#available resources. etc

[lunapwrites]

I am only going to post about this once.

Doing a little cleanup on my about me pages... kinda feel the need to revisit the author-induced HP-verse blowback and renewed fan creator exodus for a moment, just bc I keep seeing... discourse.

For context, in case you're reading this far and are unaware: I am pretty open about being nonbinary probably most accurately agender? still kinda feeling that out, and about being queer in general. So I feel like I have at least a small leg to stand on in this conversation, given the umbrella I fall under.

I understand why other authors and artists feel the right decision for them is to disengage from fandom, or to remove/orphan their body of work. I support them in their choice, and I wish them the best. Likewise, I understand why others may choose to remain, and to continue creating content (subversive or otherwise) that speaks to them and to others who are able to see themselves and their experiences in it. As a member of this camp myself, I salute these people. It's not an easy decision to make to continue in this climate.

I am extremely fortunate in terms of where I'm at in my journey, and where I live and work, and a supportive partner who is cis enough for the both of us lol. I understand that my situation comes with a certain degree of privilege - but that privilege is bought with the sacrifice of my truest self. These online spaces are one of the precious few places I have where I can express those sides of my identity, and my writing is the best place I have to explore them. Characters like Remus and Sirius and Tonks? They're the most familiar to me, and therefore the safest. For me, continuing is the best choice for the sake of my mental health - even with the pressure to quit.

To that end, it... bothers me a bit when I see discourse claiming that people who continue to engage in and create for this fandom are morally deficient. That, by and large, is not the case. Most folks are just out here trying to do the best they can. I don't think that shaming or call-out posts are constructive.

If you are expecting me to post disclaimers or to self-flagellate on every fandom post/fic, you will be disappointed. I will instead continue as I have been and put my limited bandwidth and energy into keeping my queer friends and family housed, fed, and safe. And I will continue to do so without posting about it because frankly I don't have the spoons to advertise every time I do something. (That said, if you're in the US and in need of help, please reach out privately: I probably have resources I can leverage.)

I am a big proponent of doing what you can with what you have and that every little thing counts. Make friends and network. Promote causes. Feed each other. Show up for each other. That's the important part. Like, it's not all big activism and protesting and bold proclamations. Sometimes it's just buying eggs.

Idk. I just feel like we all have better ways to spend our time than all this empty grandstanding. Just go... do something positive. Even if it's just providing emotional support, you know? Everything counts.

[icewindandboringhorror]

I found socks with my favorite flowers on them (nasturtiums!), but they literally don't match anything I own, so making an outfit with them is difficult.. just all black with the bright shoes and a random stuffed animal for accents lol

[transboysokka]

obvs the rafah situation is fucked up and horrible and devastating BUT making posts calling people evil and horrible for *checks notes* watching a famous football game… is NOT it…

[pleckthaniel]

I love how my mom makes Growing Up Poor a huge part of her identity and talks about it constantly and also I, her child who she constantly brags about being smart and accomplished, am less than 6 months away from earning an Actual Degree in sociology and have taken half a dozen classes on American socioeconomic strata and yet despite all this I still cannot convince her that people my age aren’t being poor on purpose

[butscrewmefirst]

any specific icons of people you’re (general) wanting? lmk the actor(s) and movies/shows and I’ll SLOWLY get around to making them!

[muirneach]

i guess what i really hate about the duolingo update is that if i want to study a particular topic, like future tense or whatever, i can’t do that. the new units are literally just the entire course in one single thing and it’s a different selection every time. which is good because you get a more complete experience with the language (instead of having One unit on One grammatical structure and then moving right along) but like i said. sometimes i like to go back and review a specific topic i can’t do that

[allinllachuteruteru]

Duolingo is NOT what it used to be.

“Duolingo is ‘sunsetting the development of the Welsh course’ (and many others)”.

I’ve used Duolingo since 2013. It used to be about genuinely learning languages and preserving endangered ones. It used to have a vibrant community and forum where users were listened to. It used to have volunteers that dedicated countless hours and even years to making the best courses they could while also trying to explain extremely nuanced and complex grammar in simple terms.

In the past two years it feels like Von Ahn let the money talk instead of focusing on the original goal.

No one truly had a humongous problem with the subscription tier for SuperDuolingo. We understood it: if you can afford to pay, help keep Duolingo free for those who couldn’t.

It started when the company went public. Volunteers were leaving courses they created because they warned of differing longterm goals compared to Duolingo’s as a company; not long after it was announced that the incubator (how volunteers were able to make courses in the first place) would be shut down. A year goes by and the forums—the voice of the users and the way people were able to share tips and explanations—is discontinued. A year or two later, Duolingo gets a completely new makeover—the Tree is gone and you don’t control what lesson you start with. With the disappearance of the Tree, all grammar notes and explanations for courses not in the Big 8 (consisting of the courses made before the incubator like Spanish/French/German/etc. and of the most popular courses like Japanese/Korean/Chinese/etc.) are removed with it. Were you learning Vietnamese and have no idea how honorifics work without the grammar notes? Shit outta luck bud. Were you learning Polish and have absolutely no clue how one of the declensions newly thrown at you functions? Suck it up. In a Reddit AMA, Von Ahn claims that the new design resulted in more users utilizing the app/site. How he claims that statistic? By counting how many people log into their Duolingo account, as if an entire app renovation wouldn’t cause an uptick in numbers to even see what the fuck just happened to the courses.

Von Ahn announces next in a Reddit AMA that no more language courses will be added from what there already is available. His reasoning? No one uses the unpopular language courses — along with how Duolingo will now be doing upkeep with the courses already in place. And here I am, currently looking on the Duolingo website how there are 1.8 million active learners for Irish, 284 thousand active learners for Navajo, and even 934 thousand active learners for fucking High Valyrian. But yea, no one uses them. Not like the entire Navajo Nation population is 399k members or anything, or like 1.8 million people isn’t 36% of the entire population of Ireland or anything.

And now this. What happened to the upkeep of current courses? Oh, Von Ahn only meant the popular ones that already have infinite resources. Got it. Duolingo used to be a serious foundational resource for languages with little resources while also adding the relief of gamification.

It pisses me off. It really does. This was not what Duolingo started out as. And yea, maybe I shouldn’t get invested in a dingy little app. But as someone who spent most of her adolescence immersed in language learning to the point where it was literally keeping me alive at one point, to the point where languages felt like my only friend as a tween, and to the point where friendships on the Duolingo forums with likeminded individuals my age and other enthusiasts who even sent me books in other languages for free because they wanted people to learn it, the evolution of Duolingo hits a bitter nerve within me.

~End rant.

[gaysails]

USAmericans who are celebrating thanksgiving today (11/23/2023) I encourage us all to find out which native tribe are the historic stewards of the land we're breaking bread on, and then find an action we can take to honor them. beyond buckskin is a great starting point for finding native-owned small businesses you can buy from. native movement has a resources list of various books, articles, podcasts, video panels and short films, etc to educate about decolonization -- not all these resources are available for free online but a good number of them are. you can always google your local tribe(s) and search for nonprofits & other social programming to support with donations of your time or money. please add links to this post if you have other resources to share!

[genderqueerdykes]

🇨🇩 resource page for aiding the democratic republic of congo as well as education & information now available on our blog 🇨🇩 

this page contains known organizations who are currently providing aid to congo listed by which countries they accept donations from, as well as information and educational articles. we are currently looking to include civilian aid campaigns (gofundmes, etc.) so if you are able to find any please let us know, thank you! we will continue to add as we find resources

we will not turn a blind eye to genocide. keep eyes on congo 🇨🇩 

[transgender-png]

fuck it. shout out to "high functioning" neurodivergents

the ones who can mask easily, the ones who can get social cues, the ones who have managed to go most of their life not even knowing they were ND because they didn't present as the stereotypical ND person.

the ones who can pay attention in class, understand social etiquette, who understand societial expectations

the ones who don't feel neurodivergent enough bc they don't struggle in the same ways/areas a lot of NDs do, or they can't relate to other NDs' experiences because they always understood these things easily

the ones with high empathy, the ones who DO get the joke, the ones who are constantly told that they can't possibly be neurodivergent because they don't act like what you'd expect a neurodivergent person to act like.

you are neurodivergent enough. you are valid, and so are your experiences. not struggling as much as others do in some places doesn't mean you dont struggle at all. your condition and diagnosis is valid. your symptoms are valid. YOU ARE VALID. not checking all the supposed boxes doesn't mean you aren't neurodivergent. you are enough. you are valid. you are loved. you are valued. you matter. you belong in neurodivergent spaces, you deserve to use whatever resources are available to you, you are allowed to take up space in these communities. and i am so, so proud of you.

feel free to, and actually, i encourage you to reblog this with your experiences. we belong in this community as much as anyone else. please also tag this w/ any neurodivergent conditions i may have forgotten 💙

since this is getting lots of notes I'd like to add, even if you're undiagnosed or maybe self diagnosed, for whatever reason, (i.e. can't get access to a diagnosis, not being taken seriously, or just not wanting an official diagnosis, etc.) this still applies to you. actually especially to you folks. don't think for a second you're not valid just bc you don't have the paperwork or whatever to say it

[unproduciblesmackdown]

speaking of speaking of Abuse it's like hey it's helpful to remember to not think of it like "whoa. an extreme word broken out to make people feel bad" but rather "an identification of a type of situation where an oppressive system is being continually established / maintained and something needs to be done differently to counteract / dismantle this" Just Like With approaches to other labels created for describing the external manifestations of [there is an oppressive system here] and going "someone is saying so b/c in identifying it it's also recognizing the crucial 'so something Else external needs to manifest to improve this reality' of it all, not just like 'whoa that's a big word for extreme things that we'd all definitely recognize & all definitely even be motivated to acknowledge in the first place rather than being potentially vested in it continuing without it even being a challenge to put any description of it into words to start to communicate about it'"....just like how we all totally know that [autistic people existing] is so Extreme and must be so Abnormal and we'd all Know It when we saw it, and when someone goes "i'm autistic" what matters is that people feel weird and then it's threatened that they might be obligated to do anything differently, so that person's probably exaggerating and trying to disrupt the norm, which is as good as trying to Elevate themself. kind of like when people break out the "abuse" A-word, right....always more important that no one could potentially feel bad via someone directing [and that's bad] language at them rather than asking "but like, Are they doing this thing? Are they having this effect?" which may still be answered with "no." and certainly will be if someone's committed to feeling above other people & positioned to act on it

[bfpnola]

just wanted to remind everyone again not only of the 3,000+ resources offered through our Liberation Library but also of the study guides for beginners offered under each of our social justice topics!

resources can be organized by type (article, novel, podcast, video, etc.) as well as filtered and searched through. we’ve tried to make our system much more accessible than our former platform on google docs so this is such an exciting development to share with everyone.

please share to promote equitable access education!and if you’d like to volunteer with us, check out our open resources committee roles!

REBLOG THIS VERSION! image description by @bonesandblood-sunandmoon below the cut. thank you for writing one!

[Image Description: Six screenshots of beginner study guides on mobile view. The main text visible under each title reads:

Confused on where to start? Better Future Program has organized a study guide just for you! Use the ‘Search’ and ‘Sort’ tools to view only certain types of resources, like articles for visual learners or podcasts for auditory learners. Back to the master document of Social Justice Resources.

Five of the study guides have the start of a list of resources available with color coded resource types visible - Posts have a purple box, for example. Each study guide has an image. Prison/Policing Abolition has an image of chains, Organizing has two humanoid figures hugging, Classism and Anti-Capitalism has a stack of dollar bills, Anarchism has the red ‘A’ in a circle, Mad Studies has a yellow and orange capsule/pill, and Free Palestine has the flag of Palestine.

/End description.]

[writers-potion]

Let's Scare Your Readers!

Combine the techniques below with the techniques for building suspense to give your readers a palm-sweating sensation!

Darkness

If absolute darkness doesn't make sense in your story, aim for semi-darkness: dusk, a single lantern/candle, heavily curtained windows, a thick canopy of trees, etc. Flickering lights that create confusing shadows can also be effective.

Let the darkness pool gradually around your MC. Show the night or fog rolling in, the camp-fire subsiding, or the candles burn down one by one.

Examples:

The candle sputtered. The light wavered.

The lamp cast its smoky light on the brick walls.

The night was silent, but for the dry rustling of leaves as the wind whispered through the trees.

Sound

Of all the senses, the sense of hearing serves best to create excitement and fear.

the clacking of the villain's boots on the floor tiles, the ticking of the wall clock, a dog barking outside, the roaring of a distant motor, a door slamming somewhere in the house, water dripping from the ceiling, the chair squeaking, the whine of the dentist's drill, the scraping of the knife on a whetstone, a faraway siren wailing the heroine's own heartbeat thudding in her ears.

When the surroundings are dark, your MC will grow to be more aware of the surrounding noise, even if it's not relevant to the plot.

Chill

Make it uncomfortably cold for the MC, and your readers will shiver with them.

powercut cutting off the heating, nightfall naturally bringing in lower temperatures.

winter, evening, a cool breeze that chills everything, survivors running our of fuel, the ceiling fan is over-active, stone builindg/caves/sbuterranean chambers tend to be cold.

Describe how the cold pinpricks the MC's skin, stunting their thinking and making them shiver.

The opposite can also be effective: turn up the temperature using a stove, an overheated motor, or the sweltering sun to make the MC sweat.

Isolation

This is a common technique: let the MC face the monster alone with no external help. It's also easier to limit the resources and escape routes available for the MC.

an abandoned factory, remote mountaintop, the depth of an unexplored cave.

It can also be more everyday locations: a construction site, the sewer, a malfunctioning bathroom.

Meet the Monster

When describing the threat, spread out your descriptions so that (1) the scene has constant action (2) you have material to build up later.

Good details to show:

hands, fingers, nails, talons, claws

the sound of the voice, growl, roar

the smile, teeth

the texture of skin, fur, scales.

Get Visceral

Never tell your readers that the MC is scared. Describe the fright using these physical effects:

the skin crawling, breath stalling, scalp pricking, clenching of the chest, stomach curling, heart thudding, sweat tricking down, clogged throat, pulse in the ears, cold sweat, chills up/down the spine, stomach knotting, breathless, etc.

The Gory Bits

Instead of describing everything, limit yourself to particular details, keeping overall description short. Non-stop gore doesn't shock - its bores.

Create a contrast: the child's mutilated corpse still clutches the doll. The brains from the baby's plt skull spill across the fluffy pink blanket.

Use similes, comparing gruesome buts to something from ordinary life. The intestines look like spaghetti in tomato sauce. The blood spilling from the mouth looks like lipstick.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* . ───

💎If you like my blog, buy me a coffee☕ and find me on instagram! 

💎Before you ask, check out my masterpost part 1 and part 2 

💎For early access to my content,  become a Writing Wizard 

[fanonical]

attention all cosplayers!!!! humble bundle is currently selling a collection of over 40 cosplay resource books, guides, patterns etc for under $20!!!!

it's so extensive that i literally can't even begin to list everything it covers, but there's resources for making armour, horns, weapons, tails(!!!), guides for wigstyling, makeup, LED lights, hotglue, and so much more

like seriously just click through it's honestly gobsmacking how much stuff there is for under $20 (plus there's a scaling pay-what-you-want rate too if you want to pay less!)

plus the proceeds will partially go to a charity of your choice & support independent queer creators (in this case me 😇)

this is seriously a good deal, so don't miss it while it's here! it's only available until May 9th!!! signal boost to your cosplayer followers so they don't miss it

[ice-creamforbreakfast]

::Download:: (Google Drive - Free)

I don't believe these were adopted when CMar's modding tools were, so I've updated CMar's sliders to be compatible with the latest patch.

Please note that with any sliders there will be potential issues like vanishing hands (occasionally), conflicts etc and these are often inavoidable. I have playtested these in my own game.If you come across any major issues caused by these, please let me know. If they conflict with another slider you use that uses the same hotspot, you'll need to either combine them yourself or make a choice.

I'll try to keep these updated at the same time as my own sliders, but if I'm on holiday and EA blows things up again, it'll need to wait.

I have renumbered these following updating them, so please delete old versions.

Instructions for each slider from CMar's posts are as follows: Pointed Ear Sliders Adds pointed ears to the standard CAS main ear sliders. Compatible with Basegame. I've constructed this so it should have no conflicts with Get To Work and Vampires, although it doesn't combine well with the alien pointed ears and (I assume) the vampire ears. Should not conflict with Khitsule's Pointy Ears Unlocked mod. WILL conflict with any other mod overriding the macro mode ears HotSpotControl. Instructions:

Put the package in your Mods folder as usual.

In CAS, select the ear for editing. Do not go into Micro mode.

From the SIDE view of the ear, you can pull a point up and/or back.

From the FRONT and BACK views of the ears, you can still use the ear size and ears out/in sliders, and the Micro mode is unchanged.

Enhanced Butt Sliders Adds more morphs to the EA butt slider, allowing adjustment of butt height and shape. Affects male and female, teen through elder, both frames. The effect is more noticeable in females for reasons that should be obvious. Changes in height of the derrière may cause distortion in some full skirts but it should be minimal. Changes in shape may slightly distort the patterns in some clothing. Will conflict with any other mod that replaces resources 8B18FF6E_00000000_000000000000274B and/or 8B18FF6E_00000000_0000000000002619, the male and female butt Hot Spot Controls. I don't know of any such mods at this time. cmar_EnhancedButtSlidersV3 adds the height adjustment from the side view and shape adjustments from the rear view. From the rear the up-down slider changes the width of the top part of the butt, and the left-right slider changes the width of the bottom part. The height and standard size adjustments are available from the side view.

Breast Separation Sliders This slider replaces breast size with breast separation from the front view. The size can still be adjusted from the side view. There may be some distortion of necklines and straps at the extremes of the slider, depending on the clothing. Will conflict with any other mod replacing the female frame chest HotSpotControl: 0x8B18FF6E-0x00000000-0x00000000000023B7

Enhanced Leg Sliders Added sliders for thighs and lower legs. Affects teen - elder, male and female, both frames. Thigh, all views:

Up: upper thigh thick

Down: upper thigh thin

Lower leg, front and back:

Up: bow legs

Down: knock knees

Lower leg, side view:

Up: calf definition

[indigostudies]

cool new language resource i just discovered: lingotrack! it functions somewhat like polylogger, allowing you to log your activity for languages, but, more than that, it has an explore section where you can find media that's in a particular language, such as books, tv shows, films, etc! one of the hardest things when you reach a more proficient level of a language is finding media in that language to engage with, so i think this is probably a good resource, or at least a place to get started. besides the explore function, there's also collections of media/resources, and a library function where you can add your own resources. it does require you to have a paid account to log study time for multiple languages (the free version allows you one primary language), but the other aspects seem to be available to free users in their entirety!