#but for real... so much stuff is easy to find if you just use Google and got no account on any website...

[rigelmejo]

Hi friends. I am begging you. If you are learning Chinese. Learn how to search the name-in-Chinese and then some of these terms online:

"show" dianshiju 电视剧

"watch" kan 看

"novel" xiaoshuo 小说

"read" yuedu 阅读

"online" zaixian 在线

"free" mianfei 免费

"sub" zimu 字幕

"comic" manhua 漫画

"animation" donghua 动画

"audiobook" yousheng duwu 有声读物

"audio book" yousheng shu 有声书

"dub" 配音 (Specifically for Chinese dubs: 国语, 台配, 普通话)

There's MANY Chinese websites, just as many pirating sites as in English. If you can search for what you want to find in Chinese, it is ridiculously easy to find it. You can find whatever you want (mostly), if you just search in Chinese! Just search Google, or Duckduckgo, or searx.space search engine of choice! And yes, I've brought this up before. I've mentioned these search terms in other posts. They're useful!

[nexus-nebulae]

another childhood bucket list item obtained: i finally have a snuggie

[genericpuff]

Hey Puff,

I'm someone who has always struggled with how to do research "correctly," but have lurked around the community enough to know RS had a real tendency for… not doing enough. Do you have any recommendations, not necessarily specific to Greek mythos, on how to just do research? Is Wikipedia even a good jumping off point?

Thanks!

Biggest thing, at least for me, is being thorough! The reason a lot of folks tend to side-eye Wikipedia as a "source" isn't just because it's relatively easy for anyone to edit, but also because Wikipedia itself is a library of sources and not the source itself.

Wikipedia can be a perfectly acceptable jump off point, as long as you're actually jumping to the places it can lead to - and you can do that through References.

Let's use the Wikipedia entry for Persephone as an example.

Sourcing "improperly" through Wikipedia would be to simply source directly from one of the sentences listed here and calling it a day. No further digging on where the excerpt comes from, no cross-referencing with other material, just reading the part on Wikipedia that says she was a vegetation goddess, slapping it into an essay or adaption or whatever, and then not confirming it further or picking apart the why of her status as a vegetation goddess through extended research.

Sooo what do we do to find that info? Let's search the word 'vegetation' and see if anything else comes up.

There we go, that has a bit more detail. And from here, we can click the little '19' at the end of the paragraph, which will take us to the References section at the bottom of the page.

Aaaand boom! Now you've got an actual source that you can dig into further, if you so choose. There isn't a whole lot that I can access of this sourced book online, but I was able to find an excerpt where the author sourced Cicero, a Roman poet and philosopher (among other things) who lived during the rise of the Roman empire:

That said, sometimes these sources aren't quite so easy to track down. That's where cross-referencing can help - but that means leaving Wikipedia!

Where this concerns a Greek goddess, let's see what we can find on Theoi, another great resource specifically pertaining to Greek / Roman / etc. deities, stories, and customs.

Though it's not quite as clickable as Wikipedia, Theoi also does a good job at outlining sources in their descriptions. Though Bennett isn't mentioned here, Hesiod and Cicero are, and wouldn't you know it, they're sourced on Theoi as well.

So there you have it! Even though Bennett is from the early 2000's, he did his own work to outline and source poets and academics whose work he was now documenting himself. This means the odds of Bennett simply making shit up are low because he sourced from the preserved works of the era he's speaking on and those works are referenced again through other resource libraries such as Theoi.

What ALL that helps with at the very least - aside from the opinions one could have about the sources themselves (Ovid 😒) - is to legitimize the research. We know without a shadow of a doubt that Persephone was attributed to vegetation and the harvest because there are so many sources across different cultures and backgrounds and generations stating it as such. It thus makes the conclusions a lot more credible, even when they're coming from a more modern source, because that source was built on their own research and sources from the Greek/Roman/etc. documents that have been preserved (and there's still new stuff being found!!!)

Obviously there are always arguments to be made about the material itself, especially when it comes to the debates over translations and cultural contexts, but actually following up on initial searches with referencing and cross-referencing is a lot more reliable and credible than simply taking something from Wikipedia and saying "I read it on the Internet."

As much as the effectiveness of Google and Wikipedia as legitimate research sources is frowned upon, they are incredibly effective, you just need to know where to look and how to find it, and most importantly - how to verify it.

And that's just the online stuff! Libraries are still alive and well! Many universities contribute to search engines like WorldCat which are designed specifically for research papers, published articles, and textbooks! Point is, the world around us is full of knowledge and resources, so the key is to learn how to navigate it so you can get the most out of it!

This is ultimately why it's so important to not restrict yourself to the first Google result - I know it's "easier" due to the convenience of it all, but you're also robbing yourself of the opportunity to really expand your knowledge beyond the summary of a targeted first result, and it runs the risk of sourcing from illegitimate sources or sources that are controlled by Google's own self-interests (protip: have a very specific problem but Googling it just gets you a bunch of automated sponsor posts and completely useless results? add 'reddit' to the end of your search, you'll get human answers from real human beings and there's always at least ONE other person who's had the same problem and posted about it to reddit LMAO seriously this one's saved my skin so many times)

And when you learn to do research the way that works for your brain? It's really, really fun. A lot more fun than public school led many of us to believe. If you learn best from talking and engaging with people, then go talk to people! Participate in groups and forums that are dedicated to the topic you're researching! If you learn best from listening to audio material, then try out audiobooks, they can often be found online through various means (🏴‍☠️) BUT ebooks and audiobooks are stocked at libraries too!

But of course, that leads us to what makes for bad research, and I obviously can't use any other example in this context than Rachel herself, whose "research" is evidently often the first recommended result that pops up on Google. And yes, I can say evidently because we've proven this when she tried to source the term 'xenia' into LO as a definition. Not only was it copy pasted to the point of still containing typos, but it was sourced plainly from a Princeton study guide that is now severely outdated - not the work that that study guide was sourcing from in and of itself.

(notice how she just sourced it as "princeton.edu" and not the specific URL that it came from)

If she really wanted to sound well-researched with the cheeky insert of the definition of xenia linking to a smart-sounding location (we're gonna ignore that it ruins the flow of the comic) then she could have sourced it from literally any of these:

But instead she did the equivalent of an 8th grader copy pasting a sentence from Wikipedia and calling it "research". It's not research. It's a lazy shortcut and it doesn't facilitate any real learning.

This can be seen in other instances as well, such as Metis' design:

As well as Leto, who I kinda think Rachel mixed up with the Full Metal Alchemist character of the same name when googling her because I can think of no other explanation as to why she's a sun goddess in LO when she has zero affiliation with the sun in the myths aside from being Apollo's mother-

(I can't prove that this is what happened but it's hilarious to think about; I'm also low key suspicious that Rachel accidentally mixed in some sources of the Métis people because Metis' design is very... Indigenous-coded 🤨)

^^^ This. This is all bad research. It's not a bad thing if Rachel's interest in Greek myth started through works like Hercules or other creative adaptions, that's actually how it starts for many of us. Where she failed was by trying to sell herself as a "folklorist" and her work as a "retelling", without actually following through in her research. She would often only do just enough to make herself seem well educated on the subject to anyone whose knowledge was as basic - or less - than hers, but not enough that it could actually hold up in a real discussion about Greek myth with other people who are more read up on it than her. Rachel's self-proclaimed "folklorist" title is only validated by the lowest common denominator of readers, who 99% of Lore Olympus ended up being made for in the end, while those who actually understood the myths deeper than their Wikipedia summaries pulled their hair out in frustration every time Rachel tried to make some sly reference to a myth or attempted to speak about it in interviews.

Comparisons aside, the best part is that this research process doesn't have to be exclusive to studying historical stuff! Writing a story that features a disabled character, but you yourself are not disabled and are worried you're going to misrepresent? Search up articles and posts that pertain to the specific disability you're trying to write; I guarantee you that there are people living with that disability offering up that information completely for free because they want to see more representation for themselves in media. Trying to learn how to draw characters of different body types / skin colors / etc. from your own? Seek out the works and advice of those who do have those physical differences and learn from them.

It's about being thorough. It's about opening yourself up to things you may have been blind to before. It's about embracing the learning experience as a positive sign of growth, not a negative sign of failure. It's about taking the opportunity to learn every time it presents itself, even if those opportunities are small and passive. A person who doesn't know is just a person who hasn't learned yet (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و

[classicslesbianopinions]

any tips for teaching yourself ancient greek? I can't take a class rn (schedule overlap) and I just got a student assistant position and my professor said it would be good if I could for now learn to read terms in greek,, I want to learn it at a later point properly but for now, any tips or resources?

hi okay sorry to take so long on this i wrote out a whole response and thought i'd posted it and then i woke up the next day and realized i had not. and then i had things happening constantly

anyway! if you mostly just need to read individual terms, the most important part is learning the alphabet, which you can almost definitely do online, but also any good textbook should start with an alphabet/pronunciation guide. i would also look up videos of people pronouncing ancient greek to make sure you're understanding the textbook--i had some funny accent confusion in my first greek class that was easily resolved because we were speaking out loud, but if you're studying independently you might not get corrections until too late. (note that most people pronounce ancient and modern greek differently, although i've come across people who were taught ancient greek with modern pronunciation, and of course people whose ancient greek pronunciation is influenced by their knowledge of modern greek.)

personally what i would do is find a textbook and work through it. you want to make sure whatever book you use has tons of drills and passages to read for practice--the real way to get good is just to get a ton of practice, and get as much as you can as early as you can so then it'll be easier later. (i just googled out of curiosity and i found this pdf of hansen and quinn free on archive.org--i haven't used this textbook yet but i know it has a lot of drills/practice. you can almost definitely find other intro textbooks for free/cheap, and even more for expensive, but again, make sure there's lots of practice!) once you get further along, you can start finding easy texts to read. i recommend geoffrey steadman as a starting point there--he has a bunch of commentaries on both greek and latin texts that give a ton of grammar and vocab notes. also, intermediate ancient greek language is a super cool textbook that covers higher-level grammar and the pdf is free.

there are probably other online resources that might be helpful to you, but i'll leave it up to my followers to recommend those. in particular i'm sure there are people who do youtube instruction and stuff but i so prefer to learn by reading so i've never looked. there might also be online courses that would work for you.

also, if you want to read/practice with people, you are always welcome to join the book club discord server, where we do language study--i've been slacking on this, but at one point i was taking the server through a chapter each of intro textbooks in both greek and latin each week, and i'd like to keep going with that and when we're done start through more and more books so people can always jump in if they want to start learning/reviewing. we also read primary texts in greek and latin. (the "book club" itself involves reading texts in translation/in english--if you join the server, you're welcome to join those readings, but you don't have to! currently we're finishing up the iliad and once that's done we start the metamorphoses.)

[pyrrhiccomedy]

What sort of proof would you need to believe that a fundraiser was real?

I actually put in the legwork to verify one of these fundraisers today (I wanted to see how hard it was to actually vet one of these posts). It took about an hour, but I was satisfied by the end of it that the person in question exists, is who they are claiming to be, has a GoFundMe, and that the GoFundMe being spread around is probably the same one being linked to (I wasn't 100% satisfied by what I could find on that count? but I ended up in a place where I was reasonably confident). I'm happy to share my work, and have added it below.

I've gotten a lot of nasty messages since making that post accusing me of being anti-Palestine. My heart and money is 100% with Palestine, and I've given as much as I can afford, to reputable aid organizations. I believe both in a free Palestine, and doing your own research on the recipients of your money when you decide to financially contribute to a cause.

Anyway, this is the GoFundMe that I think is legit, and below is the legwork I did to reach that conclusion. While I still think it is better to give to a relief organization if your goal is improving the lot of the people in Gaza, I don't think this one is a scam.

This is the fundraiser for Eman Zaqout, who - first of all - is a real person! This is very easy to verify: Googling her name returns a LinkedIn with a complete work history (she is a molecular biologist), her profile with Unesco, and her profile with the Palestine Academy for Science & Technology. You know, the kind of stuff you'd expect to see when you Google someone. Great start.

Next step: Is the person running this GoFundMe the real Dr. Zaqout? (While I have some sources which say she is in a PhD fellowship and does not yet have her doctorate, she is listed as Dr. Zaqout at the Palestine Academy for Science & Technology, and I'd prefer to use the honorific in case it may in fact be more appropriate.)

So. Dr. Zaqout joined LinkedIn in 2014. And she does link to her Instagram from her LinkedIn, and her Instagram links to the GoFundMe. That's a great start!

However, it's worth mentioning that her contact information on LinkedIn was updated less than 3 months ago (which includes the link to her Instagram). Given the number of Palestinians whose accounts have been hacked or spoofed by scammers in order to lend their scams legitimacy, I don't love that change. That coincides with the surge in scam activity following the All Eyes on Rafah movement gaining momentum. Plenty of Palestinians have had their entire social media presences stolen by scammers.

However again - her LinkedIn (which, as established, may be compromised) also links to a TikTok account! And the TikTok account has video! And that sure looks to me like Dr. Zaqout in the video! While the photo of her on LinkedIn is no longer trustworthy since we know her account has been updated in the past 3 months, there is also a photo of her here at Palast.ps, which is a legitimate scientific organization. And yeah, sure, a dedicated scammer could have hacked that too, but there are also photos of her on LinkedIn that look like this:

It's not the best photo in the world, but it's identifiably her. Fabricating this kind of ephemera is more than I would expect of your typical charity scammer.

And in the most recent TikTok video of her, she's even talking about a GoFundMe, on 7/17! And she posted another video on 7/21 in which she is not seen, but you can hear her voice, and it does sound like her.

Today is August 2nd. The last two videos uploaded to Dr. Zaqout's TikTok are just photo collages, so they can't be used to verify that she still has control of her social media accounts. But for now, I'm prepared to say with some confidence that that woman is Dr. Eman Zaqout, that Dr. Zaqout is legitimately a Palestinian scientist, she did actually start a GoFundMe, and that she was posting about it as recently as 12 days ago.

All right all right, we are cooking folks. The last questions we need to answer: is this actually Dr. Zaqout's GoFundMe? The last scenario we need to rule out is that her social media presence was stolen in the last 12 days.

Let's start with that GoFundMe.

First of all, it's not being run by Dr. Zaqout. That's normal: GoFundMe isn't supported in Palestine, and all Palestinians will have to rely on friends or family abroad to set up their campaigns and collect donations on their behalf. This campaign is being run by a Mazin Fakak. I think that's supposed to be this Mazin Fakak, which makes sense; he is based in Quebec, and Dr. Zaqout either studied at or is in close affiliation with McGill University, which is in Quebec. He also lists Arabic as one of his spoken languages. So far this is a plausible connection for Dr. Zaqout to have. His LinkedIn profile also hasn't been updated in over a year, which makes me disinclined to think this is a recently-stolen scam account.

My one issue here is that when I Google Fakak, this is all that comes up. A LinkedIn profile created in 2014 that hasn't been touched in over a year, and two GoFundMe fundraisers for Palestinian families. And Dr. Zaqout never mentions Fakak anywhere. I would feel 100% confident of this fundraiser if she did.

But while my investigation into Fakak didn't turn up anything that confirms the connection to Zaqout, it also does nothing to disprove it, and the circumstantial evidence available to me lends credibility to the claim. So while I land somewhere around 80% on the verifiable credibility of this GoFundMe, please balance that against my 95%+ confidence in Zaqout's legitimacy, and the fact that she appears to still have control of her socials as of 12 days ago. If she posts on TikTok with another live video again (and not a photo slideshow, which can't be considered verification of anything), then I'd say this one is completely safe.

[maximumzombiecreator]

Apart from the old trial-and-error method, are there resources that you would recommend for the aspiring megadungeon architect?

Either tools for the mapmaking or books/articles for guidance on the matter.

I talked a little bit about resources on the subject here, and I still feel like there's not a great single resource on how to build a megadungeon that I would recommend. There definitely are some good articles, though.

I'd say the most essential in my view, and one you're likely aware of, is Jacquaysing the Dungeon. This is a great reference on building non-linear dungeons that are interesting to navigate, which adds so much to a megadungeon. The Alexandrian's other stuff on dungeons are also worth reading for the most part. For example, his series on Re-Running the Megadungeon is a solid demonstration of megadungeon practice for new or unpersuaded GMs.

Most of the great articles I've read on dungeon design are from OSR blogs. Some of those have been lost, since so much of that was on Google+, and in general I'm reticent to link to OSR blogs because of the issues in that space. But I'll link a couple that I really like that serve as a good starting point, and its pretty easy to sort of navigate the web of blogs from there.

One I quite like is the dungeon checklist from goblin punch. At a glance I think it feels a little basic, but whenever I go back to it I find something I've missed in my current dungeon and that sparks my creativity for another round. Another is this article from false machine, which I find extremely evocative and great at getting me to think about the dungeon as a real, tactile place. Neither of these is essential, but I just think they're neat, and a good place to start wandering the webs of OSR blogs and seeing what speaks to you for anyone new to that space.

For mapmaking tools, I personally just use GNU IMP and some of Dyson Logos' photoshop brushes because I ain't got time for all that hashing. But I remain a big advocate of doing mashups of other maps, using geomorphs, or random generators if you don't want to sit there and tediously map stuff out personally.

Sorry, this ask took me forever to get to, and aside from personal reasons, the other reason it took so long is that the answer is kind of just "no, I don't know of many good megadungeon resources." I think part of why I've been so motivated to write on the subject in the past is that I think so much of the existing advice is vague, scattered, or kind of just sucks and misses the point. And I'm sure there's a lot of good stuff I just haven't found. But nearly all the good stuff is for making good dungeons, and then the megadungeon advice is "do that but bigger" which I think is actually bad advice. Like it's bad advice in the same way that you can't just extend techniques on how to run an engaging battle into techniques on how to run an engaging war.

So, consider this an open call for anyone in the comments or reblogs to link any megadungeon resources they think are useful. Hopefully other people have more than I do.

[kaddyssammlung]

I don't let anyone shame me into knowing who is behind the masks.

I did not even care when I first got into this band in January of 2023. YouTube showed me an old video. And I happened to know Vessel's identity by accident right from the start. It was just meant to be. I never had a problem with that. I trust the universe. I was meant to know.

For context.....

On Friday morning I posted a link in here under a keep reading cut. It lead to music. That link did not involve one of the band members real names or faces.

Then I got attacked for it.

I did not get attacked for it on my blog, which I am used to because of the mental health topics and stuff like that, no I got attacked on a different blog. Someone sent an anon to a different blog and made sure that I see it.

Sneaky.....?! Because if that someone had attacked me on my blog I would have used the "block button". It felt like being stabbed in the back.

I find it weird when people use the sentence “our identities are not important” to impose their own morals onto others. Or the new version of this is “did you not hear Caramel?!”. Yes I did. I never did anything wrong or anything that Vessel sings about. I am deeply sorry that he feels that way. I have also read a lot on Twitter...texts from the people that actually stalked the band. It's horrible! It makes me very angry.

But what I posted was under a keep reading cut and also did not invovle someones real name or face. And also their real names are right there when you ask Google. Not to say that this is okay but it's realistic.

In my opinion it was fine to share what I shared, even in the main tag.

I fell down very bad that day. It felt like I was singled out and attacked. As if someone had planned this over a long period of time and that day they just went for it. Somehow someone knew how to push all of my BPD buttons at once.

This has happened before in this fandom on a different platform.

Why attack me?! Idk....Maybe I share too much personal stuff and therefore make it easy for people to attack me? Because I don't hide my flaws.

How do you attack someone with severe BPD?!

Shame and blame them....the rest they will do themselves. That's not an excuse btw....it's what it felt like to me.

I deleted everything that I had uploaded that day.

I regret that now.

In my opinion it's okay to share certain things that don't involve any real names or faces. I have many posts like that...such as Vessel playing the piano for someone else, for example. It's not like I make posts like that daily. But I have many posts like that under the main tag. They never involve real names or faces, they always come with "instructions" and are always under a cut. I don't force people to see things. I always leave it up to them.

That's how I interpret “our identities are not important”. One sentence and everyone sees it in a different way.

In my opinion this has something to do with something totally different....it's “non-egoic”, makes you face yourself because you then let the lyrics sink in on a deeper level, a process that is described by Jung as “indivituation” or also as I like to describe it “Plato's cave”....it's deep. It's actually really profound and interesting. (worth wriring about it again...I guess?! )

Yes, I know ho they are.

So?!

I don't lie about that. I never have. To me it's not a problem. It's what you make out of it.

To whoever wrote that: I'm not leaving and I'm also not silent about being attacked for having done nothing wrong.

And also....I don't care anymore. Whenever I stood up for someone else in this fandom then people leave, block me, unfollow or whatever but then a whole bunch of new people come in that see things the same way I do. I rather have those people stand behind me then kneel down and let someone walk all over me who decides to stab me in the back.

Edit: okay...one more thing! I'm just realizing something. I keep trying to unify a divided fandom. That's not my job. Like I said...I know and I'm fine with it. I don't intend on abusing what I know. But also what I keep fighting against: the fact that this fandom is divded and probably always will be?!. There are the ones who know and the ones who don't know....For me that's not a problem. Trying to unify those two sides does turn it into a problem for me.

When I feel trapped and can't post what I want to post then there is no point of still being in this fandom at all. Because it makes me feel trapped.

I will continue to post "behind the scenes stuff" every now and then. It's so rare that I do that anyway. Imo that's fine. We are talking about like 10 posts out of more then 3000 posts that I have. That's like 0,3%. That is not much.

[minimalsizeconspiracy]

No-Google (fan)fic writing, Part 2: Zettelkasten

Storytime

Word and Writer (see this post) used to have one huge disadvantage – the number of pages either of them were capable of keeping in active memory before the whole thing would just crash. This was, of course, in part because computers had less RAM in those days, but also because Word and Writer constantly keep everything you write available in exactly the layout it will be printed as. Or, to use slightly more computer-y language, both of them are “What You See Is What You Get” (WYSIWYG).

That also means that if you start using certain features – lots of headings, footnotes, images especially – they quickly reached their capacity. I had one document consistently crash at 100 pages, although usually, it would take up to 300 pages before that happened.

Nonetheless, it was frustrating, also because the crashing meant that documents would get corrupted and I would lose what I had written. Yes, corrupted documents are a real issue. Especially because Word’s source code is protected, so it’s not easy to recover them.

Also annoying was the “having to split up documents into several files”.

But the worst part, for me, was that I lost some really good stuff because I was rearranging the order of scenes and forgot to paste before cutting another scene, and didn’t notice in time.

So I went looking for other options. How I ended up finding Zettelkasten is a mystery today, but I did.

Word/Writer/Google docs versus Zettelkasten

So what is Zettelkasten?

Many notes, one story

Well, if you have heard of Scrivener, that would be an equivalent. The principle is fairly easy – every new thought/idea/scene is created as a “note”, which is added to a growing collection of other “notes”. That means you can keep different scenes separate and work on them individually without always opening the whole document, which, given the crashing problems mentioned above, definitely a +1.

Features

It is also easier to rearrange the order of scenes without losing anything, because Zettelkasten has a virtual “desk”, on which you can place your notes. This “desk” can be divided into chapters, sections and subsections, basically small “folders” that you keep all the scenes for a specific story in, in the order you want. They can be moved up and down, to different chapters, or entirely removed from the desk. That’s important to note, because it doesn’t mean you’re deleting the note completely. Even if you accidentally delete a scene from this desk, the note will still be there, so you can simply add it again, no harm done.

+1 for organisation and another +1 for not having to be afraid of losing stuff.

Additionally, Zettelkasten lets you tag every note. I had tags for characters, so each note would be tagged with the characters appearing in that particular scene, but you can create tags as you like. This also allows you to search specifically for scenes with certain characters involved, which is useful because I used Zettelkasten a lot to simply jot down ideas for scenes that weren’t yet part of a larger story. If and when I decided to actually write that story, I’d create a new virtual “desk” (you can have several) and find the notes via tags to add them to that desk.

Great feature, much beloved, +1.

Since it was originally developed for taking notes for academic papers, Zettelkasten also has a literature tab. For every note, you can add a reference. I used that to enter the provisional title of the fic, which again made it easier at the end to find all notes belonging to the same story. Additional benefit: renaming the story is super-easy, because there’s no need to find every note and replace the “reference” individually, instead you just rename the title from the literature tab and it automatically changes on all notes with that “reference”.

Again, a much-beloved feature, +1.

There are more features – bookmarks, cross-referencing, attached files – but since I rarely used those for writing (fan)fic, I’m not covering them here. If you want to know more, leave a comment.

File formats

Zettelkasten has its own file format, .zkn3. That means it’s difficult to open it with other programs but the original (but not impossible – 7zip, for example, can open .zkn3 files). The idea here is that you jot down all of your ideas in notes, sort and organise them on your virtual desk, then export them either as the whole desk or as single chapters/sections/subsections from the desk to a file format of your choice, and there are many. HTML, DOC(X) (Word), ODT (Writer), RTF, XML, MD, TEX …

Safe to say you’re somewhat spoilt for choice here, with one caveat: some of those require you to have Pandoc installed on your computer. Which is also freeware, so, you know, not a problem.

My preferred method of uploading to AO3 was usually to export to HTML, then copypaste from one browser window into the other browser window with the Rich Text AO3 text field. Just like with Writer, rich text formatting (bold, italics, underlined, etc.) are copied over, so you don’t need to redo all of that.

Or you just open the .html-file in an editor (Notepad) and copy the code over to the HTML text field on AO3. Either works. Black magic is not required.

Interface

Like Writer, the big pro of the Zettelkasten interface for me is how uncluttered it is. It’s divided into areas where you can see your note, the note’s title, the “references” field and then, on the right, two columns showing the tags for the currently open note and another column with tabs showing available tags, individual note titles, all available references and more.

New notes or notes you’re working on are opened in a separate window, where you enter your changes and then save them. The desk is similarly simple – on the left side are your chapters/sections/subsections, in the middle are the notes and their text, on the right are three fields for additional notes.

Again, the interface isn’t fancy and may put some people off. I love it exactly because it’s so simple. I want to write, edit and develop my story, not be distracted by something the designers thought would look cool.

So, at least for those of similar simple minds as me, +1 for clarity.

Cost

Zettelkasten is free to download, unlike Scrivener or many other comparable applications. However, as with many a free software application not backed by a company or corporation, it probably has an expiration date and will likely stop working at some point in the future.

Since you can export the whole .zkn3-file to various other formats, you aren’t going to lose anything – in a worst-case scenario (and yes, been there, done that, it works), you can open the .zkn3 file with an archive application like 7zip and extract the underlying .xml-files from there. So no, your stories will not be lost forever just because Zettelkasten stops working. It might just require half an hour’s work to get them out.

Syncing

No cloud storage for Zettelkasten, either. As mentioned here, alternative options include Dropbox, GIT, OneDrive or a regular old USB.

Ease of use for Word/Google doc-users

Again, I really like the uncluttered interface of Zettelkasten, which only has very few buttons. The “write notes first, export later” took a moment to get used to, but was outweighed by the knowledge that I couldn’t lose a note, any note, unless I actively deleted it.

Honestly, that decreased my stress levels significantly. I used Zettelkasten for a long, long time, also for work-related stuff. Once I’d wrapped my brain around the idea of having a note for every idea, I found using it extremly easy and conducive to writing. It wasn’t even a problem when I decided later on that two scenes in two notes should actually be merged – I just put them in the right order on the desk and then deleted the empty line between them when uploading to AO3.

A very long story can take some time to appear on the virtual desk, admittedly, but not once has Zettelkasten crashed on me. My fears of losing ideas and scenes disappeared after I started using it, and I like to believe it even helped me get better at writing, because structuring on the virtual desk made me really think about what was happening in which order.

In short, it is software I can whole-heartedly recommend.

Read No-Google (fan)fic writing, Part 1: LibreOffice Writer

Read No-Google (fan)fic writing, Part 3: LaTeχ

Read No-Google (fan)fic writing, Part 4: Markdown

Read No-Google (fan)fic writing, Part 5: Obsidian

[kalkiethinks]

SCAM ALERT

TLDR: If a commisioner ignores your instructions, sends you a ton of money upfront via a check asking you to deposit and send back a portion of money- DO NOT. So back in Nov 10 I got an email commission which started okay: "I hope this message finds you well. I am reaching out to you because I am impressed by your portfolio and believe your artistic style would be a fantastic fit for an upcoming project I am coordinating.

I am currently in the process of assembling a team and I need a talented illustrator to collaborate on the title, Pandemic: Precaution and Prevention. Your work stood out to me due to its vibrant colors, character choices and attention to detail.

If you are interested, I would love to discuss the project further and provide more details about the scope, timeline, and compensation. Please let me know if this opportunity aligns with your current availability and if you would be open to discussing it further.

He wanted to create 6 group illustrations that would be printed and handed out for students 18-25 that would equate to $6000 at a 9 week turnaround. This raised an eyebrow but thought they were just a generous client. I gave him my procedure pipeline, starting with a min deposit upfront as a show of good faith. Also told him holidays are busy so will we start next year? He says that's fine. So far okay. "Considering the amount to be paid for the job, cashiers check or bank certified checks is our best bet. My sponsor doesn't use online payment platforms. He's an old-fashioned businessperson. The check will be issued and mailed to you and you should receive it within 5 days. Please get back to with your details in the format below:" Another raised eyebrow in this digital day and age but I've done previous freelance work that used mailed checks so I was alright with this. Only released my contact info and bank name.

Now the red flags pop up: On Nov 19 he sends this: "How are you doing today ? I'm so sorry for this, sincerely I do not find it easy to write this to you this moment , I have been so busy lately, the check is been made out for $6,000.00 which is cover for both phases. The sponsor asked for immediate refund for the 2nd phase as soon as the check clears your bank then you could proceed with the first 1-3. The 2nd phase is been postponed until further notice due to the sponsors personal issue, I will provide you the tracking information via USPS as soon as I have it so you could have it tracked yourself to know when exactly it will be delivered. My sincere apology for the inconvenience and do have a great day." So my requests were completely ignored, tells me a check is on the way with the full lump sum and I have to return half that amount. This is one method I've heard scammers get access of one's bank account with the poison check and you end up paying that half with your own actual money. Checked with friends and my own bank, sounds like a scam. Check arrives, and doing 30 minutes of Googling reveals so much warning stuff:

-So the names on the client email (Nicholas Jarry), and this name on the USPS (Christopher Williams) revealed on the first results are both famous sports players. One is a funny coincidence, two is suspicious. -quick Google of what a Keybank check is like, get an old warning about what to look for in legit checks, also tried calling Keybank on how to verify a check and explaining the scenario. -the address on the USPS belongs to a residential house that had another business also registered to it before that has gone inactive. -The Ace Cafe is real, but everything is inconsistent. The Hillcourt Dr address leads to a residential house, there is no LLC, and the logo belongs to a legit Orlando location that had closed last year and is opening in a new location, the address not matching whats on the check and names do not match either Jarry or Williams.

I've already reported this issue to the FTC and while they can't help me do anything with this particular scammer I'm now passing this around to new artists to know what to look out for when too many little suspicious things add up.

[alpaca-clouds]

Solarpunk and the Internet

Alright, I have promised you all to write a bit more on Solarpunk again, so this is what I am going to do for the next two weeks once more - before doing a week on narratology, and then some more history/religion stuff for the two weeks after. At least that is the plan.

Something I have been considering a lot lately, is the role of the internet in a potential Solarpunk world. Because I think we can all agree that the internet is amazing. Never before the internet exited was it so easy to get any form of information that you wanted. Basically everything is - or should be - just a short search away. And I mean, while Google definitely does not work as it once did, at least for me it still works well enough.

However. Ever since we switched from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0, there is a lot of stuff happening on the internet that is an issue. And mind you, there some stuff with Web 2.0, that was also quite important. Most notably it was the first time that minority groups had a voice that really could be heard, and it helped most certainly to find like-minded people.

But I am not even kidding when I say, that most of the issues we are facing today are because of Web 2.0 - and how easy it is with this to spread misinformation. Trump would never have happened, if it had not been for GamerGate, and GamerGate would not have happened, if not because of social media. If it had not been for social media, those hate filled asshole guys who ran that entire thing would have been stuck in some sort of forum, and nobody would have listened to them at all.

At the same time people have become so attached to their social media stuff, that a lot of them fail to interact with the real world. Something that was most certainly not helped by COVID, but it is a thing that we hear so much about how lonely and socially isolated people are. I mean, even the WHO is now talking about it. And of course it is true, that for some people the internet is important in reducing loneliness. (As a queer kid who grew up rural, I can most certain say stuff to that.) But at the time, a lot of people are also so invested in their social media and their followers, who rarely are real friends, that they often forget the real life.

And do not get me wrong: You absolutely can have real online friends and good online friends. It is just that your followers in general are not really that.

Of course, the way in which Social Media is toxic for people and isolating is not made better by the people who tend to run social media. Look at Elon Musk and Zuckerberg.

And all of this makes me wonder: If we were to create that Solarpunk Utopia... What will we do about internet and more specifically, what will we do about Social Media?

Reading through quite a lot of the Solarpunk short stories out there - and some of the few novels there are - it is quite interesting, how the internet does not play a role in most of them. In fact most of the time it is not even brought up at all. We have a genre of mainly science fiction works, and characters in this tend to never use the internet in any way.

From the more than 100 short stories in the genre I have read, I remember a total of 3 that brought up the internet in any major way. And one of them basically was a story focused on an anarchist news organiation that, yeah, posted their news on the internet. The other two were a story about a scientist who was physically very isolated because of their research, and a crime story that featured social media postings as part of the evidence.

I also might note that I once wrote a story for a Solarpunk anthology, that was supposed to feature "Solarpunk and Art", that involved artists collaborating over online spaces for their art projects (that explicitly were commenting on the ideals of Solarpunk). It got rejected for not being "Solarpunk enough".

Which is quite interesting. Solarpunk of course - other than older forms of punkpunk media - very much exists thanks to the internet, right? And yet, it does seem as if the Solarpunk community in general does somewhat reject the internet.

Of course, there is this thing about Solarpunk and being connected to the real world, having more places in your neighborhood that are accessible to everyone and so on and so forth, which is good and right. And I think in some way there is the wish expressed to be able to go out and meet with real people, because a lot of people falsely feel that right now they can. (Once more: Yes, there is things happening around that you would enjoy in the real world. Things were you, as an adult, will be able to make real life friends. Just like in those Solarpunk stories. You just have to look for it.)

Something that bugs me about this though is that the internet is also an unprecedented place for scientific and artistic exchange on any possible level. As a scientist, the internet is so important for exchange for people researching a field. And for artist, too, it is a great place to share their art with more people - no matter what kind of art it is. Not to mention how much information you can get online for free. Be it this specific thing you might need to know right now, or be it just something you want to know about.

Obviously, in a Solarpunk future, there would be no longer an Amazon, or a Facebook or X, formerly known as twitter. But I do think there is some value in considering some approached to how the internet in Solarpunk might look like. What about a user governed form of Social Media? I am always thinking of U in Mamoru Hosoda's movie BELLE. And of course: Good old reliable Wikipedia.

We have to remove capitalism from the internet - but that does not mean that we need to remove the internet completely. The internet was originally developed for scientists to be able to exchange data - and as such it is so much worth.

We might just want to get back to something that is a bit closer to Web 1.0, with some more communally governed platforms in between for social media - platforms that have fact checking of course and will get banned for calling people slurs. And stuff without adds. Duh.

After all, Solarpunk also loves ideas of self-reliability, self-repair and such. But those things get a whole lot easier if you have access to information.

[schrijverr]

To Pay Medical Bills and Get Insurance

Divergence from chapter 7, where instead of hiding his family, Buck just tells them he has a ‘husband’ and kid at home when Hen asks how he ended up becoming a firefighter. To satiate her burning curiosity, Hen organizes a trip to the zoo with both their families, just to observe the whole situation more, gossiping with Karen as she goes.

On AO3.

Ships: Buddie (pre-slah), Henren

Warnings: none

~~~

Hen wasn’t sure about the new recruit when he first came in. She trusts Bobby’s judgment, but when Buck arrived with all his frat boy vibes, she couldn’t help but remember her start at the 118.

Fortunately, her worries were for nothing and she finds that she actually likes Buck quite a bit. He’s nice, easy to get along with and all around fun to have the station. He’s up for shenanigans and serious when they need him to.

Buck has been a good addition. He’s willing to argue about stupid stuff and willing to do the crazy stunts Hen prefers to pass up on. She has a wife and kid to come home to, you know.

That morning Bobby and Buck are puttering around in the kitchen – another good thing about Buck’s addition – while Hen and Chim are ‘helping’ AKA stealing bits of the prep work to snack on as they wait for breakfast.

She and Chim are talking about a call they once took, before the others even worked there. Chimney is definitely embellishing it, but she lets him. The probie can use an ego check sometimes, even if she has to be careful not to let Chimney’s ego get out of hand.

“They were super thankful,” Chimney finishes smugly. “It’s why I do what I do. The thanks.”

“Pff, alright saint,” Hen laughs, before directing her next comment to Buck. “What about you? What made you decide to become a firefighter?”

It’s out of a bored interest to avoid getting sucked into another Chimney tale, as much as she does love them. However, upon seeing Buck’s reaction that vague interest turns into piqued curiosity.

Buck physically pauses for a second, before he speaks with forced nonchalance. “Uh- oh- Me? I- I saw a movie with them. Looked cool.”

All of them look at him for a few beats of silence. None of them buy it for second. Hen hadn’t realized how horrid a liar Buck was, until that moment, but that was tragic. Truly tragic. She’s sure her disbelief shows on her face. It does for Bobby and Chimney at least.

“Okay, so that’s not the reason,” Buck says when he spots their expressions and it’s clear they don’t believe him.

“You don’t have to share unless you want to,” Bobby offers immediately.

Even if they don't believe a word of what Buck is saying, they’re not going to force him to change his story. A lot of times people get into this line of work, because something happened to them. They’re not going to make him talk about it, if he doesn’t want to.

Buck gives them a grateful smile, before he turns sheepish. “It’s nothing bad, just not very noble.”

“Not everyone’s is,” Hen replies with a smirk to Chimney, who elbows her for it.

That makes Buck laugh and he now looks to be more comfortable, which means Hen’s mission is accomplished. Then he says: “Honestly, I googled jobs that pay well without needing a college degree. I kinda needed the income on short notice and this spoke to me most. I’m glad it did, because I do love it, but it’s not the most glamorous story.”

“So you just stumbled upon this because you had bills to pay?” Hen asks, fascinated by that. Most people have a story or are a legacy, it’s her first time hearing something like this and it's quite interesting. She didn’t know that happened too.

Buck nods.

Sympathetically, Chimney says: “Played too hard and came face to face with real life?”

It’s not too far out there with what they know of Buck – which is barely anything at second thought – so it’s surprising when he recoils with a frown.

“What? No,” he says. “To pay medical bills and get insurance.”

“You were injured?” Bobby asks, sounding worried.

Hen shares the sentiment, scrutinizing Buck to see if she can spot where. Maybe he still has lingering effects or something? That’s good to keep in mind when out in the field. And definitely should have been in his file.

“Oh, no, not me. Eddie got injured, but those bills were mostly covered, but Chris has CP, it’s a permanent thing, you know, you need solid insurance,” Buck explains quickly, trying to assure them he won’t be a liability in the field.

None of them have heard any of those names before. Hen thinks, maybe he’s in some polycule with these people, which is why he didn’t say or he’s really close with his friends.

“And Chris and Eddie are...” she asks before anyone else can, leaving it open ended to not push any assumptions onto him. She hopes he feels comfortable sharing or is able to lie better about this. She wouldn’t have asked if didn’t she know that otherwise Bobby or Chim would have. And they’d be a lot less delicate.

Buck looks caught for a second, clearing his throat, before he grimace-smiles: “Long story.”

Hen is more than happy to let him leave it there, but before she can communicate that with the others, Chimney has exclaimed: “Oh come on, that’s such a non-answer.”

She steps on his foot, but it’s already too late. Buck’s features are painted with guilt. She is about to assure Buck he doesn’t have to say shit, but he’s already answering.

“Technically, Eddie is my husband.” His reply is tentative and there is something off in his voice.

Hen feels herself wince. She knows how hard it can be to put yourself out there like that and by the looks of it, Buck wasn’t planning on it. The technically also isn’t a great thing to say. Eva is technically Denny’s mom, that is what she means when she says ‘technically’ and ‘long story.’

Bobby and Chimney have both frozen, more unsure than Hen with the newly introduced queer aspect. To put all of them out of your misery, she says: “Thanks for sharing that. You know we always have your back, right?”

“Yeah.” “Of course!” the other two also jump on it to assure Buck.

“Thanks, you guys,” Buck says, a relieved smile breaking out. Then something pained gets mixed in and his smile becomes strained. “But it’s not like that. Uh, Eddie’s straight.”

“And what about Chris?” Chimney asks curiously now that they seemingly have permission to ask.

“Chris is six, so I don’t know. Not truly relevant for me,” Buck shrugs.

“Six?” Hen finds herself choking. “You have a kid?”

“Well, biologically he’s Eddie’s, according to LAFD paperwork he’s all mine, but we share,” Buck jokes, but it doesn’t really land. Buck clears his throat awkwardly, then explains: “I married Eddie to adopt Chris when he redeployed to pay the bills, medical debt is no joke. But it’s a convenience thing. We’re friends, that’s it.”

“That… that is very kind of you. To step up for your friend like that,” Bobby finally says after the room had been filled with dead air. Buck sends him a beaming smile.

“Though I have no clue how you’d end up in that situation,” Chimney adds. “Where is his mom?”

“Uh, she left when he was four, but I met her and Chris when he was three. I babysat, then she left, I became friendly with Eddie and it turned into a co-parenting thing and now we’re here,” Buck shrugs again, recounting it shortly and nonchalantly.

“Now you’re here,” Hen can’t help but repeat, slightly disbelieving.

She can still remember how her and Karen nearly broke apart over Denny. It’s not a situation you roll into easily, adoption, but apparently it is when you’re Buck. The way he tells it, he watched the kid and then never left and Eddie – the kid’s father – was fine with it, even married him to leave the kid with Buck for god knows how long while he was off being a soldier.

It doesn’t entirely rhyme yet in her head. And apparently it doesn’t for the others either, because they’re all quiet as they try to process.

“Yeah, I guess. Like, I said, long story,” Buck says after a beat, rubbing the back of his head.

“You can say that again,” Chimney says, looking at Buck with puzzled eyes as he plops another bit of prep work in his mouth. “I’m still trying to picture probie Buck as a dad. Haven’t figured that one out yet. No offense.”

Buck raises a brow at that, then sternly points the wooden spoon he picked up to stir in Chimney’s direction. “No more eating the prep work, young man. Or you won’t have an appetite later.”

They all gape at him, because it is a weird parody of the new recruit they’ve come to know. It’s not entirely out of character, more a highlight of the maturity they’ve seen shining through before, but it’s definitely not entirely familiar either.

The moment is broken by Buck giving out in a big smile as he rubs the back of his head. “I’m just kidding, I am definitely more the good cop.”

“Well you’ve convinced me,” Hen says, mildly impressed and a little disturbed.

“Thanks,” Buck gives her his puppy like smile, highlighting his youth. God, he’s already a parent, but he’s still a baby to her. Though, to be fair he’s already twenty-five. Still, a six year old at twenty-five is teen parent territory, even if Buck wasn’t a part of the conception.

At twenty-five she was still dating Eva and lying to herself that she wanted to be work pharmaceuticals, the idea of a having a family still a vague unreachable concept in her mind.

Hen wonders what this Eddie must be like. The bad cop. The other parent. The straight guy that married Buck for his son after his wife left. She has so many questions for Buck, but all feel too invasive – trust her, she’s used to invasive questions about her family – so she just looks at him, as if she can find the answers on his face.

Buck, meanwhile, seems completely oblivious to the fact that he has just radically altered their perception of him and has turned back to cooking breakfast, humming softly under his breath. The three of them share a confused look, before following his lead; apparently that conversation is over now.

However, thankfully for Hen’s burning curiosity, the conversation is not permanently over. Buck, it seems, is a bragger.

They’re answering a call in a book store, nothing major, possible broken hip of a grandmother shopping with her grandkids. As she is loaded onto a gurney, Buck picks up one of the books she dropped. “Hey, I know this book. Chris loves it, read it to him all the time. But he can already read it himself too. His teacher says he’s ahead in reading level.”

Jumping on the opening to learn more, Chimney asks: “Yeah, the little guy likes dinosaurs?”

“Oh definitely,” Buck snorts. “Kid’s obsessed. He loves animals in general. We’ve been campaigning to convince Eddie to get a membership to the zoo.”

“Denny loves the zoo too,” Hen interjects. “We can go with you sometimes. Me and Karen have a membership, maybe showing Eddie will convince him.”

Is it in part because she is highly curious about this Eddie and wants to know more? Yes. But it is also because Denny does really love the zoo as well and she knows how hard it can be to make friends as a parent in a new city. She just wants to help out.

“That sounds great!” Buck exclaims. “I have to warn you, though, me and Chris take zoo trips very seriously. Eddie has basically uninvited himself, because he thinks we get too into it.”

“You clearly haven’t met Karen yet,” Hen snorts.

“Making plans later, people, helping now,” Bobby reminds them as he comes up behind them.

“I’ll text,” Hen mouths to Buck, before turning back to their patient. Chimney totally had her while she and Buck talked, just like she had her when Chimney talked. They can multitask.

And indeed she does text, after discussing it with Karen, who immediately gets invested in whatever is happening between Buck and his straight husband. She pushes Hen to invite Eddie along as well, since Karen is coming too, which Buck agrees to.

So, when they have a weekend off, they find themselves waiting at LA zoo for Buck, Eddie and Chris, with Denny by their side.

Hen – who knows who they’re looking for – spots them first. Buck towers over most and Eddie isn’t short either. For a second, she just watches them, observing. Buck is chattering excitedly with the boy who is with them, who is chattering as well, replying to what Buck is saying. Eddie seems to be content to listen, vaguely nodding along and commenting here and there.

Eddie is dressed pretty low key, but stylish and comfortable. Basic, but classic, she supposes. While he isn’t participating heavily, he appears to be genuinely listening and emerged in the conversation. As she watches, he makes a comment that makes Buck and Chris laugh as they roll their eyes, a self satisfied smirk coming onto Eddie’s face.

Having observed them in their unobserved, natural habitat for long enough, she hollers: “Buck! Hi, over here.”

At the sound of his name, Buck perks up to attention like a puppy, halting whatever reaction he was about to give Eddie. He spots Hen with her family and smiles at them as he gives them a big wave.

When they get there, Buck says hello to all of them, before he gives Hen a hug. Then he shakes Karen’s hand, saying: “Buck, hi, nice to meet you,” before turning to Denny and smiling: “And you must be Denny. How’d ya wanna say hello?”

Denny holds his hand up for a high five. Buck grins as he nods, giving Denny his high five as he says: “High five, I like it. Good choice.” That makes Denny smile.

With that ice broken, Buck steps to the side slightly to put Chris in the line of sight from where he is standing next to Eddie. He looks at Denny with big eyes. Denny is a year older, which at that age, means he is ancient and cool. Buck says: “Wanna meet Chris?”

“Yeah,” Denny smiles with a nod, before stepping forwards. Hen watches with pride as he introduces himself to Chris with nothing but gentle kindness, just like they always try to teach him. “Hi, I’m Denny. It’s nice to meet you.”

“I’m Chris,” Chris introduces himself, standing up a little straighter and slightly more confident as he replies: “It’s nice to meet you too.”

As the kids introduce themselves, Eddie keeps to the background, but now he steps forward, shaking both Hen’s and Karen’s hand as he says: “Eddie, it’s nice to meet you.” To Hen he adds: “Buck told me a lot about you.”

“Only good things I hope,” Hen smiles humorously.

“Of course, of course,” Eddie grins. Then he turns to Denny, holding up his own hand for a high five, which Denny gives him happily. “I’m Eddie, Chris’s other dad. Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you,” Denny smiles happily.

With that all done for, Buck claps his hands and says: “Who’s ready for the zoo?”

“Me!” both Chris and Denny cheer.

“Then let’s rock ‘n roll,” Buck says, matching their enthusiasm, before the group moves towards the queue.

As they walk, Eddie leans in and whispers: “One day he’s going to know you’re a dork for that and think you’re lame, you know that right?”

“Yup,” Buck says chipperly. “But today is not yet that day, you kill-joy.”

“Just keeping your ego in check,” Eddie shrugs, playfully shoulder checking Buck, who lets out a loud laugh, before skipping forward to catch up with Chris and Denny, interrogating them about what they’re most excited to see today, while Eddie rolls his eyes fondly.

Hen turns away from the scene to Karen with a raised brow. Her beautiful, smart wife is already giving her the same look in reply.

She goes to walk next to Eddie, smiling and nodding to Buck as he comments: “Still a big kid himself sometimes, huh?”

Eddie looks surprised for a second, then laughs too. “Yeah, definitely. But he’s an adult when it counts, no one budgets like Buck. It’s terrifying.”

“Oh, clipboard Buck comes out at home too?” Hen asks, slightly delighted at the thought.

“That’s what you call him? I’ve been calling it Planner Evan, but yeah, he has notebook, which I guess is close,” Eddie says. “He’s worse than some of my drill sargents sometimes, but he gets results, we definitely wouldn’t be going to the zoo as often without him.”

“Why not invest in a membership?” Karen also joins the conversation. “It honestly spares a lot of costs in the long run. I made a spread sheet about it, I could get Hen to send it to you, so you can look it over.”

“That would be great, thank you,” Eddie says, sounding a little pained.

Hen remembers that he’s in camp not wanting a membership, probably not a huge fan of getting more opposition. Just to be nosy, she asks: “You don’t want to?”

“I do, but Buck wants to get one for me too, but honestly, I usually don’t come on these excursions. I was mostly a little curious about meeting one of his infamous coworkers,” Eddie confesses.

“Well, I hope I live up to the hype,” Hen jokes.

“Of course you do, you’re great,” Karen immediately defends her.

“Thank you, babe.”

“So far, I am definitely impressed. I was an army medic, but some of the things Buck describes you doing is truly something. You sound like you’re amazing at your job,” Eddie says.

Hen flushes a bit, but Karen beams with pride, slinging an arm around Hen as she brags: “That’s my wife, the best paramedic in LA.”

“Thank you,” Hen smiles warmly at her wife, before admitting: “I was also very curious to meet you, I have to be honest. We didn’t expect Buck to pull a family out of thin air. Chimney tried to come along just to check that he wasn’t lying. We all kind of pegged him as a frat boy.”

“Buck?” Eddie says incredulously. He squints as he studies Buck for a second, then shakes his head: “I guess he kind of has a face and is way too social, but no.”

“Way too social?” Hen repeats with amusement. “That why you usually pass up on the zoo? Or just not a fan?”

“Not the zoo in particularly, but crowds in general, yeah,” Eddie says, wrinkling his nose at the mention of crowds. “Besides, I don’t get excited about it like they do,” he adds, nodding to others. Whatever Buck is talking about got the two boys hanging onto his lips and bouncing in excitement, his own sparkle in his eye as well. “It’s more their thing. He just wants me to get a membership because he fells bad about excluding me.”

“Ah,” Hen nods, wanting to pry more, but not wanting to scare Eddie off. He seems like an okay guy and asking if that’s an issue in his non-relationship with Buck seems a little much for a first meeting.

“Anyway, enough about me,” Eddie says awkwardly, despite having shared almost nothing about himself, having mostly talked about Buck and Chris. “ I hear, you’re a rocket scientist, Karen? That is so cool. What kind of stuff do you do?”

Karen loves talking about her work and Hen loves listening to her wife, so they stay with the topic on their way into the park. Then Karen directs herself at Buck as she says: “Hen said you had a plan about tackling the park? We usually do too, but we’re letting you lead.”

“Yes,” Buck nods with a serious look on his face, unfolding the map he already has in his bag. “We mapped out a route for optimal animal engagement. The weather should remain nicely average, so there is a good chance we’ll see the large predators, so they’re on the list, but it’s getting a little colder later, so we’re also going by the reptile exhibit. That sound good with everyone?”

The kids cheer and Hen and Eddie nod vaguely, their opinion clearly doesn’t count. Karen looks pleased, stepping forward to look at the map as she says: “That sounds perfect. You drew this out beforehand?”

“Yeah, we usually grab a fresh map each time, so we can plan the next visit,” Buck says, showing her the map better. “Chris is into reptiles and Hen mentioned Denny likes the Savanna, so we tried to plan with that in mind. And of course the weather.”

“That’s a great system,” Karen says as they all start to walk, Chris talking lead with Denny, Karen and Buck right on their tails, while Hen and Eddie close the ranks.

“Karen the planner?” Eddie asks with amusement, nodding at the two.

“Definitely,” Hen snorts fondly. Her wife is the best.

For the first part of the day, it remains like that with Hen and Eddie talking about firefighting, since he is thinking about joining the academy. Karen sometimes comes by, but she with Buck are mostly in charge of the kids, looking as excited as them when they indeed spot the animals, which is watched fondly from the sidelines by Hen and Eddie.

Denny and Chris have become fast friends – which is easier at that age, but it’s still a relief to the parents – pointing the animals out to each other and bouncing fun facts back and forth. It’s clear Buck has had a hand in raising Chris; when he’s sharing his face and mannerisms are just like him. It’s a little trippy if Hen is honest, but also adorable. Buck seems like a great dad.

At lunch, the others return back to reform the group with Buck announcing: “The children have spoken, we’re eating at the Fork in the Road.”

Hen and Karen are more than fine with that, so they nod. It’s definitely lunch time and eating something and sitting down for a moment, looking at the kids, they probably feel the same. Buck must notice that last thing too, because he calls out to Eddie: “Hey, Eddie, piggy back race to the restaurant?”

Eddie glances at the kids, before a competitive grin comes on his face: “You’re on.” He looks and Chris, quirking his brow. “You wanna hitch a ride, mijo? We have to show papi we’re still the fastest.”

“Okay,” Chris agrees easily and with a big grin.

As Eddie lets Chris clamber on, Buck turns to Denny, asking: “You good to be my passenger? Or should I ask one of your moms instead?”

Denny giggles at that. “No, I can go.”

“Whoo, let’s go then,” Buck says, scooping Denny up and sprinting off, as he calls back to Eddie: “You’re already too slow.”

“You’re playing unfair,” Eddie calls back, setting off after him.

Hen and Karen keep walking at their regular pace, laughing at their antics, while slowly the delighted shrieks of the kids disappear. Karen does look to Hen and suddenly asks: “Are we becoming old and boring?”

“Nah, we’re being sensible. They’re just still young and too energetic,” Hen tells her, slinging her arm around her as they walk. “So, what do you think of Buck?”

“He’s nice, I like him,” Karen says. “I can definitely see what you mean when you said he’s like a big kid, but he’s really good with the kids. And you’re totally right about all the fun facts, I don’t know where in his brain he stores them. How’s Eddie?”

“Good company, nice sense of humor. A bit emotionally stunted, but not in a noticeable way. More in a guy way. I think he grew up catholic,” she says.

“Ah, that type,” Karen nods. “Repressed?”

“Definitely a bit,” Hen confirms.

The two of them chat a little more about their company, before reaching the agreed upon restaurant, where they spot Eddie on a table with the kids, Buck nowhere in sight. As they come up, Karen asks: “So, who won?”

“Me and Buck, mom, we did,” Denny says proudly.

“You were cheating,” Chris pouts.

“We never agreed on the rules,” Denny counters.

“I’m still a little injured. Definitely not playing fair,” Eddie backs up his son. Much to Hen’s amusement, they have the same crease on their forehead. A bit of a sore loser then.

However, before they can start – what is clearly – rehashing the argument, Hen decides to ask: “So where is Buck?”

“He’s in the line,” Eddie says nodding to the food line. “We’re holding down the fort. But I can go pass along your orders?”

“Nah, I’ll wait with him,” Hen assures him. “Your usual?” she asks Karen, who nods.

Leaving the four of them behind, she goes to find Buck in the line, greeting him with: “Did Eddie put you on waiting duty, because you beat him or is this your usual task?”

“A bit of both,” Buck laughs. “Though it was cheating a little. Eddie has only been running again for a few weeks.”

“You both mentioned, he was injured,” Hen prompts.

“Oh, yeah,” Buck’s eyes get pained as he says that, as if remembering something unpleasant. “His chopper got shot down, uh, whole platoon nearly died. He pulled them out, got a Silver Star and three bullets in him for his troubles.”

Hen takes a moment to process. “Whoa, that’s quite a lot. He seems to be recovering well.”

“Yeah, thank god for that. Let me tell you, not a great call to get, that your husband is in surgery in Germany somewhere after getting airlifted from the battle field,” Buck says.

“Husband,” Hen repeats, curious at why he phrased it like that.

“Well, not like that, but you know. Still my best friend and my kid’s other dad,” Buck blushes.

Hen suddenly realizes Buck does want it to be like that with Eddie. A burst of sympathy goes through her at the realization, but standing in like at the Fork in the Road in the middle of the zoo, doesn’t feel like the time and place to get into it. “Must have been scary,” is what she says instead.

“It was. Luckily, he returned home okay,” Buck says, injecting a bit too much cheer into his voice. “It’s why we didn’t end up divorcing. So Chris could stay on my insurance while he recovers. He would have pushed himself to all Hell if given the chance. Having Chris is good for him, so I can tell him to sit his ass down and pretend it’s about Chris, while it’s about him too. Picking a table is a very important task in our family,” he tells her conspiratorially.

“Of course,” Hen nods with am understanding smile. Chris needs to sit sometimes, needs someone to carry him when he’s doing this much walking. They’ve become quite a team at making him feel like other kids, while making sure his needs are met. It’s no surprise Buck is using those skills on Eddie too.

“Are you enjoying today a little?” Buck changes topics. “I know Karen is – she is awesome, by the way, she knows so much about space, it’s so cool – but I feel like we’ve barely spoken.”

Hen assures him she’s enjoying today and that Eddie is great company, also enjoying Buck’s company as they wait. This outing started out of curiosity, but she is genuinely having a grand time. It’s also good for trust in the field, to get closer to coworkers like this and she really hopes Buck is there to stay. She likes the guy.

Soon they’re returning to the table with the trays, handing them out. Buck plops down next to Eddie when he’s done and Eddie gives him a critical look.

“What? Got something on my face?” Buck asks.

“No,” Eddie shakes his head, reaching into the backpack. “I don’t know how with this weather, but your nose is burning. You always forget your nose.” He comes back up with a bottle of sunscreen, putting some on his hand as he motions Buck to lean over. “Here, I’ll get it.”

Buck only becomes redder at the gesture, but goes easily too. It speaks of a familiarity, as if this is not the first time they’ve done that.

Eddie seems oblivious to Buck’s reaction, efficiently applying the sunscreen to Buck’s face, before turning to Chris. He puts more sunscreen on his hand as he says: “You too, mijo. We don’t want you to burn. There is still sun, even when there are clouds.” Chris pouts a little, but goes easily too, letting his dad fuss.

After that, lunch continues as normal. It’s fun and restful, but soon they’re on their way to the reptile exhibit.

The reptile exhibit is less walking and they spend more time in front of each habitat, Chris’s face pressed to the glass as he tries to get the best look possible. Denny is slightly less interested, but happily joins his new friend.

Due to the slower nature of this venture, Karen has taken a step back from making sure no one gets lost, finding her place under Hen’s arm as they wander about.

Eddie is the opposite of thrilled to be in the exhibit, usually keeping his distance, but calling back encouraging things to Chris whenever he shares a fact.

Buck of course already knows this, so when Denny and Chris are watching a snake excitedly, he comes up to Eddie with a shit eating grin. “Don’t you wanna come take a closer look, Eddie?”

“You know I don’t,” Eddie glares at him.

“Come on, they’re really interesting creatures. And there is glass between you and them,” Buck tries to entice him.

“I’m not scared of them,” Eddie protests.

“I didn’t say you were,” Buck replies, slightly patronizing, letting Eddie knows he knows better. “It’s a Californian King, it’s found here as well as in Mexico. I thought maybe you’d feel some kinship with it or something. It’s currently Chris’s favorite. He’s going to ask your opinion.”

Eddie doesn’t look very pleased when he hears the name, nor when Buck tells him where it is found. He also looks unhappy at the knowledge that if he wants to make his kid happy, he’ll have to go look at the snake.

Buck makes a sympathetic face, his little shit-ness from earlier gone. He puts a comforting hand on Eddie’s shoulder and further sweetens the deal by adding: “I’ll be right there the whole time.”

A small beat of silence passes, then Eddie groans: “Fine. I’ll go look at the snake.”

“Yes,” Buck fist pumps.

He leads Eddie to the exhibit Denny and Chris are looking at, hand subconsciously landing on Eddie’s lower back. Eddie is tense all the way there, but relaxes slightly when Chris starts babbling excitedly about the snake.

Together, the four look at more exhibits, while Karen and Hen watch them look. Throughout the whole visit, Eddie never once leaves Buck’s side, nor does he comment on the hand that Buck keeps on him at all times.

After about an hour of this, Karen leans in and whispers: “Are you sure they’re platonically married?”

“I’m sure that’s what they think,” Hen whispers back.

“You said Eddie was repressed?” Karen asks and Hen confirms. Karen nods thoughtfully for a moment, then says: “I give them a year, before they figure it out.”

“Confident,” Hen laughs. “I give them two.”

“You have yourself a bet,” Karen grins, grabbing Hen’s hand so they can shake on it.

Amused, Hen comments: “Chimney is going to be so mad about me making him miss this.”

“It might be for the best that he missed it, though,” Karen says. “Something like this, you need to figure out in your own time. I love him, but Chim can’t keep a secret.”

“That he can’t,” Hen agrees with a huff of laughter.

Before they can continue to whisper together like two school girls, Buck calls out: “Hen, Karen, you guys ready to move onto the gift shop?” While in the background Chris and Denny are chanting: “Gift shop, gift shop!”

“We’re coming,” they call back, hurrying their steps to catch up.

In the gift shop, Denny convinces them that he desperately needs the lion plushy they have, while further down Chris tries to make a case about getting a snake plushy. As Hen half listens along, she gets what Buck meant when he said he’s usually the good cop. Chris gets his plushy.

Outside the zoo, they say goodbye, promising to meet up again, if not to go to the zoo, then to set up a play date, before they bundle a tired Denny into the car. The excitement of the day has caught up and he sleeps the whole route home.

Karen and Hen are happy to drive with the radio low. Karen looks out of the window, humming along to the songs, while Hen mentally thinks back on today.

She wasn’t sure about Buck when he first came in, but she is so happy she trusted Bobby’s judgment, because Buck is so much more than his frat boy vibes. In fact, Hen quite likes him. He has surprised her a lot with his maturity and his happy personality to keep their spirits up.

Overall, Buck has been a great addition to the 118 family and she’s more than ready to integrate him and his family further into hers. Hopefully one day, he and Eddie figure it out too, she can use more queer friends.

~~

A/N:

I looked up a map and the species that are found everywhere on the website for the LA zoo for this fic lmao

Also, Hen and Karen gossiping and speculating about their friends is so dear to me <3

(idk how old Denny is so I made it up here)

[stjohnstarling]

I did a little googling about Fifty Shades of Grey's origins as a fanfic and oh my god I have opened a terrifyingly deep rabbit hole. It's so much more than Fifty Shades. I think all of self-publishing might be an offshoot of the Twilight fandom. I'm going insane.

This essay explains a lot. Twilight fans got sick of Twilight but still wanted to participate in the fandom, so they got creative:

There were stories where vampires didn't exist (like Fifty Shades of Grey). They got CRAZY popular within the community because they were essentially just generic romance novels with characters we already knew (made it easy to write and consume, as we already liked and cared about the characters). Though there were always nods to the original Twilight series within them, you didn't even have to know Twilight to enjoy an All Human-AU. I've gotten tons of reviews on my fanfic where readers say they've never even picked up the book. By 2010, probably a good 75% of Twilight fanfic being produced was All-Human. It was literally a chore to find a fanfic that had anything to do with vampires.

Twilight fanfiction diverged from its source material to the point where it was only a minor tweak for most popular authors to drop the Twilight link entirely and publish their fanfic as original novels. From a comment on that essay:

Seriously, Twilight fandom got really crazy big for a few years there. It was not totally uncommon to get multi-million clicks on a semi-popular story. It's weird looking back on it and calling it "Twilight fandom" because it was really more like "Romance Novel fandom". For real, for a period there, calling a Twilight fanfic author a 'Twilight fan' would be the ultimate insult. But they never stopped writing about Edward and Bella! It's so weird

And from the main Twilight article on Fanlore:

So what we've created in our neck of the woods are people using their fanwork to gain a huge audience, then removing the fanwork, filing it, publishing it, and sending cease and desist letters if the fanwork is shared. (The published works are then marketed back to the fandom via author profiles and banner ads on the archives.)

Fifty Shades of Grey was the first of these to explode, but it's far from the only one. Every single one of EL James' fanfiction contemporaries I've looked into is not just a self-published author but among the biggest self-published authors in the world, many of whom were foundational to shaping the look and feel and tropes of the medium. Twilight fanfiction is absolutely foundational to all of self-publishing.

This explains so much about the mainstream parts of the industry to me. I don't think they've ever fully gotten out from under the weight of the Twilight fandom, even to this day. It's still the same stuff, look at this. From a former fan's ff.net profile:

My BFF Angel and I (who met through [writing Twilight fanfiction]!) are co-writing writing a dark YA series of standalone romances, with so many of my fave themes. Trauma, bullying, addiction, social issues, violence, pretty rich high school boys being douchebags, hurt/comfort, frantic dry humping, you feel me you feel me.

The resulting book series from 2021 has tens of thousands of Goodreads reviews.

[1eos]

mx kendra, do you have any advice for job hunting? I'm about to start looking(again), but its always so intimidating - have a lovely day!

how it feels to start job hunting in the 2020s:

but yes i have advice for you anon! last time i went job hunting i got serious enough where i was reading 'askamanager' blogs and shit like that to really make sure i wasn't wasting my effort

so kendra's advice to job hunting in the most effort effective way:

first and most importantly is to understand that job hunting rn is simply a numbers game. it's not you it's just that the society we're living in is full of shit. for every 10 job postings, 4 are fake, 1 has an internal candidate in mind already, 3 are just posting jobs to look good and the rest are legit but slow af

bc job hunting is a numbers game its easy to be discouraged if you're not receiving responses consistently as proof that you're not just throwing shit into the void so its superrr imperative to try your best to apply to legit jobs. ive found my best success using indeed as a method of jobs being brought to me and then going on the company website myself and applying. this also doubles as a way to make sure a job posting/company is real

keep a spreadsheet of applied jobs. i just googled 'job application spreadsheet template' and picked one of the first ones i saw, made a copy, and then modified it to suit my needs. keeping a spreadsheet was one of the best things i did bc it can help keep track of jobs you've found and haven't applied to/ones you have applied to/and if you're like me and had a goal of getting a state job i could pre-empt when the interview requests were gonna come in lol 😭

resumes/cover letters. whew. probably the most important part of job hunting. ai scanning or not its a good rule of thumb to have skills mentioned in the job description to match the job posting. what i did was dedicate a folder in my google drive to job stuff and made a folder for each kind of jobs i was interested in. from there i would find a job i wanted to apply to and tailor an old resume to have a bunch of the shit mentioned in the posting on the new resume. i'd save it in the appropriate folder with the date i edited it. if you haven't been in the habit of tailoring your resume you may be doing this a lot but eventually you'll have so many variations you won't have to do much editing if at all. and i do the same with cover letters. i have a general template for my cover letter and then tweak them for each kinds of jobs im looking for. this + ditching linkedin helped me A LOT

create an interview cheatsheet. you probably already know the job hunting sphere has a language and culture all its own. personally as someone with a touch of the 'tism it do not make sense to me so i have unknowingly not navigated interviews as well as i could have. what's helped? ask a manager. seriously. miss allison has helped me blend in as a normie soooo much 😭😭😭😭 if you have any specific questions/have any specific weaknesses just search the site but what really helped me was the list of good interview questions. oh and for the longest i could never come up with a good question to ask my interviewer but one day google recced me this article and now every time i ask 'so what would separate a good candidate from an excellent candidate in this role' and when i tell you my interviewers gag every time lollllll. i also went through 'boost your interview iq' [pdf download link here <3] and jotted down notes on how i can answer common interview questions to quickly be able to go over the night before

study the job posting before the interview btw and try to drum up at least one correlating anecdote for some of the major points of the job bc they WILL ask you that lollllllll

[0scill4te]

.

The line between delusion and paranoia seems to be a very blurry one. i guess its a delusion when you believe it is ACTUALLY for certain 100% that it is actually happening and nothing else can prove otherwise.

i dont know though. can someone just genuinely be aware they are delusional? Simutaneously be scared its real while deep down you know your brain is just kind of crazy and prone to these things for whatever reason? Things like believing you are being keylogged by friends or coworkers? Or that someone deceased (that you knew) is watching you and reading your mind? Or thinking that whenever you chat with someone online, if you share art with them, they will use google to reverse search it and find you on other social media, so you end up deleting the art in fear? Shit like that. I know thats all crazy but for whatever reason I go through phases sometimes where I genuinely believe in these intricate, outlandish, unrealistic things and drug use always worsens it, Im not gonna lie. its why i try so hard to not let myself slip into daily use because its admittedly very easy too- drugs soften life a lot. But it also makes me really lose touch with reality more easily and its not good

I genuinely dont know. i still don't understand what was going on with me in august bc thats when i really reached a bad peak. Its what prompted me to delete my old blog even, i was having unfounded surveillance based fears (ex: thinking one specific coworker was stalking me online?) and felt like people were conspiring against me

i feel more normal these days. but i feel like it could happen again, and it does scare me. Life in general feels weird and I feel like my blog probably reflects that even. I try to contain all the weirdness to myself and not broadcast it so much. I private post most things.i want my blog to be a place where i can be genuine. But obviously oversharing in a public setting comes with its downfalls. I genuinely do feel like a "kooky" person.. like. Kind of ill, not all there sometimes.

I think I really just need to talk to my T. I get mini "hallucinations" too and everything in general just isnt feeling right, even vision wise. Things will feel okay for a few weeks then I slip into these headspaces and its confusing because its like.. maybe the "hallucinations" are merely a bottom-up processing issue, you know? like my brain falsely interpretting stimuli in my environment incorrectly. Iike I will see a cat for a split second but no, its just a towel on the ground. A disconnect between your eyes and your brain correctly interpretting the stimuli. Is that even a thing? I feel like it has to be. Occipital lobe stuff maybe, Idk.

But some things are just unexplainable. Like in the winter, I saw a mouse at my job crawl up the wall and slip inside this hole, and to this day still dont know if it was real or not. Because im so detached, it felt really fast and weird and dream-like, can mice even climb up walls that fast? When i was drunk recently with my roommate i saw an apparition in the kitchen in the corner of my eye, but only for a split second. And in July, i was high and saw an officer outside my fwbs car window , in great detail- a stern old man with a dark blue cap and I JUMPED. i was fucking terrified, it felt so real. I thought we were gonna get in trouble for trespassing. but a split second later, the cop was gone- aka not real.. no cop was there.

my therapist told me use less weed a few months ago and i think shes right- ive actively been trying to use it less and not daily anymore. I think I should see an optician to rule out if the "hallucinations" are maybe just a weird vision or brain thing. It could be a nutrient thing too- my vision in general feels.. weird. I feel like I sound like a hypochondriac with all of this but things just genuinely feel off and weird sometimes. Idk how to fix it and i always wonder if its normal or not but im terrified to get help for this stuff because its really weird and im scared doctors dont actually want to help and find the actual issue, they'll just label the vision stuff as a mental illness thing and throw antipsychotic meds at me.

[trykefag]

Hi.... :] before we get into this I wanna say one (1) thing: I'm pro-Palestine AND (shocker) pro-Israel. I'm hitting a hornets nest tagging this with pro-Palestine when how I view being for Palestine is so drastic to others' views.

Any sort of harassment or antisemitism will be reported and you will be blocked. We don't hate Jews or Israelis here. Also, if you tag this post with "to the river to the sea Palestine will be free" you're ignorant and dunno what the fuck you're saying.

This post is lengthy (imo) and just my personal spew on stuff, it's nothing like...revolutionary lol. I just need to get shit out somehow.

I don't get the anti-Israel crowed like....they know nothing and its so baffling they'll just say shit they don't understand the concept or history of. You can be pro-Israel and hate the Israeli government, you can be pro-Palestine while also realizing that the history is very convoluted and if you did a simple YouTube search about history on Palestine and Israel you'd be more educated. You can be both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine...shocker I know!

I've learned more from YouTube than in history class. I've also learned that antisemitism is very easy to fall into, which is something I knew but didn't understand. Pro-Palestinians I don't doubt actually care, I'd love to think most Pro-Palestinians actually give a fuck about the murders that're happening! The downside is that they're falling and repeating shit the fucking Nazis would say in the name of activism and see NO ISSUE. (Saying "gas the Jews" and holding up Nazi flags is, even in the name of activism, antisemetic.)

I try and not be cynical, but like there's literal dog whistles and antisemetic shit being spoken about and there's signs being put up that says "No Jews" and there's even fucking Tumblr blogs with "Jews DNI" on them. (I've seen them, they're very much real. Most of them have "Zionists DNI" which is usually just a dog whistle to Jews, but I digress.)

Don't get me started on fucking Zionism actually, no one knows what the fuck that is and they claim they do when they don't. It's so brain numbing!

"Go back to where you came from!" that'd be Israel....which you wanna get rid of. That's also what Zionism is btw. Jews are from Israel...please Google things before you open your yapper.

I can only find solace in the Jumblr tag (& similar ones) because they have knowledge about what the fuck is going on and I won't get called a "Zionist Nazi"!

In the face of chaos I will say that studying and my plans to convert one day is the best decision I've ever made; you can't get rid of Jews, no matter how much you want us gone. Reading the Torah, researching about Israel, learning the culture, the food, the language, etc. It's healing and I'm glad to be coming home slowly but surely. Am yisrael chai.

[wardensantoineandevka]

sorry to bother you but i wanted to ask how you're enjoying using Obsidian? I've been eyeing it for a while but would love to know your thoughts, highlights, lowlights, etc :) if you don't mind sharing, ofc!

No worries! The short version is that I've been enjoying Obsidian quite a lot, and I find that it serves all of my needs nicely without any fuss. Using it is rather frictionless, I think, and getting used to it was pretty easy though it did take some willingness to very much learn to navigate its menus and features and how it lays everything out. It's not at all difficult, but I do think you have to sit with it for a bit. It's currently my main writing program with the exception of screenplays, for which I use Highland 2.

For context on myself, my writing needs are rather straightforward. I use these sorts of apps and programs to write and organize my fanfic, original prose writing, professional correspondence, and journalistic article drafts. I previously used Notion, which I left because of the big NotionAI push. Before Notion, I used Bear, though I can't remember why I stopped using it; I haven't checked out Bear 2, so I don't know if it suits my needs.

When I was shopping around for a new program to use, the following points were important to me, in no particular order:

no native / built-in generative AI assistants

interface is simple and clean or had customization or community themes that would make it so

offline access

mobile app with document sync

ability to organize and group notes through a folder, tag, or similar system

not too many Things going on with it or I could very easily ignore stuff I didn't use without them cluttering up the UI or my space

Obsidian organizes files within "vaults", of which you can have multiple, each of which are connected to folders that are stored locally on my laptop (or my phone). I love this. I have local versions of all of my notes. I can literally find all my stuff as markdown files within a folder on my desktop and open them up in another program with EASE. If you are someone who doesn't have a lot of storage space, this might be an issue, but for me, this is a very bright highlight.

The biggest lowlight for me is that mobile sync is reliant on a subscription fee, but considering that the rest of the program is free and the fee is small, I found this ultimately a very small concern. I very critically need mobile sync because I spend a significant amount of time writing from my phone. The mobile sync is incredibly good; it keeps all documents synchronized very well, and I have yet to run into version conflicts that cause me to accidentally overwrite and lose significant progress. I don't even have to close files on my laptop first; they'll just update in real-time on my screen like Google Docs. Sometimes I'll name documents something that my phone's file path system cannot handle; Obsidian warns me that it cannot fetch and sync these files with illegal names, and I like that it keeps me informed about that.

It has both a folder system and a tag system, which allows you to organize your files. I only use the folder system because my needs are simple, but the tag system is also solid. It also has a robust search system. It also has a bookmarking system to further organize your stuff. I don't have enough files to use that, but it is available, and I think that's neat.

More precise customization can be difficult if you're not used to writing CSS. I am familiar with CSS, so I found this a small hurdle, but this will be a bigger issue for others. That said, this does mean that Obsidian is DEEPLY customizable, and there is a large gallery of community themes that offer a lot of styles that serve a wide variety of needs. There is also a deep bench of community plugins to help get Obsidian to do what you want — I have plugins that make the word count in the status bar show the count of highlighted text and allow me to copy text as HTML instead of formatted text or markdown. There is also an active Obsidian community and forum, so you will not be necessarily troubleshooting customization alone.

Other small things that occur to me to mention right now: It supports opening files in multiple windows, and it has a tab system, which is really neat. The ability to open multiple files at a time is very good. You can also open files side-by-side for easy comparison, which is useful for more technical work. I don't use Obsidian for coding or wiki work, but I can imagine this being really useful for that. It has a reading mode. Offers a version history with a "show changes" mode and restoration capability. File merge capability. You can open images into it and organize them like any other file.

All in all, I'm very happy with it, and it serves all of my personal needs very well. I generally give it a blanket recommendation, again noting that I think it does take sitting with to get used to some of its features and UI and customizing it to your needs and preferences, but I don't think that's super difficult with some patience and time.