America should be better able to handle its history by now - they don’t even hate it, they feel ick about it. And it’s so unfortunate that Ali has had to hear all of this. In various interviews, Ali has spoken about how long it took him to break out in Hollywood:

“I was exhausted by . . . I don’t want to say the lack of opportunity, but the type of opportunity,” Ali says. “I’d get offers to do two or three scenes, with a nice note from the director. But I felt like I had more to say.”

From a different article:

“Dr. Shirley was the best opportunity that had ever come my way at that point,” Ali said. “You gotta think, a year-and-a-half ago, coming off of Moonlight, which was an amazing experience, but I'm present in that movie for the first third of it. And that had sort of been my largest and most profound experience in my 25 years of working.”

“So to be presented Green Book and have Dr. Shirley, a multidimensional character who had agency, who chose...no one else was doing that in this time,” he continued. “He didn't have to hire a white driver, he chose to hire a white driver in 1962 to be in the south and have a white man opening your door and carrying your bags and for him to be in that relationship, to be the person in power, for him to be as talented and as intelligent as he was, the dignity in which he carried himself with, his own personal struggle to keep his life and things about his life private because for those things to be public, it would not have been embraced.”

Does it sound to you like Ali is trying to convince himself that it was okay to do this job? 

Conscripted as service and bound by capitalism.

About a month after Morris’ article Why Do the Oscars Keep Falling for Racial Reconciliation Fantasies? was published, Green Book won the Oscar and he reflected on the film again, sounding more resigned and sad:

First, for all the changing that’s been reported about the academy’s membership — it’s getting less white and less male every year — it’s not yet entirely reflective of all that change: white and male and, at this point, capable of feeling better about a movie like “Green Book” more than, say, a movie like “Vice,” a fever dream about Dick Cheney... Peter Farrelly makes comedies and this movie, if you’re inclined to find laughs at the friendship at the film’s center, is funny. And the last line is so good and right and pleasing that I actually went for a third helping just to make sure I wasn’t wrong about it all. Only once I start thinking about what and who I’m laughing at do I get depressed...

For reference:

That is toasty warm.

As I said at the top, I don’t think Green Book is a fantastic movie - I just think it’s better than the criticism it attracted. The bulk of the criticism seemed to be mean spirited, referring obliquely to the fried chicken scene, and focussed on Peter Farrelly having a career in broad comedies and therefore not being a worthy match-up for Spike Lee, Alfonso Cuarón, etc. - plus also the obvious laughs to be had from Farrelly being forced to apologise for flopping his dick out ‘as a joke’ on the set of There’s Something About Mary (because haha his penis is so small and gross haha that’s the real joke). Hatred of Green Book has become a fun meme for Twitter. 

I don’t believe Morris is writing this stuff for his own amusement, or to be contrary, or as some kind of performative wokeness. He seems very genuine - he went to see Green Book again just to check he really disliked it. He seems hurt and troubled by the movie. The best I can get to is that maybe I’m wrong for feeling optimistic and liking the kind of movie where everyone can be friends. I am very open to accepting that there is something I won’t ever really understand about racial politics in America - and if that’s the case I may not be equipped to properly defend Green Book. 

(This is someone’s cue to make a movie about an Australian blogger who doesn’t think she’ll ever get American racial politics and then - on a yoga retreat in Texas, in the midst of a bird flu/zombie apocalypse, has to team up with a wheelchair-bound black politician (who was at the retreat to treat herself after a very stressful primary election). And then I the blogger becomes her driver, fleeing the flesh-hungry birds across the Texan plains, heading who knows where, but always squinting into the sun. We’ll They’ll saw the top off a Land Rover and restore a Civil War-era gattling gun to make it a death Jeep and the hair in our their armpits will grow long. It ends with us them howling like wolves and eating raw zombie birds. It will win many awards and annoy much of film twitter because the movie should have been about the black woman’s election and the blogger should have been eaten by the reanimated birds.)

[sokher]

Top 10 Best Web Browsers For Android in 2021

 Top Best Web Browsers For Android

The Internet browser is the most important tool on mobile devices. It is the engine for browsing the Internet, not only for websites but also for new types of web-based applications (progressive web applications, games, etc.). In the ranking of the new version in 2021, we selected 10 mobile apps for comparison: Brave, DuckDuckGo, Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Opera, Opera Mini, Samsung and Vivaldi to understand how to compare environmental impact solutions (carbon) and others Ordinary user behaviour scenarios and instructions for using the browser. - Chrome - Opera - Firefox - DuckDuckGo - Microsoft Edge - Vivaldi - Flynx - Puffin - Brave - Samsung Internet Browser 1. Chrome Chrome is a Google product, chrome comes by default on 80% of phones also chrome most used web browsers in the world. you can use a chrome browser,  Chrome is the obvious choice for mobile browsing, particularly if you already use the desktop version. Syncing between mobile and desktop editions of Chrome is helpful, giving you the option to access passwords you've stored in Chrome you don't need any password management tools or any apps, As the dominant browser on the market, Chrome is also the most reliable option, as every web developer considers Google's browser when building a website. Chrome offers extensive additional features such as secure storage for payment methods, a data-saver mode, automatic translation in dozens of languages, a malicious ad blocker and a pop-up blocker so you can use the Chrome browser. 2. Opera Opera is another mobile browser with a desktop version, which has all the advantages for users of both versions. Opera is different from other best Android browsers in storage mode. It can compress videos and standard web pages. As a result, due to the reduction in data, the page loads faster. If you do not have one of the best unlimited data plans, then your monthly data plan will not run out anytime soon. Even if you cannot use the VPN function and data storage mode at the same time, this function can also provide you with a virtual IP address. (Technically speaking, "VPN" is only available for the Opera browser app. To encrypt communications with other apps, you need one of the best VPN apps on Android. Despite the many features, Opera is the one I own One of the fastest browsers. We tried it, but only Chrome always beats it. One of the disappointments of Opera is the complicated user interface-the top and bottom of the screen can distract you, and Opera does it The browser provides multiple options. Data. Opera Touch focuses on browsing the page with one hand. 3. Firefox As with Google Chrome, when the browser you browse on your desktop most of the time involves introducing Firefox to your Android phone, there are many motivations. When you create a Firefox account and log in to all devices, all passwords, history and bookmarks will be synchronized. For better or worse, you can customize Firefox amazingly with a variety of themes and extensions, which can change almost any aspect of the browser. If you are someone who decides how tabs are displayed in the browser, what colours should be used for all content, and what features should be provided, then Firefox is your best choice. However, if this sounds like a nightmare, then using it as a basic Firefox installer can ensure that other Firefox enthusiasts who are particularly concerned about security can check out the new Firefox Focus because it’s similar to its big brother Compared with features, it looks a bit inferior to favour. privacy. Ox introduced Firefox Focus to always open links in private tabs. Alternatives for developers are Firefox, the more experimental versions of Firefox for Android Beta, and Firefox Nightly. There is also a separate VPN application, run by Mozilla, the parent company of Firefox, although the VPN costs $5 per month. Regarding this Firefox update, the newer version of the Android web browser adds a dark mode and grid to the opened tabs and moves the URL bar to the bottom of the screen. Firefox does this to accommodate larger phones. (You can move up the panel as needed.) A new collection function allows you to organize and save sites that are useful for research projects. 4. DuckDuckGo DuckDuckGo does not have all the bells and whistles of the relaxation of the first-rate Android browsers. But DuckDuckGo makes up for what it lacks with its singular cognizance on maintaining your pastime private. A button to the proper of the address/seek bar will wipe all of your pastimes at any second with a tap. DuckDuckGo additionally gets rid of any ad-trackers that can be seeking to observe you across the net and routinely will default to the best encryption to be had at the web website online you're visiting. While the browser itself is not reporting any of your pastimes lower back to DuckDuckGo, this nonetheless falls quick of a complete VPN. If you're seeking to hold your pastime stable from even your provider or the Wi-Fi community you're related to, then you may want a separate VPN app for that purpose. (You can take a look at our listing of the first-rate VPN offerings in case you are seeking out a VPN.) 5. Microsoft Edge Microsoft finally got its act along and delivered a compelling fashionable (Chromium-based) browser within the type of Edge. whereas the automaton version hasn't undergone the most important revamp that the desktop browser simply went through, it's still a good possibility that syncs up along with your Microsoft account. Microsoft Edge lacks extension support, however, it will provide a variety of extras that are typically extension-based in alternative apps, adore a poster blocker, translation services, word manager and one thing referred to as NewsGuard. That latter feature assesses news website supported their “journalistic standards of believability and transparency.” Edges reading-list feature is kind of well done because it delivers the total page instead of an abbreviated or text-only version of an article. If you like a lot of text-focused version of a page, simply faucet the book icon within the address bar for a clean reading view. Unlike the desktop version of Edge, the mobile browser enables you to swap out the default computer programme easily, therefore you'll use Microsoft Bing in your Microsoft browser. 6. Vivaldi The Antonio Vivaldi desktop browser offers in-depth customization options, however, its golem counterpart is a lot targeted at delivering distinctive features. Vivaldi’s Speed Dial is your main view, which may be a visually appealing and easy-to-use fast launcher for bookmarks. When conducting online research, you will appreciate the intrinsic made text Notes tab, the native page screen capture, and therefore the Clone tab possibility that pulls up a replica of your current tab to avoid losing it. Regardless of your default search engine, you'll be able to do a fast switch to a different search tool — eight standard choices are supported — by simply typewriting the primary letter of its name within the address bar before your search. Vivaldi’s overall performance was quick, although I'd typically see the placeholder for a picture or whitespace for a video or ad as I scrolled, even a moment or a lot of when I loaded an extended article. Whereas I actually appreciate this preference for delivering the text as quickly as possible, waiting till I scroll to load the remainder of the content of the pages is taking this too so much and ultimately a worse experience. While it lacks extension support or a lot of powerful ad-blocking options found in a number of the opposite best golem browsers, Antonio Vivaldi offers a compelling feature set that I hope to examine its developers still build upon. Since I last tested the browser, updated supplemental support for custom ad-blocking lists, and you'll be able to currently move the address and tab bars to an all-time low of your screen if that's however you roll. 7. Flynx Flint may become an incredible golem navigator, and has an eye-catching size. If you click a link in Flynn, instead of filling the screen immediately while the browser is still loading, the link will open very wide on the side in the form of a bubble. Once you can scan it, just click on the bubble, and it will expand to full-screen mode. This seems to be a trivial matter. However, if you need to open multiple tabs when you want to analyze or browse, Flynn's method allows you to continue reading the article or original material. When dealing with many tabs in my mobile browser, I find this can save a lot of time. To read offline, just double-click any link. For one or two reasons, Lynx cannot act as the only browser on Golem devices. Because the application is specifically used as a tool to open links and then read the links. It is not an address bar, nor is it a way to easily access the browser without clicking a link. In addition, sometimes this is not a permanent problem, but the application cannot display the online page correctly. However, Lynx provides the flexibility to open pages in a carefully selected split browser of your choice in the settings. Read the full article

[suzanneshannon]

Here’s How I Solved a Weird Bug Using Tried and True Debugging Strategies

Remember the last time you dealt with a UI-related bug that left you scratching your head for hours? Maybe the issue was happening at random, or occurring under specific circumstances (device, OS, browser, user action), or was just hidden in one of the many front-end technologies that are part of the project?

I was recently reminded of how convoluted UI bugs can be. I recently fixed an interesting bug that was affecting some SVGs in Safari browsers with no obvious pattern or reason. I had searched for any similar issues to get some clue about what was going on, but I found no useful results. Despite the obstacles, I managed to fix it.

I analyzed the problem by using some useful debugging strategies that I’ll also cover in the article. After I submitted the fix, I was reminded of the advice Chris has tweeted out a while back.

Write the article you wish you found when you googled something.

— Chris Coyier (@chriscoyier) October 30, 2017

…and here we are.

Here’s the problem

I found the following bug on a project I’ve been working on. This was on a live site.

I reproduced this issue with any paint event, for example, resizing the screen.

I created a CodePen example to demonstrate the issue so you can check it out for yourself. If we open the example in Safari, the buttons might look as expected on load. But if we click on the first two larger buttons, the issue rears its ugly head. 

Whenever a browser paint event happens, the SVG in the larger buttons render incorrectly. It simply gets cut off. It might happen randomly on load. It might even happen when the screen is resized. Whatever the situation, it happens!

Ugh, why is the SVG icon getting cut off?!

Here’s how I approached the problem.

First off, let’s consider the environment

It’s always a good idea to go over the details of the project to understand the environment and conditions under which the bug is present.

This particular project is using React (but is not required for following this article).

The SVGs are imported as React components and are inlined in HTML by webpack.

The SVGs have been exported from a design tool and have no syntax errors.

The SVGs have some CSS applied to them from a stylesheet.

The affected SVGs are positioned inside a <button> HTML element.

The issue occurs only in Safari (and was noticed on version 13).

Down the rabbit hole

Let’s take a look at the issue and see if we can make some assumptions about what is going on. Bugs like this one get convoluted, and we won’t immediately know what is going on. We don’t have to be 100% correct in our first try because we’ll go step-by-step and form hypotheses that we can test to narrow down the possible causes. 

Forming a hypothesis

At first, this looks like a CSS issue. Some styles might be applied on a hover event that breaks the layout or the overflow property of the SVG graphic. It also looks like the issue is happening at random, whenever Safari renders the page (paint event when resizing the screen, hover, click, etc.).

Let’s start with the simple and most obvious route and assume that CSS is the cause of the issue. We can consider the possibility that there is a bug in the Safari browser that causes SVG to render incorrectly when some specific style applies to the SVG element, like a flex layout, for example.

By doing so, we’ve formed a hypothesis. Our next step is to set up a test that is either going to confirm or contradict the hypothesis. Each test result will produce new facts about the bug and help form further hypotheses. 

Problem simplification

We’ll use a debugging strategy called problem simplification to try and pinpoint the issue. Cornell University’s CS lecture describes this strategy as “an approach to gradually eliminate portions of the code that are not relevant to the bug.”

By assuming the issue lies within CSS, we can end up pinpointing the issue or eliminating the CSS from the equation, reducing the number of possible causes and the complexity of the problem. 

Let’s try and confirm our hypothesis. If we temporarily exclude all non-browser stylesheets, the issue should not occur. I did that in my source code by commenting out the following line of code in my project.

import 'css/app.css';

I have created a handy CodePen example to demonstrate these elements without CSS included. In React, we are importing SVG graphics as components, and they are inlined in HTML using webpack.

CodePen Embed Fallback

If we open this pen on Safari and click on the button, we are still getting the issue. It still happens when the page loads, but on CodePen we have to force it by clicking the button. We can conclude that the CSS isn’t the culprit, but we can also see that only the two out of five buttons break under this condition. Let’s keep this in mind and move on to the next hypothesis.

The same SVG elements still break with excluded stylesheets (Safari 13)

Isolating the issue

Our next hypothesis states that Safari has a bug when rendering SVG inside an HTML <button> element. Since the issue has occurred on the first two buttons, we’ll isolate the first button and see what happens.

Sarah Drasner explains the importance of isolation and I highly recommend reading her article if you want to learn more about debugging tools and other approaches.

Isolation is possibly the strongest core tenets in all of debugging. Our codebases can be sprawling, with different libraries, frameworks, and they can include many contributors, even people who aren’t working on the project anymore. Isolating the problem helps us slowly whittle away non-essential parts of the problem so that we can singularly focus on a solution.

A “reduced test case” it is also often called. 

I moved this button to a separate and empty test route (blank page). I created the following CodePen to demonstrate that state. Even though we’ve concluded that the CSS is not the cause of the issue, we should keep it excluded until we’ve found out the real cause of the bug, to keep the problem simple as possible.

CodePen Embed Fallback

If we open this pen in Safari, we can see that we can no longer reproduce the issue and the SVG graphic displays as expected after clicking the button. We shouldn’t consider this change as an acceptable bug fix, but it gives a good starting point in creating a minimal reproducible example.

A minimal reproducible example

The main difference between the previous two examples is the button combination. After trying out all possible combinations, we can conclude that this issue occurs only when a paint event occurs on a larger SVG graphic that is alongside a smaller SVG graphic on the same page.

We created a minimal reproducible example that allows us to reproduce the bug without any unnecessary elements. With minimal reproducible example, we can study the issue in more detail and accurately pinpoint the part of the code causing it.

I’ve created the following CodePen to demonstrate the minimal reproducible example.

CodePen Embed Fallback

If we open this demo in Safari and click on a button, we can see the issue in action and form a hypothesis that these two SVGs somehow conflict with one another. If we overlay the second SVG graphic over the first, we can see that the size of the cropped circle on the first SVG graphic matches the exact dimensions of the smaller SVG graphic.

Edited image that compares the smaller SVG graphic to the first SVG graphic with the bug present

Divide and conquer

We’ve narrowed down the issue to the combination of two SVG graphics. Now we’re going to narrow things down to the specific SVG code that’s messing things up. If we only have a basic understanding of SVG code and want to pinpoint the issue, we can use a binary tree search strategy with a divide-and-conquer approach. Cornell University’s CS lecture describes this approach:

For example, starting from a large piece of code, place a check halfway through the code. If the error doesn’t show up at that point, it means the bug occurs in the second half; otherwise, it is in the first half. 

In SVG, we can try deleting <filter> (and also <defs> since it’s empty anyway) from the first SVG. Let’s first check what <filter> does. This article by Sara Soueidan explains it best.

Just like linear gradients, masks, patterns, and other graphical effects in SVG, filters have a conveniently-named dedicated element: the <filter> element.

A <filter> element is never rendered directly; its only usage is as something that can be referenced using the filter attribute in SVG, or the url() function in CSS.

In our SVG, <filter> applies a slight inset shadow at the bottom of the SVG graphic. After we delete it from the first SVG graphic, we expect the inner shadow to be gone. If the issue persists, we can conclude that something is wrong with the rest of the SVG markup.

I’ve created the following CodePen to showcase this test.

CodePen Embed Fallback

As we can see, the issue persists anyway. The inset bottom shadow is displayed even though we’ve removed the code. Not only that, now the bug appears on every browser. We can conclude that the issue lies within the rest of the SVG code. If we delete the remaining id from <g filter="url(#filter0_ii)">, the shadow is fully removed. What is going on?

Let’s take another look at the previously mentioned definition of the <filter> property and notice the following detail:

A <filter> element is never rendered directly; its only usage is as something that can be referenced using the filter attribute in SVG.

(Emphasis mine)

So we can conclude that the filter definition from the second SVG graphic is being applied to the first SVG graphic and causing the error.

Fixing the issue

We now know that issue is related to the <filter> property. We also know that both SVGs have the filter property since they use it for the inset shadow on the circle shape. Let’s compare the code between the two SVGs and see if we can explain and fix the issue.

I’ve simplified the code for both SVG graphics so we can clearly see what is going on. The following snippet shows the code for the first SVG.

<svg width="46" height="46" viewBox="0 0 46 46"> <g filter="url(#filter0_ii)"> <!-- ... --> </g> <!-- ... --> <defs> <filter id="filter0_ii" x="0" y="0" width="46" height="46"> <!-- ... --> </filter> </defs> </svg>

And the following snippet shows the code for the second SVG graphic.

<svg width="28" height="28" viewBox="0 0 28 28"> <g filter="url(#filter0_ii)"> <!-- ... --> </g> <!-- ... --> <defs> <filter id="filter0_ii" x="0" y="0" width="28" height="28"> <!-- ... --> </filter> </defs> </svg>

We can notice that the generated SVGs use the same id property id=filter0_ii. Safari applied the filter definition it read last (which, in our case, is the second SVG markup) and caused the first SVG to become cropped to the size of the second filter (from 46px to 28px). The id property should have a unique value in DOM. By having two or more id properties on a page, browsers cannot understand which reference to apply, and the filter property redefines on each paint event, dependent on the racing condition that causes the issue to appear randomly.

Let’s try assigning unique id attribute values to each SVG graphic and see if that fixes the issue.

CodePen Embed Fallback

If we open the CodePen example in Safari and click the button, we can see that we fixed the issue by assigning a unique ID to <filter> property in each SVG graphic file. If we think about the fact that we have non-unique value for an attribute like id, it means that this issue should be present on all browsers. For some reason, other browsers (including Chrome and Firefox) seem to handle this edge-case without any bugs, although this might be just a coincidence.

Wrapping up

That was quite a ride! We started barely knowing anything about an issue that seemingly occurred at random, to fully understanding and fixing it. Debugging UI and understanding visual bugs can be difficult if the cause of the issue is unclear or convoluted. Luckily, some useful debugging strategies can help us out.

First, we simplified the problem by forming hypotheses which helped us eliminate the components that were unrelated to the issue (style, markup, dynamic events, etc.). After that, we isolated the markup and found the minimal reproducible example which allowed us to focus on a single chunk of code. Finally, we pinpointed the issue with a divide-and-conquer strategy, and fixed it.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. Before I go, I’d like to leave you with one final debugging strategy that is also featured in Cornell University’s CS lecture. 

Remember to take a break, relax and clear your mind between debugging attempts.

 If too much time is spent on a bug, the programmer becomes tired and debugging may become counterproductive. Take a break, clear your mind; after some rest, try to think about the problem from a different perspective.

References

Cornell University CS 312 Lecture 26 – Debugging Techniques

Debugging Tips and Tricks

Reduced Test Cases

SVG Filters 101

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[chrisaldrich]

Domains 2019 Reflections from Afar

My OPML Domains Project

Not being able to attend Domains 2019 in person, I was bound and determined to attend as much of it as I could manage remotely. A lot of this revolved around following the hashtag for the conference, watching the Virtually Connecting sessions, interacting online, and starting to watch the archived videos after-the-fact. Even with all of this, for a while I had been meaning to flesh out my ability to follow the domains (aka websites) of other attendees and people in the space. Currently the easiest way (for me) to do this is via RSS with a feed reader, so I began collecting feeds of those from the Twitter list of Domains ’17 and Domains ’19 attendees as well as others in the education-related space who tweet about A Domain of One’s Own or IndieWeb. In some sense, I would be doing some additional aggregation work on expanding my blogroll, or, as I call it now, my following page since it’s much too large and diverse to fit into a sidebar on my website.

For some brief background, my following page is built on some old functionality in WordPress core that has since been hidden. I’m using the old Links Manager for collecting links and feeds of people, projects, groups, and institutions. This link manager creates standard OPML files, which WordPress can break up by categories, that can easily be imported/exported into most standard feed readers. Even better, some feed readers like Inoreader, support OPML subscriptions, so one could subscribe to my OPML file, and any time I update it in the future with new subscriptions, your feed reader would automatically update to follow those as well. I use this functionality in my own Inoreader account, so that any new subscriptions I add to my own site are simply synced to my feed reader without needing to be separately added or updated.

The best part of creating such a list and publishing it in a standard format is that you, dear reader, don’t need to spend the several hours I did to find, curate, and compile the list to recreate it for yourself, but you can now download it, modify it if necessary, and have a copy for yourself in just a few minutes. (Toward that end, I’m also happy to update it or make additions if others think it’s missing anyone interesting in the space–feedback, questions, and comments are heartily encouraged.) You can see a human-readable version of the list at this link, or find the computer parse-able/feed reader subscribe-able link here.

To make it explicit, I’ll also note that these lists also help me to keep up with people and changes in the timeframe between conferences.

Anecdotal Domains observations

In executing this OPML project I noticed some interesting things about the Domains community at large (or at least those who are avid enough to travel and attend in person or actively engage online). I’ll lay these out below. Perhaps at a future date, I’ll do a more explicit capture of the data with some analysis.

The largest majority of sites I came across were, unsurprisingly, WordPress-based, which made it much easier to find RSS feeds to read/consume material. I could simply take a domain name and add /feed/ to the end of the URL, and voilà, a relatively quick follow!

There are a lot of people whose sites didn’t have obvious links to their feeds. To me this is a desperate tragedy for the open web. We’re already behind the eight ball compared to social media and corporate controlled sites, why make it harder for people to read/consume our content from our own domains? And as if to add insult to injury, the places on one’s website where an RSS feed link/icon would typically live were instead populated by links to corporate social media like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. In a few cases I also saw legacy links to Google+ which ended service and disappeared from the web along with a tremendous number of online identities and personal data on April 2, 2019. (Here’s a reminder to remove those if you’ve forgotten.) For those who are also facing this problem, there’s a fantastic service called SubToMe that has a universal follow button that can be installed or which works well with a browser bookmarklet and a wide variety of feed readers.

I was thrilled to see a few people were using interesting alternate content management systems/site generators like WithKnown and Grav. There were  also several people who had branched out to static site generators (sites without a database). This sort of plurality is a great thing for the community and competition in the space for sites, design, user experience, etc. is awesome. It’s thrilling to see people in the Domains space taking advantage of alternate options, experimenting with them, and using them in the wild.

lol, I agree #domains19 pic.twitter.com/aMdwJlhogr

— Lauren Brumfield (@brumface) June 10, 2019

I’ll note that I did see a few poor souls who were using Wix. I know there was at least one warning about Wix at the conference, but in case it wasn’t stated explicitly, Wix does not support exporting data, which makes any potential future migration of sites difficult. Definitely don’t use it for any extended writing, as cutting and pasting more than a few simple static pages becomes onerous. To make matters worse, Wix doesn’t offer any sort of back up service, so if they chose to shut your site off for any reason, you’d be completely out of luck. No back up + no export = I couldn’t recommend using.

If your account or any of your services are cancelled, it may result in loss of content and data. You are responsible to back up your data and materials. —Wix Terms of Use

I also noticed a few people had generic domain names that they didn’t really own (and not even in the sense of rental ownership). Here I’m talking about domain names of the form username.domainsproject.com. While I’m glad that they have a domain that they can use and generally control, it’s not one that they can truly exert full ownership over. (They just can’t pick it up and take it with them.) Even if they could export/import their data to another service or even a different content management system, all their old links would immediately disappear from the web. In the case of students, while it’s nice that their school may provide this space, it is more problematic for data portability and longevity on the web that they’ll eventually lose that institutional domain name when they graduate. On the other hand, if you have something like yourname.com as your digital home, you can export/import, change content management services, hosting companies, etc. and all your content will still resolve and you’ll be imminently more find-able by your friends and colleagues. This choice is essentially the internet equivalent of changing cellular providers from Sprint to AT&T but taking your phone number with you–you may change providers, but people will still know where to find you without being any the wiser about your service provider changes. I think that for allowing students and faculty the ability to more easily move their content and their sites, Domains projects should require individual custom domains.

If you don’t own/control your physical domain name, you’re prone to lose a lot of value built up in your permalinks. I’m also reminded of here of the situation encountered by faculty who move from one university to another. (Congratulations by the way to Martha Burtis on the pending move to Plymouth State. You’ll notice she won’t face this problem.)  There’s also the situation of Matthew Green, a security researcher at Johns Hopkins whose institutional website was taken down by his university when the National Security Agency flagged an apparent issue. Fortunately in his case, he had his own separate domain name and content on an external server and his institutional account was just a mirrored copy of his own domain.

If you’ve got it, flaunt it. —Mel Brooks from The Producers (1968), obviously with the it being a referent to A Domain of One’s Own.

Also during my project, I noted that quite a lot of people don’t list their own personal/professional domains within their Twitter or other social media profiles. This seems a glaring omission particularly for at least one whose Twitter bio creatively and proactively claims that they’re an avid proponent of A Domain of One’s Own.

And finally there were a small–but still reasonable–number of people within the community for whom I couldn’t find their domain at all! A small number assuredly are new to the space or exploring it, and so I’d give a pass, but I was honestly shocked that some just didn’t.

(Caveat: I’ll freely admit that the value of Domains is that one has ultimate control including the right not to have or use one or even to have a private, hidden, and completely locked down one, just the way that Dalton chose not to walk in the conformity scene in The Dead Poet’s Society. But even with this in mind, how can we ethically recommend this pathway to students, friends, and colleagues if we’re not willing to participate ourselves?)

Too much Twitter & a challenge for the next Domains Conference

One of the things that shocked me most at a working conference about the idea of A Domain of One’s Own within education where there was more than significant time given to the ideas of privacy, tracking, and surveillance, was the extent that nearly everyone present gave up their identity, authority, and digital autonomy to Twitter, a company which actively represents almost every version of the poor ethics, surveillance, tracking, and design choices we all abhor within the edtech space.

Why weren’t people proactively using their own domains to communicate instead? Why weren’t their notes, observations, highlights, bookmarks, likes, reposts, etc. posted to their own websites? Isn’t that part of what we’re in all this for?!

One of the shining examples from Domains 2019 that I caught as it was occurring was John Stewart’s site where he was aggregating talk titles, abstracts, notes, and other details relevant to himself and his practice. He then published them in the open and syndicated the copies to Twitter where the rest of the conversation seemed to be happening. His living notebook– or digital commmonplace book if you will–is of immense value not only to him, but to all who are able to access it. But you may ask, “Chris, didn’t you notice them on Twitter first?” In fact, I did not! I caught them because I was following the live feed of some of the researchers, educators, and technologists I follow in my feed reader using the OPML files mentioned above. I would submit, especially as a remote participant/follower of the conversation, that his individual posts were worth 50 or more individual tweets. Just the additional context they contained made them proverbially worth their weight in gold.

Perhaps for the next conference, we might build a planet or site that could aggregate all the feeds of people’s domains using their categories/tags or other means to create our own version of the Twitter stream? Alternately, by that time, I suspect that work on some of the new IndieWeb readers will have solidified to allow people to read feeds and interact with that content directly and immediately in much the way Twitter works now except that all the interaction will occur on our own domains.

Seeing good examples of existing domains is crucial for showing students what is possible in creating their own domain, says @CassieNooyen #domains19

— Mo Pelzel (@MorrisPelzel) June 10, 2019

As educators, one of the most valuable things we can and should do is model appropriate behavior for students. I think it’s high time that when attending a professional conference about A Domain of One’s Own that we all ought to be actively doing it using our own domains. Maybe we could even quit putting our Twitter handles on our slides, and just put our domain names on them instead?

Of course, I wouldn’t and couldn’t suggest or even ask others to do this if I weren’t willing and able to do it myself.  So as a trial and proof of concept, I’ve actively posted all my interactions related to Domains 2019 that I was interested in to my own website using the tag Domains 2019.  At that URL, you’ll find all the things I liked and bookmarked, as well as the bits of conversation on Twitter and others’ sites that I’ve commented on or replied to. All of it originated on my own domain, and, when it appeared on Twitter, it was syndicated only secondarily so that others would see it since that was where the conversation was generally being aggregated. You can almost go back and recreate my entire Domains 2019 experience in real time by following my posts, notes, and details on my personal website.

So, next time around can we make an attempt to dump Twitter!? The technology for pulling it off certainly already exists, and is reasonably well-supported by WordPress, WithKnown, Grav, and even some of the static site generators I noticed in my brief survey above. (Wix obviously doesn’t even come close…)

I’m more than happy to help people build and flesh out the infrastructure necessary to try to make the jump. Even if just a few of us began doing it, we could serve as that all-important model for others as well as for our students and other constituencies. With a bit of help and effort before the next Domains Conference, I’ll bet we could collectively pull it off. I think many of us are either well- or even over-versed in the toxicities and surveillance underpinnings of social media, learning management systems, and other digital products in the edtech space, but now we ought to attempt a move away from it with an infrastructure that is our own–our Domains.