#and in another point too down the html

[vomitdodger]

The assignation of Trump has evidenced an unprecedented level of security incompetence. Literally…an inconceivable level of incompetence.

The subsequent briefings have demonstrated an utter lack of common sense, outright lies, or further violation of their own protocols. You should expect nothing less from the feds. Totally useless briefs other than to catch them in further lies, cover up and incompetence.

Couple the staggering incompetence with too numerous to count “coincidences” and even the normies are thinking…conspiracy. There’s no way that shooter on the roof didn’t have help. It’s practically a common talking point now it’s so obvious.

But here’s the thing…in a world of perpetual lies…trust but verify even the best of them.

Example. We have likely all seen the fuzzy red hat interview saying there was a shooter on the roof:

The immediacy of his interview by the BBC (sus agency) was…curious to me. Granted, chaotic, shooter seen, everyone wants to get their story out, but rando fuzzy red hat guy gets an immediate interview by a major news organization while the brass is still warm on the ground. Curious. Others have subsequently validated his story with their own versions, so it seems to “check out”. And THATS the narrative: multiple witnesses of the shooter on the roof, lots of excuses, no one is stepping down. Get that story out there IMMEDIATELY.

But there’s another story getting ZERO attention. There’s a second shooter on the water tower. Feel free to search “second shooter” on X. Now that X is censorship free there’s lots of legit info. And the same type of people who validated or told their stories about the “shooter on the roof” are validating and telling their stories of a “second shooter”. But zero attention or discussion of this. Why? Well…if it’s true that seals the deal for conspiracy. Can’t have THAT! MSM silent on it all. But they talk about the videos and witnesses of the shooter on the roof non stop. Such a compliment mockingbird media!

If you believe fuzzy red hat (and others) with their stories and videos of “shooter on the roof” (and you should) then you should just as voraciously believe the “second shooter” videos and stories. They are from the same group of Trump rally supporters. Just a different vantage point.

Again, in a world of perpetual lies…trust but verify. Fuzzy red hat may be totally legit, but the way he got his story out there SO fast and by an major news organization was…curious. It reminded me of another media driven narrative.

Remember 9-11. What brought down the towers? And we’ll ignore Bldg 7 which just “died suddenly”.

Why heck! everyone knows it was the fires that did it. Uhhh…ok. Where did that line come from? It came from some random guy on the street. Getting interviewed. By a major news organization:

This was the VERY first time it was ever stated. Ever. Some rando uttered the line without any knowledge or experience while he just got done running down the street in chaos to escape the falling towers. Not suspect at all (sarcasm). But it became the narrative…forever. Curious. Just like fuzzy red hat guy.

Oh look:

Yeah. Watch the whole video and you’ll see the story line is a setup. Source:

https://rumble.com/v4gdc4u-documentary-of-all-documentaries-jfk-to-sept-911-everything-is-a-rich-mans-.html

Fantastic 3 1/2 hr video. Will change your perspective on the world but for brevity the above 9-11 clip starts at the 3 hr mark.

So check out “second shooter” on X

Watch the short scene from rumble. Then the whole movie.

And tell your normie friends it’s ok to be a conspiracy theorist. They’ll generally live longer and everything will make sense to them.

[machiroads]

anirevo 2024 con report belooooooow

THURSDAY NIGHT, AUGUST 8TH

Left my office at 4:30. Took the bus to the ferry straight from work except the GODDAMN BUS DIDN'T ACTUALLY STOP TO PICK ME UP so I had to wait for the next one and missed the 6:00 ferry so I didn't get to my hotel in Vancouver until after 10pm oof

The slow bus was very nice once i got over being mad about the fast bus leaving me on read by way of listening to linkin park. It goes through some very quaint rural areas.

I purchased a can of wine on the ferry which was like $15 for 8.5oz. I don't know how I feel about this but I do feel like I got ripped off because the wine was only ok

I edited and posted ch2 of WTBL&W entirely on my phone which may or may not have been a mistake. Getting the html formatting right wasn't too bad, but editing the splash image for twitter and bsky on photopea was uhhhhhhhhh a mistake. FAFO

FRIDAY AUGUST 9TH

My hotel had one of those fancy toto washlets so you bet your ass my butt was squeaky clean all weekend

My hotel also had a room service menu that had a bowl of oatmeal for $14 as an offering. Which. No.

I got an actual breakfast at a tiny hole in the wall crepe place staffed by a single old man, then trundled over to the con to pick up my badge at like 10ish. I was in line behind a cute couple in horimiya cosplay

The first panel I actually wanted to see wasn't until like 12 so I sat on the seawalk, finished my coffee, watched floatplanes, and replied to AO3 comments. 11/10 banger morning.

I watched an improv comedy D&D skit, which was fun, then traipsed down to the exhibition hall to do Some Shopping

MERCH REPORT: nobody really had heroaca stuff? Or if they did it was just the main kids. Still lots of people with HQ stuff, which I'm encouraged to see years after its ending. I'm happy with the pin selection this year tho, I picked up some nice stuff (but I think i will need to find additional capacity on my button collection because it's p much full oops)

BONUS COSPLAY REPORT: There also weren't really any heroaca cosplayers either, i saw like 1 shinsou, a couple bkgs, and a handful of people in nonspecific UA gym uniforms. Very strange. I did, however, see like 3 Nanamis within the span of 2 minutes on Saturday. (i don't even go here re jjk but he was the basic white boy cosplay of the year)

I spent like 2 hours in the exhibition hall and my brain hurt so I got poke for lunch, went back to the hotel to eat it, then took a nap

I went back for another couple panels on Friday night (a panel with vancouver VA graham hamilton, and another improv advice panel)

SATURDAY AUGUST 10TH

I went bra shopping on saturday morning because i accidentally overstuffed my backpack last week and zipped my bra into the zipper and tore the liner whilst trying to extract it. This is not relevant to the con, however it was an important part of my weekend

There wasn't anything I wanted to see at the con in the morning so I didn't get there until like 2:00 so I could line up for the cosplay contest. I'd never been to one before, and I don't really cosplay mself, but I've recently been watching some sarah spaceman videos, so I thought it would be fun to go see a contest for the first time.

On the schedule the contest is supposed to start at 2:30. There's like 6 down-and-backs of queueing space for people waiting to get in. When I got there around 2ish there were people milling about saying they'd cut the line. I loitered a bit longer until some admin looking folk went around telling people to disperse because queueing outside of the taped off area was a "fire hazard", and to come back at 3:00 when the event started. At this point, the line of people illicitly queued for this event wrapped probably halfway around the building, and the VCC is a Large Building.

I assume the delayed start time was probably due to pre-judging going long (thank u sarah spaceman for this education i now know how cosplay contests work), so i wasn't too fussy about that, but the fire hazard thing was a little silly to me because I'd been in the exhibition hall already which to me seemed like waaaaaay more of a fire hazard than a generally orderly line. Regardless. I bummed around on the seawalk for a bit and then went back just before 3 and managed to snag a seat. The contest itself ended up being really fun, and I'm glad i stuck around for it.

I went to another 3 panels on Saturday night, all 3 of which had similar queue capacity issues, and all 3 of which started late. Again, when the panels themselves started, they were all really fun, but logistically it seemed like they had some challenges. It does feel a bit silly to complain about though when I have literally nothing else to do that weekend tho haha

I attended the Philosophy of Science in FMA and Dr Stone (TIL epistemology is a word), a panel about adaptations that are superior to the source material, and...............yaoi bedtime stories. Which was a hoot.

SUNDAY AUGUST 11TH

Kind of a chill morning. Got some goodies at a bakery for breakfast / lunch / to bring home, checked out of the hotel, then trundled over to the con.

I went to a panel that was just a bunch of tables set up with colouring sheets and books and stuff and that was super what I needed. I coloured the eeveelutions from memory (and only forgot half of their colour schemes), and then there was a little time left so I also coloured in a cardcaptor sakura.

I thought about attending cosplay life drawing afterwards but ended up just heading home after colouring since I was kind of Done after a full weekend. There was another improv dragon ball tribute scheduled, but not until like 6:30pm and if I stuck around for that I wouldn't have gotten home today lol

No bus mishaps on the way home fortunately

ANYWAYS that's all folks thanks for reading about my dramatization of what was actually a pretty chill weekend.

[quietmarie]

Anyone can program (yes, even you)

"Programming is easy"

I saw some variations of this statement shared around the site recently, always in good intentions of course, but it got me thinking.

Is that really true?

Well it certainly isn't hard in the way some developers would want to make you believe. A great skill bestowed only upon the greatest of minds, they're the ones making the world work. You better be thankful.

That is just elitist gibberish. If anyone ever tells you that programmers are "special people" in that way, or tries to sell you on the idea of "real" programmers that are somehow better than the rest, you can safely walk in the other direction. They have nothing of value to tell you.

But I think the answer is more complicated than a simple "Yes, programming is easy" too. In all honesty, I don't think it's an easy thing to "just pick up" at all. It can be very unintuitive at first to wrap your head around just how to tell a computer to solve certain problems.

One person in the codeblr Discord server likened it to cooking. That's a skill that can be very hard, but it's also something that everyone can learn. Anyone can cook. And anyone can program.

I really mean that. No need to be good at maths, to know what a bit is or whatever it is people told you you need. You're not too old to learn it either, or too young for that matter. If you want to start programming (and you can read this post), you already have everything you need. You can write your first little programs today!

One of the cool things about programming is that you can just fuck around and try lots of stuff, and it's fine. Realistically, the worst thing that can happen is that it doesn't work the way you imagined. But you'll never accidentally trigger the fire alarm or burn your house down, so feel free to just try a bunch of stuff.

"Okay I want to learn programming now, what do I do?"

That's awesome, I love the enthusiasm! As much as I'd love to just give you a resource and tell you to build a thing, you still have to make a choice what you want to learn first. The options I'd recommend are:

Scratch: A visual education tool. The main advantage is that you don't have to worry about the exact words you need to write down, you can just think about the structure of your program. The way it works is that you drag and drop program elements to be executed when they should be. You can relatively quickly learn to make cute little games in it. The downside is that this isn't really a "professional" programming language, so, while learning from Scratch will give you the basics that apply to most languages and will make switching to another language easier, you're still gonna have to switch sooner or later. Start here: https://scratch.mit.edu/

Python: The classic choice. Python is a very widely used, flexible programming language that is suited for beginners. It is what I would recommend if you want to skip right to or move on from Scratch to a more flexible language. https://automatetheboringstuff.com/ is your starting point, but there's also a longer list of resources here if you want to check that out at some point.

HTML/CSS/JavaScript: The web path. HTML and CSS are for creating the look of websites, and JavaScript is for the interactive elements. For example, if you ever played a game in your browser, that was probably written in JS. Since HTML and CSS are just for defining how the website should look, they're different from traditional programming languages, and you won't be able to write programs in them, that's what JS is for. You have to know HTML before you learn CSS, but otherwise the order in which you learn these is up to you. Your JavaScript resource is https://javascript.info/, and for HTML and CSS you can check out https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/Getting_started_with_the_web.

I put some starting out resources here, but they're really just that - they're for starting out. You don't have to stick to them. If you find another path that suits you better, or if you want to get sidetracked with another resource or project, go for it! Your path doesn't have to be linear at all, and there's no "correct" way to learn things.

One of the most important things you'll want to do is talk to developers when you struggle. The journey is going to be frustrating at times, so search out beginner-friendly coding communities on Discord or wherever you're comfortable. The codeblr community certainly tends to be beginner-friendly and kind. My DMs and asks are also open on here.

[scotianostra]

12th November 1094 saw King Duncan II killed at the Battle of Monthechin, near Kincardine.

We know very little about the battle, but a little background from the Annals of Ulster record that the "French went into Scotland and brought away the son of the king of Scotland as hostage" in 1072, which presumably refers to Duncan as any of his half-brothers (if then born) would have been infants at the time.

Duncan was kept in Normandy, Florence of Worcester in the Chronicon ex chronicis records that Robert III "Curthose" Duke of Normandy released "Ulfam Haroldi quondam regis Anglorum filium, Dunechaldumque regis Scottorum Malcolmi filium" from custody after his father's death in September 1087, knighted him and allowed them to leave Normandy.

He joined William II King of England and remained at his court in England. Florence of Worcester again records that Duncan served in the army of King William II, who supported his bid to depose his uncle, and to whom Duncan swore fealty before leaving for Scotland. He deposed his uncle in 1094 and proclaimed himself Duncan II King of Scotland after his brother's death but that "filius regis Malcolmi Dunechain" expelled "patruum suum Dufenaldum".

Another chronicle, The Annals of Inisfallen record that "Domnall son of Donnchadh" killed "Donnchadh son of Mael Coluim king of Alba" in 1094 and "took the kingship of Alba".

So to put it all together, Duncan was taken as a hostage to stop his faither, King Malcolm III, from attacking Northern England, he would not have been held as a prisoner, but brought up with the royal household of William I, eventually being knighted and taking a role in the English court. He would know his heritage though and must have had one eye on returning to Scotland and taking his place as King one day.

Malcolm meanwhile had given refuge to Edgar Ætheling, who seen himself as the rightful King of England, Edgar persuaded Malcolm to help him regain the English throne for The Wessex family......more on this tomorrow, but the upshot was Malcolm was slain and Duncan, with the Norman’s help took the Scottish throne in the Spring 1094. There was much opposition to this, especially from the Highland Scots who seen him as an outsider, and in November news reached the Highland army that Duncan was exposed, the army rode south to the Lowlands and confronted his nephew. On 12th November, Duncan was ambushed and killed in battle, having reigned for less than seven months.

As I said earlier not much is known about the battle and the Chronicles are a bit contradictory and really a bit confusing, but in the main they all point to Donald being behind the battle, one source says he was Duncan’s brother, but historians point out that he was more likely his uncle. Confused? Me too!

At the end of the day this was all down to the Gaels making a stand against the southerners taking control of the Scottish Crown, Donald III reigned for three years, being deposed by his half brother Edgar, another of Malcolm III’s sons, you could also say it was a family fight as two of Malcolm’s sons, Duncan, and Edgar and his brother Donald are all part of this story. Malcolm III influence did not only extend to those three relatives though, a further two sons, Alexander I and David I both went on to rule Scotland as Kings of the House of Dunkeld, a dynasty that only ended when Margaret of Norway perished in 1286.

The pic of Duncan, is one of the series of fictitious portraits of early Scottish kings by 17th century artist Jacob de Wet.

The sources from the chronicles come mainly from this source https://buist-keatch.org/buist/goring/3160.html

“Tune” in tomorrow for more background on Malcolm III and his demise.

[loverofallthingssmart]

PLEASE UNLEASH your hadestown demons!!!!!

unleash my hadestown demons is right this is a BEAST thank you very much ive satisfied the brain worms by dumping all my thoughts under the cut

first off. the beauty of live theatre allows for so much nuance and beauty to demonstrated so i cant even begin to cover all the things that could make me insane its so wonderful i love live theatre everyone should watch at least one live theatre production i believe it will solve at least one problem they have

the tragedy of it all!! its a sad song but we sing it anyway, in hopes that we hope that orpheus doesn't turn. but he will. bc he loves eurydice so much so he went down to the underworld to save her.

guys. the repeated, cyclical nature of everything. its an old tale from way back when and its a sad song but they sing it anyway. the point of hadestown is the HOPE of it all wait theres an article (https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/theatre/anais-mitchell-hadestown-west-end-broadway-b1134613.html) regarding mitchell's thoughts on orpheus that make me insane im gonna paste a quote here:

"If Hadestown has a moral, she says, then it’s “you have to try, you have to have hope, not because success is a given – it’s not. Orpheus fails. We heroicise” – here she breaks off to apologise that jet lag has led to her making up words – “we heroicise Orpheus not because he succeeds but because he tries, and that endeavour alone is worthwhile. How to live, and not merely survive, is to believe things could change.” ARE U KIDDING ME OURGHH

which brings me to the topics of like. climate change and capitalism that the play discusses its so good. the fact that there's no spring or fall, only summers and winter because of persephone's absences, how "is it true" is just a song abt labor protests red carnations are a symbol of love and passion yes, but in germany theyre a symbol of the working class protest. its SO important hades has just created an industrial revolution, has built a wall, has workers work forever, "why we build the wall" is soooo incredible "hey little songbird" "chant" all the songs that take place IN hadestown itself are sooo gritty so despondent in a way its insane.

theres another article that discusses sm of it AND discusses like portrayals of persephone that i REALLY like. im gonna paste it here PLEASE read it it has so much good stuff from a classics person regarding it and OURGH too good

orpheus's "to the world we dream about" but then also "the one we live in now" like oh.okay. im NORMAL….

if u noted every single lalala in hadestown it would be 6 min long. the leitmotif oh i am so normal actually.

okay im not rlly a music person i call myself music adjacent bc my two closest friends r music ppl LMAOJDHJS but like. the first time u hear eurydice say "i do" i.e what you say to seal a marriage is after she tells orpheus she signed the papers. she does not say "i do" in the entireity of wedding song, where they talk abt their nuptials. she says "i do" in informing orpheus she cant come up with him. that she chose this life (or death i guess) of her own doing. isnt that vile….

in wedding song she goes "is he always like this" and hermes responds but then in "a gathering storm" she asks the same question to no response.. idk what's there but something is there.

hermes being the narrator thats involved in the play is SOOOO delicious for my brain, the way he switches between a character involved in orpheus and eurydice getting together, invested in their relationship to a all-knowing narrator who knows the end bc he sees this every time.

there's this sense that only orpheus and eurydice do not know they r in a repeated play. which heightens their love at first sight, the "i feel like i know u but ive just met you" OHHHHH my god.

the original nytw script having orpheus say "ur early. i missed u." directly paralleling hades and persephone but in a different context because OHHHHMYGOD and not even that but the fact that mitchell took it out bc she believed it engaged the brain when the moment should only directly engage the heart. so she had the lovers say each other's name. one last time. im soooo normal

also this is bc one time i was thinking abt hadestown and mitski's remember my name played so . just that song in the context of hadestown is SOOOO bc like. like. how eurydice couldn't rmbr herself when she became a worker but orpheus went down to save her and she remembered.

when he turns back and says.

"it's you" "it's me"

^ are you fucking kidding me. the sort of disbelief the happiness the love the incoming grief im inconsolable.

when orpheus turns back, eurydice says his name w so much joy SO MUCH JOY she is not upset at him. "what was there to complain of, except that she'd been loved?" <- quote from metamorphoses

like yes we wish orpheus doesnt turn around but at the end of the day, orpheus is still the trusting guy he was in the beginning. EURYDICE on the other hand KNOWS how cruel the world is and chooses to trust orpheus anyway. but. "it's a tragedy" and doubt creeps in. part of the tragedy lies in the fact that eurydice, "all ive ever known is to hold my own" eurydice runs after him w open arms, chooses to trust him, chooses to follow the trial, and he still turns around. BECAUSE he loves her ohhhmygod im so normal

obligatory mention to the fact that orpheus could never finish the song he was working on because it was a duet. like okay lol. im fine im normal hahahahaha are u fucking kidding me.

hades and orpheus are mirrors, there r two relationships in the musical obviously and it is clear theyre mirrors of each other even w/o the original script line but like.

hades gives orpheus the test that he himself goes through every spring. hades is the villain of the story yes but he is not evil. he gives orpheus the same trial, sees that if orpheus can judge him for losing faith in his wife through the course of their relationship, let's put his romantic nature to the test. let's see if he can feel the absence of his love and keep going. and he cant. bc orpheus has never had to learn how to fend for himself. so when u take away his support system, when u take anyone's support system, how is he, how r we supposed to succeed?

just. the song "how long" encapsulates hades and persephone's relationship SO WELL. "the girl means nothing to me." "i know. but she means EVERYTHING to him" the fact that this is the first time we persephone REFUSE a drink bc shes had enough oh were SOMBER somber the way the whole song just parallels itself and every verse GOD.

the love was there. the hope was there. its a sad song. its a love song.

every single time before they leave. every time they're on stage, eurydice is in front of orpheus. he trusts that she is before him and she never doubts that he is there. it is when their positions change, him in front and her behind that he bends. it is then that doubt comes in.

those r just the like the thoughst of the music and themes itself we can talk abt the ppl and the live play now:

so first. can we talk abt this we need to talk abt for reeve carney's last show the original orpheus his last show he didnt turn back. he and eurydice lived they passed the trial. sorry that makes me so insane bc like. imagine u play orpheus. doomed to a lifetime of looking back at ur lover and your final show, u finally get to stay. oh im very normal i just love the nuances of live theatre!!! what a send off!!!!

THEN we can talk abt how eva and solea play PERFECT eurydices, full of grit and used to the cruel nature of the world. and how lola tung i feel is a DECENT singer but shes not a eurydice shes so light and soft but idk. who am i to say.

also the soundtrack is just SO incredible so is the set design there's not a single ounce of stage space that is wasted like there are so many nuances like i cant even talk abt all that there is my FAVORITE musical for SOOO many reasons ough.

yeah i think that's it. this took me MULTIPLE hours and i feel drained abt talking abt all this. WOW i love hadestown not normal amounts. i can't die before i see this live its one of my goals i just need to see it live on broadway.

[harushinkai-daily]

State of the Blog and Plans Going Forward

Hello friends! I wanted to share my plans for this blog now that we've gone through all the episodes and documented more than four years(!!) of good, good Harus.

The bottom line up front: this blog will still be updating, but there is going to be a drop in frequency, and I will take requests via the askbox if there's something you want to see! The rest is under the cut to spare your dash, but read on if you're curious!

First of all, I want to assure everyone that this blog is NOT going away. I care about it way too much to just abandon it. That said, I really don't have it in me to keep it updating daily at this point. There are nowhere near enough "new" Harus I could post, and while I suppose I could start the anime over again from the beginning, I want to make this transition on a high note, and there's nothing I could do that would be more satisfying than (somewhat-accidentally-but-then-totally-on-purpose once I saw it was possible) lining up the end of the anime to coincide with Haru's birthday. Plus, I always want this blog to be a labor of love and joy, so I really do need to make this adjustment before it starts feeling like a chore or obligation to update ^^;

So what does that mean? It means there will still be some new posts to this blog, but they're going to become much more sporadic in nature. I haven't exactly figured out what this looks like yet. It might be every week, it might just be when I feel like it. I still have some manga panels to go through and some anime-related "bonus materials." Plus, there are some stats and compilation-based photosets I want to make (and my personal top 10 Harus? You betcha!). Not to mention finishing the poor, neglected blog index, if you've ever looked at this page on desktop!

That actually brings up another one of my goals for this project: archival and general Appmon news/promotion. In terms of archival, I want to export the contents this blog (screenshots and captions) somewhere outside of Tumblr; I'm thinking a Neocities page or something. I also might use this space to reblog whatever Appmon-related news we might get in the future (few and far between, obviously, but it could still happen!). There are also some other Appmon-related projects that are rattling around in my head that I would also like to get out there (character comparison by director and/or Caught-Up Old Man supercut, anyone?). So things might look kind of quiet as I do some work on some backend HTML and other behind-the-scenes stuff, but progress will probably be happening on those fronts, slowly but surely!

All that said, if you really can't get enough Haru, there are several ways you can help to keep this blog going!

Send me a date on the calendar, ANY date, and I'll reply with all of the daily Harus that got posted over the years! The only exception to that rule is July 1, since that day's dedicated to reblogging fanworks :)

Send me ideas for photosets! With 4 years of backlog, I'm sure there are some interesting ones that could be made.

Send requests for gifs! I only did this sporadically during the original run, but if there's something you want to see that I didn't make already, I'll do it.

Let me know what YOUR favorite Haru(s) are. It doesn't have to be all about me! :D

Send me Harus or requests for Harus that I'm missing? This blog has always accepted submissions. But please note I will not post more than individual Appmon manga panels, because Naoki Akamine, the mangaka, has requested that any art they've shared and posted on social media not be reposted. If it's not directly from the anime, I also have a strong preference for original, official images WITH SOURCES, because I've noticed there are a few AI-upscaled versions of things like card art floating around out there. I will always do my best to track down the original image, and will not use images that have been enhanced with AI on this blog. A sure way to tell: any text on the image looks fuzzy (and wrong!)

Last but not least (and I know I say this a lot, but bear with me): thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for sticking with this blog, whether you're a longtime follower or a relative newcomer. This whole project started on a whim, as a passion project early in the COVID-19 pandemic, and I could not have guessed that it would have taken me this long to make it through the whole series, one good Haru at a time. I have spent a truly shocking amount of time working on this blog, but an equal amount of love, for one of my absolute favorite Digimon series and gogglehead protagonists.

Love from your HaruShinkai-Daily mod,

@citrus-cactus

[izicodes]

hello izzy loa! i started watching supersimpledev's html and css youtube tutorial and wanted to follow along. i've been taking notes and sometimes im scared i'm wasting time on the video when there are many other resources, for example, that freecodecamp video you linked, the 21hours one and i saw another blogger is watching the brocode video.

would it be bad to switch videos even though i've already taken notes to see how other people teach it? idk i feel like if i keep switching i wont actually learn anything.

also - do you still recommend that 21 hour video? how do you feel about beginners learning java first?

Hiya 💗

🔍 "would it be bad to switch videos even though i've already taken notes to see how other people teach it? idk i feel like if i keep switching i wont actually learn anything"

There is no shame/guilt in switching between video resources. I do this all the time and I even would recommend other people to do the same! It's like researching for an essay; teachers encourage you to have lots of references in your essay so you can make a more developed point of view. This is the same! I don't rely on one resource because there could be a bunch more out there that can 1) explain things more plainly 2) go in much more detail and 3) show tips and tricks that I can use in the future.

Like I mentioned in the resources I made (resource 1 | resources 2) I talk about having multiple resources to help you learn. Literally, for me, imagine I wanted to learn PHP right now, I would look online for:

Free PDF PHP book

YouTube Tutorials

Website/Articles on learning PHP like W3School

(If I am really committed) Find a Udemy course on PHP to follow along

And for each, I would have like 1 or 2 places/books/videos to refer back to when stuck! So, yes, of course, it's okay! If you truly get stuck at the abundance of resources and how to study from each one, build a study schedule for the resources, not just the subject e.g.

9-10am - YouTube video resources

10-11am - PDF Book resources

11-12pm - Websites/Articles

Personally, I just do my schedule by subject and use the resources simultaneously. The key thing is don't overwhelm yourself with resources. Pick the ones that help YOU not because "oh it helps this person so I'll use it too even though it confuses me" no.

Also, That feeling of wasting time is okay, it's natural when you want to learn so much in so little time, but that's why I stress about taking your time. If you don't, you'll be like scanning a book - not actually taking things into your brain. That will result in you forgetting and having to start back at square one. Learn at a pace that's right and gives you a good time for your brain to comprehend what you're learning!

🔍 "do you still recommend that 21 hour video?"

Yes, I learnt a lot from that video and really laid down the foundations for me then I used other resources to build on top of that!

🔍 "how do you feel about beginners learning java first?"

That's your personal choice, I don't have a stance on if it's a good first language to learn! Java is used to all sorts so if it aligns with what you want to be building in the future then go right ahead! I recently was looking at University courses for Computer Science and a lot of them teach either Java or C++ as the students' first programming language so yeah!

Hope this helps! 💗

[protocolseben]

a regular day in the ISS. | 1685 words alt title : a short story written while i screwed with html. you can use mobile, but landscape please!

you can read the story below the cut without all the jazz. it's pretty much all the same.

408 km above Switzerland / 4:18:48 PM /UTC +1 CET 38 Days - Manned Mission 2-1 LOG : a regular day in the ISS.

"ah, switzerland again!"

"how about australia for once?"

"no."

"alright, suit yourself then."

-----

"Besides, how hard is it to miss Australia? It's...one big thing just. There. Not my fault you can't catch it in time."

"Yes, and your stupid numbers board there."

"I want to win after all."

"Nothing to gain from winning it, love."

(of course seb is winning…)

««« ────── [ approximately 2.5 years ago ]

Mark's half-superior-half-coworker Jonathan Wheatley had once jokingly asked him if he wanted to move to the STELLARIA Section, in which Mark's response was a grimace and a terse "No thank you," given the fact that the fellas of that section was…eccentric to say the least.

He was unsure as to why Horner decided to open a whole section dedicated to just original research, but given that even the man himself had superiors, he was not surprised. Must be the weird old guy from the Munich University again in his ear. Either way, he must be really special to have all the astrophysicists be in their very own area.

"I watched them do their stuff once." Wheatley said in one of break rooms. "I didn't get a single lick of it, even with the math they used. And I had almost full scores in all the Engineering mathematics. They can get real loony."

Mark shrugged his shoulders, in slight agreement. STELLARIA was chock full of these nerds that are constantly fixated on space numbers, but one of them stood out the most for looking like a 15 year old. but at that point the slightly scraggly man -- boy? -- already seemed to be fond of Mark from the get-go. Rocky had brought him over while touring the place, and the twinkle in the latter's eyes easily meant trouble for him in the future.

Theoretical subdiv, Rocky clarified, the guy bringing Seb around. Not the normal Practical use physics that the other sections worked with.

Charming, he thought, but still, it's unfortunate that they would barely see each other considering the differences in what they did. Some other fella named Anton looked at STRUCTURAL once, and slinked away at the massive working machines he and his coworkers went back and fro to. Couldn't blame him.

Wheatley told him that Sebastian had only joined the company a month ago, and apparently as part of his traineeship, or cadetship, something along the lines, while still working on his final fringes of his PhD or the like. It wasn't officially stated yet to the world, but rumours had already persisted that didn't really have any interest in the other agencies. But that was a wild story for another time. Mark wonders how he managed to do so many things at the same time, and was entertaining the thought of him having a twin or clone to help out.

At the end of the break, Mark had pushed away the thought of the starry-eyed section long towards the back of his mind. Not useful, he muttered.

»»» ────── [ present day, present time ]

(being pushed down by 25-year old worth of kilograms)

"what lame ass metal thing are you doing right now?"

"being dragged down by you… why is your hair so ticklish?! it's just last part of today's experiment."

"ok. i think CORE wants to give us a report for today in a few minutes, and then i can knock myself out."

"you get to knock out? i had to drag you to your sleeping bag because you weren't meeting your 8 hours ─"

"the graph was too interesting…"

"oh god it's you two arguing again."

"oops, hello Marlon."

««« ──────

Overtime. He never really minded it, because the peace and quiet was optimal, for when Mark was too caught up in the place building his things, and free to audibly mumble his thoughts.

Unfortunately for him on this fine evening, a person stood waiting behind his back , holding a slice of chocolate bread made with approximately 100% passion and 89% skill 500% flavour. Mark was dumbfounded at the bread hanging in front of him, but he was kind of hungry. It was a bit singed at the edges, but it still tasted good. He thanked Seb, stuffing the piece into his mouth and delighting in the chip flavour burst.

Until you realise that the person's pass was not authorised for this specific part of the building, of course. He whipped his head around and nearly strained his neck --

"How the fuck did you get in?! You are not supposed to be here." Mark had exclaimed in hushed tones, the first time Seb had managed to inflitrate the Section. STRUCTURAL was tightly maintained.

"I know all the corridors to here already." there's that knowing tone again. What a nosy little shit.

"There's nothing interesting in this place mate," Mark threw his hands up, looking around to make his point and hunking pieces of things and thingmabobs, before looking at the kid before him. "all I do every day is testing and make sure the materials are working right. And doing work I'm too slow to finish."

"It's ok, making stuff is fun. My dad used to be a carpenter and make stuff out of wood. Writing space math gets boring when you're sitting there too long."

You couldn't argue with that, he's a curious kid alright.

He let him have a look around. Seb's eyes were immediately drawn to the panel-type mish-mash item laying about in the corner, lifting and turning it gingerly like a new archaeological find. Dents, dings and bumps marred the surface of it, curious materials all welded with different names to them, like "Carbon Fibre" and "Heat Resistant Fibreglass".

"It's just our in-house materials, Seb. Not that big of a deal."

"Still, making a whole new kind of matter, you guys are pretty cool."

»»» ──────

"psst. hey. mark."

"what?"

(rustling sound)

" 'Thermo-Sterilised Chocolate Bread'… STRUCTURAL Section. What? When did they do these?"

"They had a whole investigation to try "compress" it. Also, i thought you were more level-headed, Mark. They told me you got visibly jealous over people snooping for my bread!"

"God, they noticed that…? Was i that serious about it?"

"you were."

"shit."

««« ──────

As much as Mark wanted to entertain Seb's sixty thousand questions, which were basic engineering (but he didn't mind), he wanted to go home more. So he had to gently convince to him to leave, turning the lights out for the night.

By gently convincing, it meant Mark forcing Seb on one of those roller chairs and rolling him out STRUCTURAL Section's main doors, before kicking the empty chair back in. -- "wait let me get my stuff first!!" he had exclaimed, running back to STELLARIA and back to meet Mark in a record of 3 minutes.

Quite a speedy lad. Mark had not seen someone go as fast as that since University Rugby in Australia. He was obliterated on contact by the opponent as he dived for the ball. Three months out with a broken left shoulder. Ah, the wonders of youth.

"You didn't let me see the machines."

"And you didn't even tell me what you like." Mark had grumbled, fumbling for his car keys as they walked out the tall glass doors. "And you can do it anytime, the machines aren't going to grow legs and run away."

Seb simply gave a grin.

oh for fuck's sake. "Fine. Anyway, I'm going off. Goodnight, Seb." He was about to walk off, before realising something. "How… do you go home?"

"Huh? Bus obviously. Salzburg's pretty good with the public transport. Yeah I have a license but I don't care much for driving a lot."

Mark looked at him right in the eye. "Get over here. I'll just drive you back." He wanted to laugh when Seb just stood there in his stupid oversized jacket giving him a questioning look. "I'm being serious. Where do you live anyway? It's faster than just waiting around."

► ► ►

It was the world's most uneventful trip by many standards. In fact, Mark's passenger somehow managed to catch a quick snooze right after telling him the address. Seb lived on the other side of Salzburg, in a simple four-floored apartment. Despite being practically the same as his own, Mark thought the surroundings were more cozy.

He gave Seb a gentle nudge on the shoulder. "Ok sleeping beauty, nice place you have here."

"Huh…what…?" He looked around before realising. "You seriously didn't have to…"

"It's for the bread. Good stuff."

There was a short moment of silence as Seb processed what Mark said, before turning slightly red. "I-if you want, I can give you different flavours every week," he said. "Banana, Raisin,--"

Mark just sat the wheel listening in mild awe. He would've just gone home and knocked out or gotten a beer. It sort of made him want to try baking, but that was probably his illogical brain talking, before realising he had to tell Seb to not get any more ideas. "No, no, you don't need to do it, it's just that you are really impressive, still finding time to bake."

"It's a nice hobby!" Seb laughed. "Ok, ok, i'm leaving now. Goodnight Mark, thanks again. Take care." He clumsily opened the car door and right after, tried to give Mark the awkwardest fist bump attempt on Earth.

► ► ►

Twenty two hours to the first time Seb sneaked into STRUCTURAL, a slightly baffled Mark whipped his head around to the sound of the maintenance exit audibly opening, to a Seb holding some more of his homemade chocolate bread.

"I have a lot more at home in the fridge, actually, if you'd like."

»»» ──────

ISS INTEGRATED VIDEO LOG : // ZVEZDA-20XX-24-01-XX:23:11:98

(zip noises) come on stop struggling Seb.

HU--REN--SOHN!!!

translation : son of a bitch.

there, neat and tidy. good luck waking up tomorrow, i think you'll be fine.

I will throw you out the airlock tomorrow. You watch.

muah. ok, goodnight sweetheart. love you. don't wreck the module.

fuck you..............night.

-- RECORDING ENDED --

»»»───«««

[thestrangeillusion]

S (or just one of them), X? :D

S. link your favourite author.

Oh god, this is such a difficult question! For the sake of not going down a complete rabbit hole, I’m gonna limit myself to only Kinnporsche fanfics for this question. And because I cannot possibly just choose one author for this, I’m gonna link the three fic authors in this fandom that I feel have probably altered my brain chemistry the most with their fics:

@the-cookie-of-doom: I am currently very, very obsessed with their fic “Pas de Deux” because bratty Kim and exasperated but-still-so-kind Chay have me in a chokehold. And then their trans Kim and glory hole fic live rent free in my mind and are really inspire some of my own head canons of Kim cause the characterisations are just sooo on point! Which reminds me that I really need to re-read those as soon as I find the time.

@bisexualbard-writes: Her “benefits to open and honest communication” series were some of the earliest fics I read in this fandom and it definitely contributed very strongly to how obsessed I ended up becoming with KimChay as a ship and with KimChay fanfic. I adored camboy Chay, but even more than that I adored Kim sitting across from Chay week after week in that coffee shop, Kim reading therapy books and Chay installing a mod that makes all of Kim’s online game chicken look angry and Kim being frustrated as hell by that. Simply amazing! And then all the incredibly angsty and incredibly hot sex was just so delicious to read. Another thing I loved was reading the same story from both Chay’s and Kim’s POV and all the ways they sometimes completely misunderstood each other and misinterpreted each other’s actions. Oh yeah, and then she completely blew my mind once again with one of her newest fic in which Chay holds a very willing Kim hostage in the hottest and most hilarious way possible. (Also, she let me in on the secret of how to super easily convert my fics into html format ready for posting to AO3, which I will forever be grateful for.)

@kimkhimhant: Their fics were also some of the first I ever read in this fandom (I went back to check and their “to love and be loved” series was actually my first ever bookmark in this fandom) and have also permanently formed and inspired my head canons for Kim and Chay and KimChay together. And I’m always reading their fics with my heart in my throat because of all the angst and hurt that they describe so viscerally, but at the same time I’ve always thought that their fics are really cathartic and feel healing as well. And at the moment I’m reading “this tender violence” which is so hard to read sometimes (and it must be so, so hard to write!) because of all the horrible things Kim is going through in it, but is just written so beautifully and with so much empathy that it definitely has a top spot in my list of favourite ongoing fics (and favourite fics in general).

X. give a summary of your current project!

While I have a ton of half-thought-out fic ideas sitting in my notes app that may or may not ever get written, the only project I’m currently actively working on is my WIP “i’m glad I didn’t die before I met you”. Basically, it’s a found family AU where Kim meets Porsche before Kinn ever does and triggers all of Porsche’s big brother instincts by being way too young to find himself in the mess he’s in (i.e. Korn trying to have him killed). I’ve been having a lot of fun exploring the KimPorsche friendship and messily blurring the lines between a big brother-little brother relationship and some underlying sexual (but NOT romantic) tension between them.  And then, because I’m a KimChay girl when it comes down to it, Chay is somehow finding himself in the middle of this, falling head over heels for Kim, all the while being sooo sure that Kim and Porsche have been fucking from day one (spoiler, they have not been) and might even be in love. Yeah, somehow I’ve found myself writing the misunderstandings trope, even though that’s not even a trope I usually particularly like, but I hope I’m doing it somewhat well… Anyway, this is not so much a summary as it is me rambling on about my WIP, but there you go.

Thank you so much for the ask! I obviously went way overboard answering this, as I always do 🙈 but it has been a lot of fun to answer 😊

[canary0]

May 9 - Dracula 2023

Discord Exchange Between Miss Mina Murray and Miss Lucy Westenra

Mina: Hello there! I’m sorry I haven’t sent a message in so long. Work got hectic for a little while.

Lucy: I’m not surprised, Miss Deputy Head Teacher! :) However are you?

Mina: Missing you! I wish we could be out by the sea right now, talking about our hopes and dreams.

Lucy: Talk like that and I’ll come down there, sweep in, and carry you off to Whitby! Not that you won’t be here pretty soon anyway, but it’s the principal of it.

Mina: Oh no, anything but that! XD I’ve been trying to expand my skills lately, too. I’ve been practicing html and learning more about photography.

Lucy: Oh, have you been helping him with that part of the blog? I had a chance to glance over it the other day – the pictures he posted from Hungary and Romania are so pretty!

Mina: Exactly! It must be so nice to be able to travel and see them in person… I hope we’ll have a chance to go together eventually. I was thinking of doing my own entries when I come up to visit. Do a bit of a Whitby travelogue that I could add to whenever it seems like fun or something interesting happens. It would be nice if we could each see the interesting things going on in our lives when we have to be away from one another.

Lucy: Aww <3

Mina: It could be a practice thing, too – observing, interviewing, transliterating conversations like a journalist. I heard you can learn to remember almost everything you hear in a day. I feel like I’m just sending you a wall of text now, though – I’ll tell you all about it when I visit.

Lucy: No problem! I love hearing what’s going on – and I did ask more about it. Lay it on me!

Mina: You’re too sweet <3

Lucy: You think I’m sweet now, you’re gonna get so many cavities. Jonathan when he gets back, too. It’s been too long since I’ve seen him!

Mina: Well, he should be heading back in a week according to the last email he sent, so you’ll have your chance.

Lucy: I can’t wait! Oh, I have to go. I have someone I need to go see, too!

Mina: !!! So the rumor is true? I heard about you and a tall, handsome, curly-haired man! Come back here this instant and tell me more!

Lucy: Nope nope gotta go! You’ll just have to wait.

Mina: Bah. The 10am bell just rang anyway, so I have to go too. ttyl

(A/N: This one is real different y'all. I tried not to totally screw it up.

Adorable nerds feel like the type who would use XD unironically in casual IM conversation. I might just think that because I do.

Getting across the same ideas in a MUCH more casual form of communication is interesting, while also having to make it look like Mina’s not just rambling over Lucy… Without taking away from Lucy’s later entries. @_@

Also-also, after a whole bunch of research on what a deputy head teacher does in the UK these days, you can consider everyone aged up about 4 years from where most people consider canon to be.

Also-also-also Mina’s not looking at dropping her job, but work-life balance is way more emphasized now than it was, so they’re sharing interests and hobbies and supporting each other that way instead.

I knew with Mina things would get much more complicated because of how VASTLY different things are for women now, so… I did my best. We’re going to “roughly correct vibes” at this point. XD;

this chapter was way harder than usual and i was already very tried from waking up to do a 2.5 hour car trip at 5am. I tried. I apologize if it is bad.)

[oddmerit]

i try REALLY hard to like cohost dot org and there IS a lot to like about it, legitimately:

most of the staff are jewish gaytrans furries so they Get the need for firm moderation that accounts for “plausible deniability”-type bigotry, even if they slip up it’s pretty quickly rectified (see below)

good 18+ filtering, pro-posting queer hole

NO BULLSHITE ALGORITHMS. chrono timelines only

css/html/markdown crimes

that being said.

the general culture there is rough bc a lot of the prominent powerposters are friends or friends-of-friends of the devs by nature of how they conducted the closed alpha, but bc of the lack of public metrics it’s considered taboo to claim that there ARE powerposters in the first place. and because powerposters are just a few degrees removed from the devs, people who WERENT part of the alpha want to emulate that general vibe. part of which means getting extremely hostile and defensive if anybody says something that could be construed as putting the devs down and claiming they’re “twitterbrained” or whatever and that people who “expect too much” of the devs are going to be the downfall of the site

the most recent incident of this stemmed from a moderating misstep where someone i followed reported a nazi channer who followed her and was part of an antisemitic harassment campaign, but hadn’t posted anything to the site yet. the staff who handled her report said “this is concerning so we’ll wait and see BUT we don’t take action based on offsite behaviour”, despite that being untrue based on previous moderation actions (notably TERFs getting nuked from orbit before they could even start posting). the person who reported them got upset and several of her followers (including me) were like “what the fuck, that’s unexpected and shitty”, some saying that made them feel unsafe in case that ever happened to them. once the decision got traction (and other people started reporting the account) the staff went back on its decision “based on internal review” and suspended the account in question, which is where this story should have ended

except, the day after it happened, i woke up to a post on my cohost dashboard that was someone screaming their head off about people who had said “this is disappointing and makes me concerned”, and kept quoting one specific person who they claimed had overreacted and was symptomatic of the above-mentioned “twitterbrain” and that it was all “bad faith”. like, if THAT is gonna be the community reaction to someone being alarmed about inconsistent moderation, why would you ever publicly bring up moderation concerns at all?

its one thing to ask site members to be considerate of staff (its a small team and half of them were at a con AND it was a weekend AND they eventually backtracked and apologized anyways so it was all good at that point) but its another thing to go off on a rant quoting mostly one specific person while claiming its really “just general you” and claim that they’re the reason the site will go under. if you’re going to claim that you need to bite your tongue over missteps “for the good of the community” that’s a HUGE fucking red flag! bc thats how resentment will grow and eventually explode into something MUCH worse! it wouldnt turn into “intra-community infighting” if everyone was like “cool, thank you, please make sure this doesnt happen again” after the issue is solved instead of dragging it out and turning it into an example of “oooo look how PRO-HARASSMENT twitter has made you, you’re HARASSING the devs by voicing concern”!

and dont get me STARTED on the shitfits people were throwing when staff said “we don’t allow loli on this site”. people understand “cohost isnt a free speech absolutist site like twitter” when it comes to hate speech but they absolutely do NOT understand it also applies to jerking it to fictional csa lmao. cohost isnt overrun by “puritans”. the devs will not ban queer hole*. the devs post queer hole. its fine

(*the only way i can see NSFW getting banned is if stripe drops them for processing cohost+ subs or the future tipping system and even then i trust staff will fight for Queer Hole as hard as they can)

[council-of-beetroot]

4. What character do you want to write but haven't

8. What is your process when writing

9. Strange things you've had to research for Hetalia fanfiction

32. Most tagged additional tag?

36. Do you have playlists or character boards for inspiration

It’s always fun to see you on my dashboard! ⭐️

Aww Dziękuję!

4. What character do you want to write but haven't

Answered here

8. What is your process when writing

Well first it starts with an idea. Then I let that idea simmer for a bit before I even begin to start writing. I will usually have fragments that are stuck in my head that when I finally get to writing I will write immediately. I will write those down before I have the fic plot in my head figured out. I usually will try to build an atmosphere and style in my head of how I want the fic to feel. Then I get to writing and I usually write about 200 words before I'm like then what? So I usually do some more thinking before continuing to write. I will make a page of stuff for inspiration and just notes on how I want the fic to go. Sometimes the fic won't get past this stage. I will usually have an outline of what happens at each step of the fic by this point if I continue it. Then this usually is the sit down for the long haul part of writing where I usually do more research in between. Then when I have it like half way then I start filling in those gaps where I wrote stuff like (so and so does this) instead of writing the part of the scene in question. Once it's about 90% done I'll start going through and determining in another draft and start rearranging stuff and taking things out and adding things in so it is a bit more polished. This can take a while but it's an important step. Then I'll take that copy and paste into another doc and do editing for punctuation spelling formatting errors etc. Then if I'm feeling brave I'll send the fic to someone and see what they say. This helps as it helps me determine where things might be a little wonky still. I usually take their advice and do some more revising. Once I deem it okay I'll do another check for spelling grammar etc and then I'll add the html things needed to format for AO3. Then it's time to publish. Biggest obstacle there is figuring out summaries and titles. Also rating can be hard to figure out too. But eventually it's ready to publish and I hit that button then feel joy of publishing and wait to see what happens after.

I'm kinda slow at writing but someday I hope I get to the point where I can write a long fic.

9. Strange things you've had to research for Hetalia fanfiction

Half the time I'll research stuff but then it gets to the point where I'm figuring out logistics and I'm like "Beetroot your making things way too complicated" and I don't even end up using the stuff I was researching for hours.

Cat trees

Vegan Gołąbki

Żabka store statistics

What happens if you fall off a roof

How far can you travel in snow and how likely are you to die ?

Words for horses

Soviet cookbooks

32. Most tagged additional tag?

Humour and Not Beta read

36. Do you have playlists or character boards for inspiration

Yes, on Pinterest I do for Feliks, Liet and Raivis then have some boards for specific prompts.

[parcequecestnotreprojeeeet]

Hi. It’s me, Fanfic Anon #2.

I had a lovely Christmas - thank you for asking, EMT. You’re the sweetest. 🥹 Hope you and your family enjoyed the holiday as well.

This piece is inspired by this article on their Christmas Eve bowling adventure: https://actu.fr/ile-de-france/maurepas_78383/emmanuel-macron-au-bowling-de-maurepas-un-lieu-privilegie-par-plusieurs-celebrites-dont-brigitte-macron_56198415.html

I honestly have no clue how true anything reported in it is, but for purposes of this story, I’m going with the whole he won thing. Anyways, hope you all enjoy!

If pressed, he’d admit he is a competitive person. Not that it would be that hard to guess based on his life so far: piano competitions as a child, football at ENA, fighting to win the hand of the love of his life, his two presidential campaigns. He liked to win, and sometimes that made family game nights interesting, especially given the fact his wife had a competitive streak herself. Which is how he found himself down a game in a bowling alley on Christmas Eve desperate for a strike.

They didn’t have their children and grandchildren on Christmas Day itself this year, it is an even ending year, so it’s the other families’ turns to have them, but they did get them today. He was determined that they should do something fun, go out for a change, even.

When he brought that idea up a couple of days earlier over their nightly dinner, Brigitte had suggested “how about bowling?”

“Bowling?” he asked, intrigued. It had been a while since he had been able to go bowling, although he knows she’d been a couple of times in the last few years with their family when she could.

“Yes! The little ones love it. It’s been forever since you’ve been, chéri, and I remember back in the day, you were pretty good at it.”

“I mean, I was thinking out to a fancy lunch, but bowling would be really fun.”

“And I know just the place. You know, last time I was there, I told the owner that I would be back with you one day.”

“Sure of yourself, huh?” he teased with a smirk.

“I’m sure of my husband,” she replied, reaching out and grabbing his hand.

As they had finalized plans this afternoon, their security protocol requiring one of their staffs to make the arrangements and reservations, he remembers her pulling him aside and whispering, “you want to make this interesting?”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Loser treats winner to a massage?” she proposed.

“You’re on!” he replied gamely.

Neither one of them had won the first game, Laurence took that honor, and was enjoying gloating about it. Emmanuel claimed he was distracted by the little ones constantly seeking Daddy’s attention - “Daddy, watch this!” or “Daddy, this ball is too heavy!” - to which Brigitte replied by pointing out all the calls out to “Mamie!” of her own. So this second game was really for it all.

He could tell his wife had decided she wasn’t going to be playing fair this round when he saw her bend over a little more than necessary to retrieve her ball from the ball return, pushing her butt out just that much more noticeably, and then gently swaying her hips as she approached the lane. It was subtle, but effective. Worst of all, it was working, he was having a hard time concentrating, especially when she brushed her hand gently against him when she returned to her spot at the end of the lane.

But as he approached the lane for his turn, feeling her eyes boring into the back of his head, he decided two could play at this game, especially given how badly he wanted her hands on him right now. Taking a deep breath and scanning the pins one last time, he positioned his arm, judged the torque needed on the ball, and let it fly - a strike, beating her 9 points on a split.

It continued like that for another 20 minutes, the match getting tighter, and their children noticing something more than just a game was going on between the two of them.

“Do I even want to know?” Sebastian asked Emmanuel at one point after watching his mother and stepfather make eyes at each other from the lane next door with his wife and kids.

“We have a bet,” Emmanuel replied, a little sheepishly, realizing the others have noticed.

Sebastian laughed, “of course you do! As if you two aren’t competitive enough.”

“Just be glad neither of us are in your lane!” Emmanuel teased back.

“Touché,” Sebastian replied, holding his hands up in mock surrender before his wife dragged him back to their game.

Before they knew it, it was time for the final frame. He was elated when his final move was a strike, just managing to pip her to the post.

“Good game, chéri,” she congratulated him with a smile, being a good sport (and good example to their grandchildren who had by now become hooked on their every move).

Leaning in to kiss her cheek briefly, he whispered, “I’ll be collecting tonight.”

When he pulled back, she smiled at him, and replied lowly, so only he could hear, knowing she won too, “I’ll be looking forward to it.”

Helloooo fanfic anon #2! ❤️

We did, thank you! Sunday was definitely a great day! ❤️

Omg hahahaha not them teasing each other on a bowling game hahahaha and in front of everyone 😈 🔥 Brigitte, you naughty naughty girl 😂 (imagine them playing snooker together 😱🔥)

I’m sure the winner will get more than just a massage hahahaha and the loser will take an equal pleasure 😏😈

Thank you so much, fanfic Anon #2! ❤️❤️❤️

[professorpski]

Playful Novelty Jacket from BurdaStyle: Faux Fur Jacket 120

This new pattern from BurdaStyle is what we call a novelty: something unusual which is part of its appeal, and not likely to be become a classic which is also part of its appeal. This cropped jacket done up in a large faux-fur print fits the bill. The large plaid, the frankly fake fur, and the wide and dropped collar mark this as a playful garment. With its cut, it is not going to keep your warm, but it could work as a substitute for an evening wrap for an energetic woman who would find a stole too fussy. Stoles, like draped garments, work best on those who move at a slower pace.

This garment is relatively simple, boxy shape. It shuts with zipper in the front, has raglan sleeves, which are the easiest to add to garment, and there are not darts. Deciding upon the placement of the plaid and matching it from side to side and from sleeve to body takes some effort, but it is easier on a small garment like this. Of course, you could opt out of plaid and choose a bright, solid fake fur instead. They reference the 1950s for its cut and indeed there were short jackets of various kinds made during that decade as well as collar cut-away from the neck which are seen in the early 1960s too.

Remember, most furs have a nap, or a direction, so cut your pieces out all in the same direction. Usually, you want the nap running down. Also, shorter fur is easier to work with as long furs may mean picking them out of the seam lines. They do point out that you could make this out of wool as well, and there are bright and playful coatings, so that is another option that would be true to the spirit of the garment.

You can find this online here as a pdf, and they put up instructions on putting it together: https://www.burdastyle.com/faux-fur-jacket-120-burda-style-12-22.html

[anubisisms]

Hello.

I was reading your fic Widowmaker and came to a chapter that had news articles in them. How did you manage to format them the way you did in the fic (by that I mean in a gray box and in a Times New Roman font)?

Another thing is how do you figure out how to write scenes related to crime rates and police stuff (like how things work in stations, etc)? Ive read fics with stuff like this (and have been wanting to write a fic of my own at some point), but I never knew how people manage to flesh out good, convincing ones. How do you research?

Questions aside, I love your fics and hope to see how the rest of Widowmaker ends. (Also I hope I’m not bothering you with this ;-;)

Hi!!! It's not a bother at all, I love talking about fics and fic formatting!!!

Making the news articles was something I accomplished using CSS and a workskin. I'm not sure how familiar you are with either of them, but CSS is a style sheet language/coding used to change the formatting of a page. AO3 lets you input it into fics by using workskins! The process is essentially coding up how you want certain parts of the page to look, creating a workskin and putting the code in there. Once you've applied it to that fic, any part of the fic enclosed in specific HTML will have that different look to it! If you're unfamiliar with it, here's some basic stuff for it:

beginner guide to CSS

a step-by-step guide to workskins on ao3

But anyways, I accomplished those sections with some very basic CSS. This was the entirety of it:

#workskin .newspaper { border: 1.7px solid; padding: 20px; background-color: #f0f0f0; font-size: 1em; color: #000000; font-family: "Georgia", serif; }

So all you need to do is post that into a workskin on AO3, apply it to your fic, and once you're editing the fic, switch to the 'HTML' view and enclose anything you want to make look like a newspaper in the following:

<div class="newspaper"> insert your content here </div>

That should get you the same look as what I had in my fic! It's annoying and fiddly, but I love CSS because it can get those different appearances and layouts, and once you get the hang of it, it can be quite fun! This is a very shitty tutorial, though, so if you need any more info I'm always happy to ramble at length on tumblr or discord.

As for your other questions, about how I do my fic research, it really depends on the fic. For crime-heavy fics like Widowmaker, however, I always kind of do research in the following way:

Figure out the jurisdiction/area

Figure out any divergence from reality

Figure out the fic specifics

Now that sounds very vague, so let me break it down a bit:

The first thing I do in any fic, no matter where it's set, is figure out where exactly it is. For Widowmaker, it was Tokyo, specifically Roppongi and Musutafu. Now Musutafu is a fictional area, so I substituted in other central Tokyo locations like Shibuya, since the differences wouldn't be too stark. From here I build my basic knowledge. How do the police work in Japan? What governs them? I never do anything too in depth at this stage but having a low level of background knowledge is a good thing to grab early on.

Next up is, of course, figuring out where irl research is going to fail you. Like it does often in a world set approximately 200 years in the future, where more laws would cover quirk use than traditional crime. For Widowmaker, that meant examining what role the police would actually have, given the widespread nature of heroes (and vigilantes). I made the personal decision that their role would be a more procedural and investigative one, with most field work left to pro heroes like it is in the case of Hawks.

Third is to figure out the fic specifics. This ties in a bit with the second step since that step helps eliminate what you don't need to take into account. This step tells you what you do - the police have a massive role across many areas of law enforcement, so you have to narrow it down. Do they work in drug crimes? Crime prevention? Or crimes against people like murder and such?

Once we know for sure we can start to narrow down our search - general stuff like the makeup of a police station doesn't have to be as specific, but we may need to know the punishments for murder in Japan in a prospective future, and while a bit of bullshitting is inherent in any fic set in BNHA's world, we can get a solid grasp on reality by examining the first part.

A lot of it can be trawling through boring, overlong Wikipedia pages and hunting down articles on the justice system in Japan. But for me it also involves a lot of imagination about how the systems I find solid research on would actually differ with the changes made by any kind of canon.

So that's it really - a mixture of those three steps and just using my own imagination to fill in the gaps! I'm sorry if that doesn't end up being very helpful, sometimes a writer has a very specific research style that suits them, but hopefully it gave you some insight! Again, if you want any help with said research or for me to dig out any of my old sites, just let me know! I'm always down to look at tiny little niches!

Sorry that this answer got so long, and thank you so much for the ask!! I'm really glad you're enjoying my fic so much <3 <3 <3

[camelliagwerm]

hey harper!! sorry if this is a little random but i was wondering if you could share what kind of settings you import your gifs from photoshop with (if you use it?). :-) i'm getting into gif making myself but i'm kind of a newbie and since your edits always look rly good, i figured i'd ask. tysm. <3

Sorry this took a little bit to get to - I was really Going Through It yesterday. So I'm really bad at explaining things properly, but I'll try to explain it the best I can. I've pretty much been using the exact same method since 2017 so it might very well be outdated for most people but it works for me. I'm using a cracked version of Adobe 2020.

For the purpose of this, I'm making a gif of a Hawke I might potentially play with if I find myself wanting to play DA2 (usually pretty unlikely - a lot of my attempts at DA2 these days die in the prologue or act 1) and finally see Carver content + do the Merrill romance. I'm going to put this under a cut because it includes screenshots.

After importing the video, first thing I do is work on cropping it down to both the dimension I want and what parts of the footage I want to do (that little middle bit in this case on the TL in this case.)

Then once I've done that, I right-click on the bit I want and chop the duration down to 2 seconds (or occasionally 2.25) and slow down the speed of which that part of the video plays to 60% - my ideal speed but I sometimes will go 55% if it ends weirdly at 60% or has a hard cut to another angle. Do this as many times as needed for however many gifs there are going to be in the set.

Delete the bits of the footage from the timeline that you aren't going to use, trim it down to the dimension you want (in my case, I like it to be 540px in width.)

Now I think this might be where I differ from others, because I think this is where people export it - but I prefer to colour it here rather than do each layer individually. I tend to use the same few actions which have turned into my bread and butter: colour balance, selective colour, brightness/contrast, vibrance and curves. Sometimes exposure if it's needed. Colour balance is the real MVP, especially for games like Dragon Age and Mass Effect where lighting is all over the place or very predominantly one colour (e.g. Orzammar being very Yellow). (Don't ask me how to sharpen - I don't know how to do it and at this point I'm too set in my ways to learn how.) Generally speaking with colouring I prefer to keep it as close to the original as possible but Nicer. Just play around with it and see what you think looks nice.

After that, I go to File -> Export -> Save for Web (Legacy). Make sure the looping option is set to forever. Let it run through a few times to make sure it isn't wonky (also, see all those colours you see on the side? I tend to colour pick from those for gradient text so matches the gifset - I use this HTML text colouriser to generate the gradient.)

If you're happy with it, hit the save and send it to the appropriate folder.

Generally speaking, I try to keep it under 5MB a gif but certain games really dislike that, especially since I tend to prefer 540px ones as it allows me to use bigger font sizes - I can't do small font any more on gifsets - especially on text heavy ones like my Pathfinder gifs; I'm so prone to missing typos.

Speaking of subtitles, actually - I then open the gif into Photoshop so I can access each frame individually and then make sure I have the top layer selected on the sidebar, not on the timeline. Then add a new layer with the font option with the dialogue for the gif. My subtitles now tend to be around the 16-20pt, Calibri + bold and italic with outer stroke in black for the outline to make it more visible (to access Stroke: right click on the subtitle itself -> blending options)

Once I'm done with that (including proofread for typos, making sure it's aligned properly), same thing: File -> Export -> Save for Web (legacy). I'm fairly sure this isn't how others do it, but it worked for me and this is how I taught myself back in 2017.

Also - this is Florence (Flora), I guess.