L.J. Writes

That's all, folks.

ljlee — Thu, 14 Mar 2019 12:46:41 GMT

I turned off crossposting a few posts ago, but I figure I should make it official: I'm no longer updating this journal, and will be active for the foreseeable future on my Dreamwidth. I'm leaving this journal up as an archive of content (especially comments) and to prevent link rot.

I've had this journal since April of 2011. That's almost nine years, though I got sucked down the Tumblr hole for two of those years and I've been increasingly moving my focus of activity over to DW. I've had so much fun and learned a lot, and it's time to move on. I'm grateful to the friends I made here and wish you all well.

Leopards Eating People's Faces Company eats faces, more at 4

ljlee — Sun, 03 Mar 2019 00:49:01 GMT

Facebook has targeted politicians around the world – including the former UK chancellor, George Osborne – promising investments and incentives while seeking to pressure them into lobbying on Facebook’s behalf against data privacy legislation, an explosive new leak of internal Facebook documents has revealed.

Sigh.

Dreamwidth entry URL: https://lj-writes.dreamwidth.org/2019/03/03/facebook-lobbying.html

Alt-text tips you probably don't know

ljlee — Sat, 02 Mar 2019 03:23:42 GMT

I happened on a couple of articles about writing better image alt-text on my reading page, so I'd like to share the links and list some of the things I didn't know and you might not, either.

Alt-texts: The Ultimate Guide (via alisx)
Alternative Text (via jesse_the_k)

Alternative text generally refers to the contents of the alt attribute of the image tag in HTML:

<img src="https://i.postimg.cc/G4QC858h/ace-attorney.jpg" alt="Close-up of Phoenix Wright's face.">

In Markdown it is the portion that goes in the square brackets after the exclamation mark.

![Close-up of Phoenix Wright's face.](https://i.postimg.cc/G4QC858h/ace-attorney.jpg)

Either would result in this image:

And, if the image is missing or the user is browsing with a text-only browser, screen reader etc., it would result in the following text:

Clear, helpful alternative text is crucial to accessibility. So what makes for a good alt text?

I thought I was pretty conscientious about alt-text use, but I still learned new information and tips from these resources and you might find them helpful as well.

More than the alt attribute: In addition to the alt attribute, alternative text can be provided in descriptions in the surrounding text.
"At a glance" test: The text in the alt attribute should provide the information that a sighted user of a graphics browser can get at a glance of the image. You can't get a character's entire life story, the photographer's name, the date the picture was taken, etc. etc. from a glance, so you wouldn't put it in the alt attribute. Needless to say search optimization keywords don't belong in there, either.
Don't say "Image of..." "Photo of..." I admit I've been guilty of this, but both articles point out it's redundant and unhelpful.
End with a period! Period. I keep forgetting this one, but ending with a period makes screen readers pause after the alt-text and makes for a more pleasant browsing experience.
Context is everything. The alt text of an image inserted into an article about photography would have a description focusing on the photographic properties of an image, while the alt text of the same image about a television show would describe which character is in the image, played by what actor and so on.
Know when not to use them. If the content of the image is provided in the surrounding text (such as text labels) and the image doesn't have a separate function, such as a link or button separate from any text labels, the alt can be left blank. Repeated images and decorative images also do not require alt text.
Don't bother with the title attribute. Some interfaces provide a title entry option, but the Axess Lab article says it's useless: "Nobody uses them – they don’t work on touch screens and on desktop they require that the user hovers for a while over an image, which nobody does. Also, adding a title-text makes some screen readers both read the title-text and the alt-text, which becomes redundant. So just don’t add a title-text." For similar reasons of compatibility and usability, the Alternative Text article advises that longdesc attribute should also not be relied on.

Dreamwidth entry URL: https://lj-writes.dreamwidth.org/2019/03/02/alt-text.html

LGBTQ+ Marvel Fanvid

ljlee — Thu, 28 Feb 2019 09:45:59 GMT

Part video essay and part fanvid, this is a damning look at how straightwashed the Marvel Cinematic Universe is compared to the comics. (Heads up, James Gunn shows up in the opening so exercise caution)

Dreamwidth entry URL: https://lj-writes.dreamwidth.org/2019/02/28/straightwashed-marvel.html

Ways I relate to Finn

ljlee — Wed, 27 Feb 2019 18:39:57 GMT

An incomplete list of the ways I relate to Finn, movies and Before the Awakening canon:

Is recovering from emotional abuse with all the messiness the process implies
Was a promising and high-achieving student, yet never felt like he belonged
Tried to win acceptance and friendship by helping someone
Walked away from an abusive situation
Ended up throwing away a lot of stability and certainty as a result
Fell in love with his best friend
Confronted his abuser and threw her in the trash
(This was only metaphorical in my case)
Traumatically bonded with someone who was being toxic to him

Dreamwidth entry URL: https://lj-writes.dreamwidth.org/2019/02/28/finn-relatable.html

Historium Commentfest 2019

ljlee — Sun, 24 Feb 2019 04:05:08 GMT

historium has a commentfest for all history fandoms (which is defined as being up to the 1970s), whether fictional or RPF. The rules are: "Simply leave your prompt(s) and/or browse through other people's prompts to see what you can fill. All fanworks welcome - fic, art, icons, graphics, fanmixes, vids, podfic etc. etc."

(via yuuago)

Dreamwidth entry URL: https://lj-writes.dreamwidth.org/2019/02/24/historium-commentfest-2019.html

Social media platform review: Snoozing on Pillowfort

ljlee — Sat, 23 Feb 2019 05:47:41 GMT

Even before Tumblr's adult content ban, Pillowfort (PF) had touted itself as an alternative to Tumblr that has the sharing and exposure features of Tumblr but gives users greater control, such as post privacy settings, threaded comments, and user-created communities. Pillowfort was a beneficiary of Tumblr's decision much like Dreamwidth, but with far less ability than the mature and established Dreamwidth to capitalize on the windfall, being a site in beta testing and still working on scaleability and stability issues.

Taking the time and care necessary to get ready for prime time is anything but a discredit to the PF team, of course. Yet the site suffers from other issues that speak to a lack of professional skill and experience in web development, including basic backend failures (the 2,600-character username, anyone?). It remains to be seen whether these issues will be chalked up to growing pains or ultimately hold the platform back. ETA 2/24/2019: There are also reports that Pillowfort has had e-mail leaks and other security breaches as well.

Posts in this social media review series:

Summary of Platform: Ever wished Tumblr and LiveJournal/Dreamwidth would have a love child with reblogs, post privacy settings, and a comment view that makes sense? Pillowfort is it, at least in larval stage.
Platform Usage: Tumblr mirror, joining communities and discussions

I was part of the Tumblr exodus to Pillowfort. I donated for a code shortly after Tumblr's announcement and made my account when the site came back up from maintenance. Right off the bat I liked its features, despite its slowness at the time: The site has a combination of Tumblr's sharing features and LJ/DW's community and threading features, as promised. Communities are particularly nice as a way to get content I'm interested in on my feed without necessarily having to follow whole blogs which may have content I'm less interested in. The content in communities is more curated than a sitewide search would be, and if it's not to your liking you can leave the comm and find another--or start your own.

PF also has more granular post access settings than Tumblr's, but no access list or access filters like DW's other than followers/non-followers/mutuals. As a result PF's access controls for posts more closely resemble Mastodon's than DW's. Here's a screenshot of PF's posting access controls with choices between "everyone," "only my followers," "only my mutuals," and "only me."

Here are Mastodon's settings for comparison, with the choices being "Public - Post to public timelines," "Unlisted - Do not post to public timelines," "Followers-only - Post to followers only," and "Direct - Post to mentioned users only." That last setting serves as Mastodon's direct messaging system, which in Pillowfort is separate from the posting system.

Dreamwidth, of course, adds more granular access controls that do away with the follower/non-follower distinction altogether and give users individual control over who will see which posts. Here's the corresponding post access control for Dreamwidth, consisting of the choices "public," "access locked," "private," and "custom filtered."

I think Pillowfort could stand to take a page out of Mastodon's book and add an equivalent to the "unlisted" option to have a post made public on one's own blog but not visible at a sitewide level, since the public availability of what was meant to be for one's blog is how a lot of conflicts get started on Twitter and Tumblr. I'm guessing the followers-only setting is meant to serve that purpose, but sometimes users want greater control, a step between "visible to the entire user base" and "only available to followers who are logged in." The option would be all the more appreciated when Pillowfort is out of closed beta and is visible to the internet at large.

The followers-only option also doesn't seem to have much meaning on Pillowfort because, as far as I can tell, there is no setting yet to lock an account so prospective followers have to ask permission. There doesn't seem to be an option for removing a follower, either, other than blocking/softblocking.(1) By then it might be too late and the unwanted follower could already have seen and possibly screenshotted the posts you hoped to keep to a limited audience, a non-trivial concern in the age of mass internet outrage.

Overall I don't believe followers-only is a terribly effective privacy setting anyway, and in my opinion following public posts should be separate from accessing locked posts. Dreamwidth's access controls are more granular and gives the most control, and it is a good model for Pillowfort to follow since it sells itself as a more privacy-focused alternative to Tumblr and specifically cites the LiveJournal line of blogs as an inspiration.

So much for comparisons to Dreamwidth. In terms of comparison to Tumblr, Tumblr-style sitewide searching/tagging and discovery is one of PF's strengths and would be used to more advantage if there were more content and people.(2) The post and reblog interface is also similar to Tumblr, though without Tumblr's distinctive and potentially troublesome reblog with additions feature. As such, one way I'm using PF is as a Tumblr mirror. I use PF to post content like edits that I would formerly have made on Tumblr, and then mirror them on Tumblr.

Ironically, for image-heavy posts the image hosting is still from Tumblr since PF has almost no image hosting. What I do is draft a post on Tumblr and upload images as usual, then drag the images to the location bar to get their URL. I hotlink those addresses in the Pillowfort post to leech off Tumblr's image hosting, then hit 'post' on Pillowfort and 'queue' on Tumblr. This should work unless and until Tumblr implements a basic hotlinking ban. Corporate and venture capital money has a lot of unhappy consequences for the internet including privacy-violating business models, bans on content that advertisers don't like, and pressure to deliver exponential growth, but that image and video hosting sure is sweet.

One quality that has characterized my experience with Pillowfort is its slowness. At first it was mostly the physical slowness I noticed: I got used to hitting a button and then doing other things while a page loaded or my post went up.(3) When the site reached a usable speed, however, I found it slow in a different way. There are not that many people on Pillowfort, period, and not a lot of content so far. I found that engagement with the discussion posts and content tended to be similarly low,(4) other than unpleasant fandom drama that I could have done without.(5)

I don't spend a lot of time on PF due to this lack of activity; I check back maybe once a week or less to find one answer or no answer to my posts, and it's my least checked and least active of the four social media platforms I have discussed in this series. Once it irons out its present problems and gets out of closed beta, hopefully with a sustainable business model that doesn't depend on mining user data for advertising purposes, it might be an acceptable alternative to Tumblr and a rival to Dreamwidth. That time is not now.

For all PF's present limitations, I do think it has a lot of promise. The combination of Tumblr's sitewide searching and reblogs on the one hand, and DW-like community moderation and privacy controls on the other, is the best of all possible worlds for me and I wish the platform well.

Notes:
1. Softblocking, in case you don't know, refers to blocking and then unblocking a follower so they are forced to unfollow you, but are not prevented from other interactions with you.
2. It would be nice to give people a way out of global search without making posts exclusive to followers, as discussed above.
3. Or not, as the case may be.
4. YMMV, of course. This post is about my own experiences.
5. That said, the drama far predates the platform and rather than exacerbate the conflict I think the platform functions helped resolve it relatively peacefully through the community system. People who disagreed with the way a comm was run were free to leave and make their own, and did so in this case.

Dreamwidth entry URL: https://lj-writes.dreamwidth.org/2019/02/23/pillowfort-review.html

Signal Boost: Easier Dreamwidth Posts with Markdown: the sequel

ljlee — Fri, 22 Feb 2019 00:44:07 GMT

jesse_the_k posted: Easier Dreamwidth Posts with Markdown: the sequel

Read Markdown Simplifies Formatting Your DW Posts for an introduction and the formats you'll use daily.
This sequel covers the rest of Dreamwidth’s Markdown support.

Paragraphs and line breaks

Blockquotes

Headings

Reference links

Images

Ignoring Markdown commands

Dreamwidth entry URL: https://lj-writes.dreamwidth.org/2019/02/22/dw-markdown-2.html

Signal Boost: Managing Twitter

ljlee — Thu, 21 Feb 2019 08:30:48 GMT

jesse_the_k posted: Managing Twitter

Three tools that help me interact with Twitter manageably.

Thread Reader App

Tchat.io

Tweetlogix

In case it's helpful for people on Twitter!

Dreamwidth entry URL: https://lj-writes.dreamwidth.org/2019/02/21/twitter-apps.html

Party while the world burns: Season 3 of The Good Place

ljlee — Thu, 21 Feb 2019 03:00:30 GMT

wrongquestions posted: It's Easy to Be a Saint in Paradise: Thoughts on The Good Place's Third Season (via thisweekmeta)

I enjoyed this critique of The Good Place, but would go further and argue that the problems with the story and worldbuilding in Season 3 are bringing out the worst in its premise of eternal bliss and damnation, and is in danger of destroying everything that was good or meaningful about the show.

Abigail Nussbaum said in the original post:

It makes sense for Michael, while he still believes that the point system is being tampered with by the bad place, to argue that it needs to be reviewed and reformed. But after he realizes that it's not the point system, but the world that is broken, it's rather unclear what his proposed remedy is. Like so many others, I don't know what the correct response is to the realization that capitalism forces us to participate in the exploitation and immiseration of others. But I'm pretty sure that changing the definition of "good" so that it excludes these unintended but still very real negative consequences is not it. Yes, Michael's approach has a solid justification in that all humans who ever lived are being subjected to eternal torture, but surely the solution to that is to stop torturing, full stop, instead of trying to redefine the types of people who "deserve" to be tortured? At the very least, we've reached a point where the show's worldbuiding, with its focus on the afterlife, ceases to be useful as any sort of philosophical or ethical thought experiment.

The Season 3 revelations, in other words, indict the very belief in an afterlife that sorts people into eternal torture or eternal bliss columns based on individual morality. The only question is whether this indictment is intentional on the writers' part or not, and the answer to that will determine the direction of Season 4 and the show's position in the ongoing conversation about ethics and systematic injustice that it has become a part of.

See, in the show's cosmology as it stands, Michael's solution makes perfect sense. If life on Earth is nothing but a proving ground to determine whether you are fit for eternal torture or eternal bliss, what does it matter what state Earth is in--especially once it turns out to be meaningless even as a proving ground for souls? The true essences of people, their actual eternal souls, can be saved regardless.

Also, if the only test of this torture/bliss divide is individual morality, what does it matter if this requisite morality for eternal bliss can exist only in a vacuum free of pesky worldly concerns like exploitative capitalism and environmental destruction? Again, circle back to point one: the physical world is transient and unimportant. Its brokenness has made it less, not more, important to save because it's now too broken to be a meaningful test. In a cosmology where only the soul and eternal life are of any importance, life and Earth no longer figures in that equation once it can't be a "real" test of a soul's morality and its place in the eternal afterlife.

This is why the developments of Season 3 have brought the show rapidly into "who the hell cares?" territory, unless you do subscribe to the belief that personal enlightenment and/or going to heaven are the ultimate goals of life. To the extent people do subscribe to these beliefs, Season 3 brings out the worst in these belief systems by proposing a version of striving for enlightenment/bliss that does absolutely nothing to improve the real world. The subjects of the repeat experiments at the end of Season 3 are already dead, and according to the current cosmology cannot go back to carry their lessons forward on Earth. The only thing that they can do is avoid eternal torture and seek eternal bliss for their individual selves.

Worse, the new developments read as an active advocacy to stop trying to improve the world or care about fellow mortal beings. If it doesn't matter how much good you try to do and you go to hell anyway, what's the point? If your only hope of avoiding torture for all eternity is to die and prove your individual goodness in a completely different afterworld than Earth, why even try to do any good on Earth?

These revelations are in turn rapidly destroying the characters that we have come to love. Eleanor, who came so far from her trauma-driven selfishness, now seems to be fine with abandoning the world as a lost cause. Chidi, who dedicated his entire life to a study of how humans should live, now comes across as a personification of the arid meaninglessness of that discipline. Michael, as discussed, is actually consistent with his characterization as a being of the afterlife, but his breakthroughs and growths have become even more unmoored from real life than before when life on Earth at least had meaning as a testing ground for souls.

As the original post and commenters have pointed out, The Good Place has reached a point where the cracks in the foundation of its cosmology have reached a breaking point and the only viable way forward is to subvert the cosmology itself. Otherwise it will go down as the show that raised interesting questions about ethics, religion, and real-world injustice only to give the most despiriting, escapist, and destructive answer imaginable. It will become the show that advocates that we leave this world to burn and go away to party forever in heaven. It will have substituted a good death for a good life as the ultimate value, and that is not a good place it to end up.

Dreamwidth entry URL: https://lj-writes.dreamwidth.org/2019/02/21/the-good-place-s3.html

Science isn't the problem, morality is

ljlee — Mon, 18 Feb 2019 00:27:11 GMT

What separation from parents does to children

“The effect [of forcibly separating children from their families] is catastrophic,” said Charles Nelson, a pediatrics professor at Harvard Medical School. “There’s so much research on this that if people paid attention at all to the science, they would never do this.”

(via redrikki)

This is an informative article but I think Dr. Nelson is dead wrong that people would never tear children away from their parents if they knew the level of harm it does to the children. Many don't care, and for still others that's the whole damned point.

Nelson himself as a pediatrician, and one in a cushy position at that focused solely on research and facts, would never recommend such separation. But what if he were a doctor consulting with an embattled and overworked, and also heavily racist and classist, child protective services and family court system? If he were a doctor cooperating with the immigration authorities? If he were an immigration official? A high-ranking government official formulating policy?

Did all these other professionals really act out of ignorance of the harm they were doing to children? Or did they simply not care, or did they lead themselves to believe the harm was not so great? Or was the lifelong wounding of children a feature, not a bug, in not just last year's but decades and centuries of systematic family separation policies?

Pleading ignorance of the science instead of apathy and cruelty (which come down to the same thing as far as the recipient is concerned) is a misstatement of the problem, and is one of the ways scientists can give moral cover to atrocities. Nelson has, as it were, misdiagnosed the problem: It's not that people don't know the science. In the U.S. context, it's that a lot of professionals and policymakers don't think brown, Black, and poor children hurt like their own children do. Or, too often, they want to hurt children in order to terrorize and traumatize them and their communities. The true evil here are the empathy gap and the desire to dominate by hurting those most vulnerable, not simple ignorance.

Dreamwidth entry URL: https://lj-writes.dreamwidth.org/2019/02/18/children-separation.html

Signal Boost: Oscar Wilde of YouTube fights the alt-right with decadence and seduction - The Verge

ljlee — Sun, 17 Feb 2019 20:44:33 GMT

Oscar Wilde of YouTube fights the alt-right with decadence and seduction - The Verge

ContraPoints, whose real name is Natalie Wynn, is known for slick, moodily lit YouTube videos that draw hundreds of thousands of views, where she brings a leftist perspective to a variety of hot-button issues — things like structural racism, Marxism, transgender politics, and the alt-right. With a wink, she calls herself “one of YouTube’s leading B-List transsexuals.”

(via alisx)

Dreamwidth entry URL: https://lj-writes.dreamwidth.org/82880.html

Jane Austen on Wisdom and Wit

ljlee — Sun, 17 Feb 2019 02:59:42 GMT

Wisdom is better than Wit, & in the long run will certainly have the laugh on her side.

-- Jane Austen

This quote, from one of Austen's letters, was introduced in Tony Tanner's 1966 introduction to the Penguin Books edition of Mansfield Park, as part of an explanation of the book's themes and symbolism and why it is so different from her beloved earlier works. It's certainly even more poignant coming from a woman who loved wit as much as Austen did, as Tanner pointed out. Look at her ironic slyness in this very sentence, envisioning Wisdom as "getting the last laugh" over Wit when laughter is generally thought to be the province of the latter.

Dreamwidth entry URL: https://lj-writes.dreamwidth.org/2019/02/17/jane-austen-quote.html

Signal Boost: John Boyega on Episode IX wrap

ljlee — Sat, 16 Feb 2019 02:22:25 GMT

johnboyega posted: John Boyega on Instagram: “That’s a wrap on Star Wars episode 9 and the end to a chapter of my life that I couldn’t be more thankful for. What a process!"

That picture... I'm so emotional...

Dreamwidth entry URL: https://lj-writes.dreamwidth.org/2019/02/16/john-episode-ix-wrap.html

Signal Boost: Friends will be friends - a multifandom friendship fic (and art) fest, v7.0

ljlee — Thu, 14 Feb 2019 17:15:30 GMT

ruuger posted: Friends will be friends - a multifandom friendship fic (and art) fest, v7.0

Yes, after a years' break, the Friendship fic (and art) fest is back!

In Finland, February 14th is known as ystävänpäivä, 'Friendship Day', which means it's time for the seventh annual Multifandom Friendship Fest.

(via redrikki)

Dreamwidth entry URL: https://lj-writes.dreamwidth.org/81952.html

Signal Boost bookmarklet with user name tags for more sites

ljlee — Thu, 14 Feb 2019 07:58:30 GMT

I made a fork/update to melannen's fork of astolat's signal boost bookmarklet, which adds user name tags for more of the sites recognized by the DW user tag. I also made small changes to the text generated by the bookmarklet.

To use, make a blank bookmark on your browser and copy the following code into its address:

javascript:(function()%7Bvar%20postURL%3D%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dreamwidth.org%2Fupdate.bml%3Fevent%3D%22%3Bvar%20curURL%3Dwindow.location.href%3Bfunction%20getSelectionText()%7Bvar%20text%3D%22%22%3Bif(window.getSelection)%7Btext%3Dwindow.getSelection().toString()%7Delse%20if(document.selection%26%26document.selection.type!%3D%22Control%22)%7Btext%3Ddocument.selection.createRange().text%7Dreturn%20text%7Dfunction%20getSelectionHtml()%7Bvar%20html%3D%22%22%3Bif(typeof%20window.getSelection!%3D%22undefined%22)%7Bvar%20sel%3Dwindow.getSelection()%3Bif(sel.rangeCount)%7Bvar%20container%3Ddocument.createElement(%22div%22)%3Bfor(var%20i%3D0%2Clen%3Dsel.rangeCount%3Bi%3Clen%3Bi%2B%3D1)%7Bcontainer.appendChild(sel.getRangeAt(i).cloneContents())%7Dhtml%3Dcontainer.innerHTML%7D%7Delse%20if(typeof%20document.selection!%3D%22undefined%22)%7Bif(document.selection.type%3D%3D%22Text%22)%7Bhtml%3Ddocument.selection.createRange().htmlText%7D%7Dreturn%20html%7Dfunction%20isLocked()%7Breturn%20document.getElementsByClassName(%22security-protected%22).length%3E0%7Dfunction%20confirmBoost()%7Bvar%20doPost%3D!isLocked()%3Bif(!doPost)%7BdoPost%3Dconfirm(%22Post%20is%20access-locked.%20Continue%3F%22)%7Dreturn%20doPost%7Dfunction%20strip(s%2Cy)%7Bif(s.includes(y))%7Breturn%20s.substr(s.indexOf(y)%2B2)%7Dreturn%7Dfunction%20until(s%2Cy)%7Bif(Boolean(s)%26%26s.includes(y))%7Breturn%20s.substr(0%2Cs.indexOf(y))%7Dreturn%20s%7Dfunction%20esc(s%2Cf%2Cr)%7Bif(s.includes(f))%7Breturn%20s.replace(f%2Cr)%7Dreturn%20s%7Dfunction%20getUserName(sD%2CsN%2CfU%2CsFU%2CsSFU)%7Bvar%20sdun%3D%5B%22blogger.com%22%2C%22deadjournal.com%22%2C%22dreamwidth.org%22%2C%22insanejournal.com%22%2C%22livejournal.com%22%2C%22tumblr.com%22%2C%22wordpress.com%22%5D%3Bvar%20fun%3D%5B%22deviantart.com%22%2C%22facebook.com%22%2C%22instagram.com%22%2C%22medium.com%22%2C%22pinboard.in%22%2C%22plurk.com%22%5D%3Bif(sD!%3D'lj'%26%26sN!%3D'rossia.org')%7Bif(sN.includes('blogspot.co'))%7Breturn%20sD%7Dvar%20i%3D0%3Bwhile(i%3Csdun.length)%7Bif(sN%3D%3Dsdun%5Bi%5D)%7Bif(sD%3D%3D''%7C%7CsD%3D%3D'www')%7Breturn%7Delse%7Breturn%20sD%7D%7Di%2B%3D1%7D%7Dif(sN%3D%3D%22archiveofourown.org%22)%7Bif(Boolean(fU)%26%26fU%3D%3D'users'%26%26Boolean(sFU))%7Breturn%20sFU%7Delse%7Btry%7Bvar%20a%3Ddocument.querySelector('a%5Brel%3D%22author%22%5D').getAttribute('href')%7Dcatch(err)%7Breturn%7Dvar%20aSplit%3Da.substr(1).split('%2F')%3Bif(aSplit%5B0%5D%3D%3D%22users%22%26%26Boolean(aSplit%5B1%5D))%7Breturn%20aSplit%5B1%5D%7D%7D%7Delse%20if(sN%3D%3D%22etsy.com%22)%7Bif(Boolean(fU)%26%26fU%3D%3D'shop'%26%26Boolean(sFU))%7Breturn%20until(sFU%2C'%3F')%7Delse%20if(Boolean(fU)%26%26fU%3D%3D'listing')%7Btry%7Bvar%20a%3Ddocument.querySelector('link%5Bhref%5E%3D%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.etsy.com%2Fshop%2F%22%5D').getAttribute('href')%7Dcatch(err)%7Breturn%7Dif(Boolean(strip(a%2C'%2F')))%7Breturn%20until(strip(a%2C'%2F').split('%2F')%5B2%5D%2C'%3F')%3B%7D%7D%7Delse%20if(sN%3D%3D%22fanfiction.net%22)%7Bif(Boolean(fU)%26%26fU%3D%3D'u'%26%26Boolean(sSFU))%7Breturn%20sSFU%7Delse%7Btry%7Bvar%20a%3Ddocument.querySelector('a%5Bhref%5E%3D%22%2Fu%2F%22%5D').getAttribute('href')%7Dcatch(err)%7Breturn%7Dvar%20aSplit%3Da.substr(1).split('%2F')%3Bif(aSplit%5B0%5D%3D%3D%22u%22%26%26Boolean(aSplit%5B2%5D))%7Breturn%20aSplit%5B2%5D%7D%7D%7Delse%20if(sN%3D%3D%22medium.com%22)%7Bif(Boolean(fU)%26%26fU.charAt(0)%3D%3D'%40')%7Breturn%20fU.substr(1)%7Delse%7Btry%7Bvar%20a%3Ddocument.querySelector('link%5Brel%3D%22author%22%5D').getAttribute('href')%7Dcatch(err)%7Breturn%7Dreturn%20a.substr(a.indexOf('%40')%2B1)%7D%7Delse%20if(sN%3D%3D%22ravelry.com%22)%7Bif(Boolean(fU)%26%26fU%3D%3D'designers')%7Breturn%20sFU%7Delse%7Btry%7Bvar%20a%3Ddocument.querySelector('a%5Bhref%5E%3D%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ravelry.com%2Fdesigners%2F%22%5D').getAttribute('href')%7Dcatch(err)%7Breturn%7Dif(Boolean(strip(a%2C'%2F')))%7Breturn%20strip(a%2C'%2F').split('%2F')%5B2%5D%7D%7D%7Dvar%20i%3D0%3Bwhile(i%3Cfun.length)%7Bif(sN%3D%3Dfun%5Bi%5D%26%26Boolean(fU))%7Bif(sN%3D%3D%22instagram.com%22)%7Btry%7Bvar%20a%3Ddocument.querySelector('link%5Brel%3D%22canonical%22%5D').getAttribute('href')%7Dcatch(err)%7Breturn%7Dvar%20strippedA%3Da.substr(a.indexOf('%2F')%2B2)%3Breturn%20strippedA.split('%2F')%5B1%5D%7Dreturn%20fU%7Di%2B%3D1%7Dif(sN%3D%3D%22journalfen.com%22)%7Bif(Boolean(fU)%26%26fU%3D%3D'users'%26%26Boolean(sFU))%7Breturn%20sFU%7D%7Dif(sN%3D%3D%22last.fm%22%26%26Boolean(fU)%26%26fU%3D%3D'user'%26%26Boolean(sFU))%7Breturn%20sFU%7Dif(sD%3D%3D%22lj%22%26%26sN%3D%3D%22rossia.org%22%26%26Boolean(fU)%26%26Boolean(sFU))%7Bif(fU%3D%3D'community'%7C%7CfU%3D%3D'users')%7Breturn%20sFU%7D%7Dif(sN%3D%3D%22youtube.com%22%26%26Boolean(fU)%26%26Boolean(sFU)%26%26fU%3D%3D'user')%7Breturn%20sFU%7Dreturn%7Dfunction%20boost()%7Bvar%20selectedText%3DgetSelectionHtml()%3Bvar%20subjectText%3Bvar%20strippedURL%3Dstrip(curURL%2C'%2F')%3Bvar%20serverDomain%3DstrippedURL.split('%2F')%5B0%5D%3Bvar%20fU%3DstrippedURL.split('%2F')%5B1%5D%3Bvar%20sFU%3DstrippedURL.split('%2F')%5B2%5D%3Bvar%20sSFU%3DstrippedURL.split('%2F')%5B3%5D%3Bvar%20serverDomainParts%3DserverDomain.split('.')%3Bif(serverDomainParts.length%3C%3D1)%7Breturn%7Delse%20if(serverDomainParts.length%3D%3D2)%7Bvar%20sD%3D''%3Bvar%20sN%3DserverDomainParts%5B0%5D%2B'.'%2BserverDomainParts%5B1%5D%7Delse%20if(serverDomainParts.length%3E%3D3)%7Bvar%20sD%3DserverDomainParts%5B0%5D%3Bvar%20sN%3DserverDomainParts%5B1%5D%2B'.'%2BserverDomainParts%5B2%5D%7Dvar%20curTitle%3Ddocument.title%3Bif(sN%3D%3D%22dreamwidth.org%22%26%26curTitle.includes('%20%7C%20'))%7BcurTitle%3DcurTitle.substr(curTitle.lastIndexOf('%20%7C%20')%2B3)%7Dvar%20linkText%3D%22%22%3Bvar%20userName%3DgetUserName(sD%2CsN%2CfU%2CsFU%2CsSFU)%3Bif(Boolean(userName)%26%26userName.length%3E0)%7Bif(userName.charAt(0)%3D%3D'%40')%7Bvar%20userName%3DuserName.substr(1)%7Delse%20if(userName.substr(0%2C2)%3D%3D'u%3A')%7Bvar%20userName%3DuserName.substr(2)%7Dvar%20userTagSiteAttribute%3DsN%3Bif(sN.includes('blogspot.co'))%7Bvar%20sN%3D'blogspot.com'%3Bvar%20userTagSiteAttribute%3D'blogger.com'%7Delse%20if(sN.includes('pinterest.co'))%7Bvar%20sN%3D'pinterest.com'%3Bvar%20userTagSiteAttribute%3D'pinterest.com'%7Dvar%20linkText%3DlinkText%2B'%3Cuser%20name%3D%22'%2BuserName%2B'%22%20site%3D'%2BuserTagSiteAttribute%2B'%3E%20posted%3A%20'%7DlinkText%3DlinkText%2B'%3Cstrong%3E%3Ca%20href%3D%22'%2BcurURL%2B'%22%3E'%2Besc(curTitle%2C'%40'%2C'%26commat%3B')%2B'%3C%2Fa%3E%3C%2Fstrong%3E'%3Bif(selectedText.length%3E0)%7BlinkText%3DlinkText%2B%22%5Cn%3Cblockquote%3E%20%22%2BselectedText%2B%22%3C%2Fblockquote%3E%22%7Dif(!curTitle.includes(%22Signal%20Boost%3A%20%22))%7BsubjectText%3D%22Signal%20Boost%3A%20%22%2BcurTitle%7Delse%7BsubjectText%3DcurTitle%7DpostURL%3DpostURL%2BencodeURIComponent(linkText)%2B%22%26subject%3D%22%2BencodeURIComponent(subjectText)%3Bwindow.location%3DpostURL%7Dif(confirmBoost())%7Bboost()%7D%7D)()

The original code and my comments on it can be found here.

Update (2/14/2019 11:34 am EST): User name tags are now supported for all DW-recognized functioning platforms except diigo (I can't seem to find any pages to work on) and YouTube videos (I can't find a way to get usernames for them; YouTube user profile pages do get user-tagged, however). See examples below.

Note: I am not directly affiliated with any of the examples, and they are not chosen for content. They are more or less random examples that I got off the sites or were sitting in my history.

AO3 story:

angrymermaids posted: The Ice Between - Chapter 4 - Nibeneth (angrymermaids) - The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien [Archive of Our Own]

AO3 profile:

angrymermaids posted: Nibeneth | Archive of Our Own

Blogger.com:

yetanothermathprogrammingconsultant posted: Yet Another Math Programming Consultant: The 8-queens problem without binary variables

Deadjournal:

greenjester posted: Sanctuary's Journal

Delicious.com: The site seems defunct as far as I can tell.

Diigo.com: Unsupported, as noted above.

Deviantart:

kawacy posted: Art God by kawacy on DeviantArt

Etsy listing:

GoldPersonalized posted: Tiny Initial Bracelet-Dainty Personalized Disk | Etsy

Etsy shop:

GoldPersonalized posted: Personalized Jewelry & Handmade Necklace by GoldPersonalized

Facebook post:

EntertainmentOnFB posted: To celebrate Tropfest 2019, the world’s largest... - Entertainment on Facebook

Facebook profile:

EntertainmentOnFB posted: (92) Entertainment on Facebook - Home

FanFiction.Net story:

The-Agatha-Christiean posted: Death On The Nile - Miss Marple Chapter 1, a miss marple stories fanfic | FanFiction

FanFiction.Net profile:

The-Agatha-Christiean posted: The Agatha Christiean | FanFiction

GitHub: GitHub does not permit JavaScript bookmarklets to be used with its site.

Imzy: The site appears to be defunct.

InsaneJournal:

reijamira posted: Satin Chic - Instructions On How To Upload Mood Themes

Instagram post:

johnboyega posted: John Boyega on Instagram: “A star! Congrats @letitiawright #bafta rising star 🙌🏾”

Instagram profile:

johnboyega posted: John Boyega (@johnboyega) • Instagram photos and videos

Journalfen post:

darksumomo posted: darksumomo | ‘Elementary’ To End After 7 Seasons On CBS

Last.fm profile:

VenomInMyVeins posted: VenomInMyVeins’s Library | Last.fm

LiveJournal post:

ohnotheydidnt posted: How embarrassing! Youtuber MKBHD is exposing celebs sponsoring Android phones from iPhones - Oh No They Didn't!

Lj.rossia.org community:

ljr_news posted: LJR: новости

Medium post:

EventTeri posted: Decentralization is Not Enough – Offline Camp – Medium

Pinboard.in bookmark:

gregory31415 posted: Pinboard: Bookmark Detail

Pinterest: Pinterest does not permit JavaScript bookmarklets.

Plurk profile:

Alice posted: Alice [Alice] on Plurk - Plurk

Ravelry page:

jill-mcgee posted: Ravelry: Jill's McGee's Ravelry Downloads - patterns

Twitter.com: Twitter does not permit JavaScript bookmarklets.

Tumblr post:

aniamra posted: ɐuıɐɯɹ∀

Wordpress post:

frank posted: Speaking of Wood | rusticwoodart

YouTube profile:

monostereoJK posted: MONOMAN - YouTube

No DW-supported user tag:

BBC - Culture - How black women were whitewashed by art

Dreamwidth entry URL: https://lj-writes.dreamwidth.org/2019/02/14/bookmarklet-fork.html

Signal Boost: By Fairer Stars

ljlee — Thu, 14 Feb 2019 01:48:02 GMT

lunafana posted: By Fairer Stars - Lunatique (lunafana) - Black Panther (2018) [Archive of Our Own]

After the death of T'Chaka's brother N'Jobu, Zuri makes a request that changes the course of young Erik's life and perhaps the course of Wakandan history. This is a collection of short stories about Erik Stevens/N'Jadaka growing up in Wakanda.

This is from 2018 but I've been getting kudos on it lately, and I'm forever meaning to continue it!

Dreamwidth entry URL: https://lj-writes.dreamwidth.org/2019/02/14/by-fairer-stars-1.html

Signal Boost: Olympic win!

ljlee — Tue, 12 Feb 2019 20:00:13 GMT

brithistorian posted: Olympic win!

On Friday, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Committee announced that they had enough metal to meet their goal of producing all the medals for the 2020 Games from metal recovered through electronics recycling!

That's great news! BBC Sports has the story.

Dreamwidth entry URL: https://lj-writes.dreamwidth.org/81238.html

Signal Boost: Markdown Simplifies Formatting Your DW Posts

ljlee — Tue, 12 Feb 2019 11:12:04 GMT

jesse_the_k posted: Markdown Simplifies Formatting Your DW Posts

Markdown is a minimal way to format your text. The goal is to use "natural" formats, similar to email. Software that understands Markdown translates it to HTML. Markdown is much easier--and more forgiving--than HTML. This post has the markdown you'll use the most.

The full spec is hosted by its creator, Jon Gruber https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax

(via manapotion)

Dreamwidth entry URL: https://lj-writes.dreamwidth.org/2019/02/12/markdown-dreamwidth.html

Social media platform review: Living the Dreamwidth

ljlee — Tue, 12 Feb 2019 07:13:35 GMT

The third post in my social media platform review series is about my experience of Dreamwidth(DW), the platform I am writing this post on. Again, since this post is mainly about my experiences with the platform and evaluation of that experience, I suggest readers turn to other resources if they want fuller background about DW including history, status in fandom, and FAQ/howto.

Current and future posts in this series are:

Summary of platform: Primarily text-based blogging platform with robust privacy controls, community functions, and threaded comments
Platform usage: Repository of original content (primarily essays), links to my own and others' off-site content, discussions on communities and posts

Remember how I said in my Tumblr review that I would never have gone over to Tumblr if Dreamwidth weren't so dead? Well, as they say: It's alive! It's aliiive!

With DW traffic soaring by a factor of ten in the wake of Tumblr's adult content ban, I watched as people made new accounts or became more active on existing ones. Users wrote a bunch of guides about migrating from Tumblr to Dreamwidth, such as my buddy lb_lee's Dreamwidth 101 and aniamra's A Tumblr User's Guide to Dreamwidth, star-anise's Basic Dreamwidth Guide for Tumblr Users and so on. I actually read and learned from some of them despite being a longtime DW user. I got a bunch of subscriptions from Tumblr and Mastodon friends and subscribed back, resulting in a lively reading page.

Heck, I started getting comments on my posts! Sometimes more than I could respond to! This was exactly the kind of interaction I had craved online, the thoughtful discussions and appreciative comments, when I decamped for Tumblr.

To be honest, despite moving to Tumblr because I wanted more fannish interactions and conversations, I had not gotten enough of it on Tumblr, either. A post could get hundreds of notes and still get very few comments. While those reblogs and likes were good for a thrill of validation, thoughtful discussions were comparatively rare though they did happen, generally with known and trusted friends much as on DW. In addition, it wouldn't be Tumblr without randos coming onto a post to start a fight and anons sending nasty comments.

The flip side of the quality engagement on DW is the effort involved. By default DW is geared toward original content, unless it's a link to existing content. You know, because it's a normal blogging platform that doesn't have reblogs. Not every post has to be a masterpiece of craftsmanship, but it does at least require that some words be strung together or that you have an image you have authorization to upload. This is in contrast to Tumblr, where it's perfectly possible to populate a blog purely with reblogs, without even typing anything if you don't bother to tag (which many do not, to my pearl-clutching horror).

Although I created quite a few of my own posts on Tumblr, most of the posts on my blog there are still queued and reblogged content. As one Tumblr post went, "Follow me for more great posts that other people made!" I can't do that with Dreamwidth; my blog is only as active as the content I myself create, even if it's just a link with commentary. Also, whereas I could use comments via reblog to populate my Tumblr blog, with DW my comments on other people's posts stayed on their blog and only my own posts "counted" in how active my blog was. You can make link posts more easily with astolat's signal boost bookmarklet.

I've also been making effort to improve on my DW experiences from last time so I can find more people and content, especially now that DW is more active than it has been in years. I've joined communities and created one myself (i_made_a_choice dedicated to--who else?--Finn), and these comms have enriched my reading list and connected me to so many interesting posts and people. I'm having more in-depth fandom discussions than I can keep up with and it's a great feeling!

One of the strength of DW as a platforms is its organization, and I've cleaned house by organizing my tags¹ and changing my URL to something I've been using across platforms. I had fun bringing back my old mood theme and writing a mood themes guide, too.

A final change is that I've gotten used to hand-coding again because the WYSIWYG editor is temperamental at best and the beta text editor, which you can enable here and which I much prefer, only supports handcoding at the moment (see sylvaine's guide on using HTML in DW and the beta editor). I'm not sure I'd go back rich-text formatting even if the editor added it.

DW has its problems, of course. Limited image hosting is one of them, and personally I haven't even touched my hosting allotment yet. I use PostImage, which is free although I won't say it's the most reliable service--it changed all my image URLs without forwarding at one point, resulting in a rash of broken images--and you should read their terms of use to see if it's right for your needs.

Switching back to spending more time on DW has necessitated some adjustments, including new mindsets, new organization, and refreshment of old skills, but it has been more than worth it for me. It took some effort to customize the blog for my needs, but I like that sense of mastery and improvement. And now I have the added engagement and activity to show for my efforts, too. I'm so happy to be spending more time here and I hope it lasts.

Notes
1. You need to adjust your settings as well if you want a multilevel view

Dreamwidth entry URL: https://lj-writes.dreamwidth.org/2019/02/12/dreamwidth-review.html

This isn't reblogging. It's not.

ljlee — Tue, 12 Feb 2019 04:04:36 GMT

astolat posted: Signal Boost: SignalBoost bookmarklet update! Now boosts HTML

This isn't bringing reblogs to DW, it just automates the manual process of linking and quoting. I think it's a great idea and so far it works well!

Dreamwidth entry URL: https://lj-writes.dreamwidth.org/2019/02/12/signal-boost-bookmarklet.html

Finn as a cult survivor

ljlee — Wed, 06 Feb 2019 15:19:52 GMT

One of the criticisms Finn's writing has received is that he recovers too quickly from a lifetime of brainwashing by the First Order, and is overall written as too well-adjusted to be a victim of lifelong abuse.

It would take too much space to go into all of the ways Finn is still visibly traumatized in TFA and also TLJ, but I'd like to focus on one way that Finn has emphatically not recovered with lightning speed from brainwashing: The major moment in TFA that can be interpreted as Finn showing cult survivor behavior, that is, his speech to Maz and the others that there is no fighting back against the First Order and they all have to run.

In the comment that inspired this post, aniustaluwis excerpted a passage from Combatting Cult Mind Control that talked about the duality that can take place in cult members:

[W]hen dealing with a cult member, it is extremely important to always keep in mind that he has two identities. . . . One moment the person is speaking in cultic jargon with a hostile or elitist know-it-all attitude. Then, without warning, he seems to become become his old self . . .

Compare this to some of Finn's lines in the cantina scene:

There is no fight against the First Order! Not one we can win.

You don't know the First Order like I do. They'll slaughter us. We all need to run.

To be sure Finn is speaking here as a former member of First Order, not a current one--but the certainty of the First Order's invincibility is very much a part of him in this early period of his escape, even if his conviction in it as a force for good no longer is. Cults are frequently about certainty in an uncertain world, and he shows that in spades here, though as a person who is caught on the wrong side of that certainty.

Not only can the audience see this shift in gear, the characters can see it too. Look at Rey's reaction here. She and Han both give Finn a look when he starts talking in this way, indicating they've noticed a change in his behavior. While Han is too jaded/experienced to show much consternation, Rey is increasingly agitated at Finn's change in demeanor and shows it.

To be sure part of her shock and upset is because she still thought of him as a Resistance fighter at this point, but the thing is, he was so convincing to her in that assumed role. He had been brave and skilled in fighting and running from the First Order, yet still showed caring and compassion. He was good at thinking on his feet and never gave up even in impossible situations. There had been nothing to suggest that he was, at heart, despairing of the fight and so certain of the First Order's victory.

Yet here he was, telling her with eerie certainty that the fight was hopeless and they all needed to run to save themselves. It must have seemed like the guy she got to know and had fallen for in such a short time had turned into a completely different person.

Even Maz comments on the change, if you take the novelization into account. After Finn's first outburst about the futility of fighting the First Order, she says:

I'm looking at the eyes of a man who wants to run.

In Chapter XIII of the novelization after Kylo Ren took Rey, however, she says:

Oh wow... I see something else now. I see the eyes of a warrior

~~This passage also describes Finn out of breath, tears glistening on his cheeks as he gasps to Han, "He took her!" I am going to die of the feels right now thanks~~

These reactions and lines of dialogue strengthen the case that Finn's pivot from a kind of calm despair back to a willingness to fight isn't inconsistent writing, but rather symptomatic of his being a survivor of the mind control cult that First Order indoctrination was for Stormtroopers like him.

Dreamwidth entry URL: https://lj-writes.dreamwidth.org/2019/02/07/finn-cult.html

Social media platform review: Tumblr trouble

ljlee — Thu, 31 Jan 2019 18:26:20 GMT

The second post in my series reviewing my experience and usage of social media platforms focuses on Tumblr, which was Fandom Central for a decade and arguably left indelible marks on fandom and online culture. A full rundown of Tumblr's history, fandom significance, and recent developments is beyond the scope of this post, which is about my personal experiences of the platform. Tumblr is well known enough that I won't be explaining some of its basics as I did with Mastodon, so if you need more information please refer to the links in this paragraph.

Current and future posts in this series are:

Summary of platform: Multi-format blogging site with nearly limitless image hosting and unique--and problematic--reblog functions.

Platform usage: Image-heavy fan posts and meta, "collecting" content I like, discussions and discourse

I am certain I would never have gone to Tumblr if Dreamwidth weren't so dead. I had been on LiveJournal and then on DW for years during the peak of my Avatar: The Last Airbender fandom involvement. I was comfortable with the platforms, particularly DW that I was getting settled into, and had made friends there. I had a Tumblr since 2011, but used it extremely intermittently through 2011-2013 and not at all in 2014.¹ I found the platform confusing and had heard horror stories about it.

Most of my DW friends were on Tumblr, though. That was where fandom was. I might be getting one update every three days on my DW feed, and I didn't know how to find new people. Tumblr looked intimidating but also increasingly tempting with its neverending rush of content, including incredibly image-heavy content that I couldn't imagine doing on DW. I saw fairly ordinary fannish Tumblr posts getting hundreds and thousands of notes and I wanted that interaction, that validation. In early 2015 logged into my inactive Tumblr account, took a breath, and dove in.

As expected, I hated it. I had no idea how to find people, how reblogs worked, how tags worked. I still had the same people-finding problem for a while; I found a lot of stuff relevant to my interests through site-wide search, but the search function was crap for more detailed terms. At the same time, the moment I started following more people I was drowning in content. The site was disorganized and confusing, with more content than I knew what to do with and too little of the stuff I wanted. I almost ragequit more than once, believing I was too old or this and perpetually out of place.

Dreamwidth was still dead, though, and I was out of ideas. I kept on with Tumblr, if intermittently.

I got used to the platform gradually, then in spurts. I found more people to follow by ogling posts and the threads they spawned, and quickly learned the best stuff was not in the tags but on my dash--if I curated it well enough. I figured out how reblog worked and learned to reblog "clean" while adding tag commentary. I even started to queue posts after a while. The firehose of content, which I found so alienating and unmanageable, became increasingly alluring. Arguing on reblogs felt cathartic if ultimately unfulfilling. I was starting to get hooked.

What finally got me hardcore into Tumblr was finding the big and active fandom for the new Star Wars movies. I didn't really get into the fandom until Rogue One, but once I did I was totally sucked in. There was so much fanwork to consume, so many interesting ideas and theories to discuss, so many raging arguments to be had.

I also reblogged avidly because it was often impossible to find stuff on Tumblr once it had passed by my dash. Sitewide search was pretty much hopeless for detailed searches. Even if you remembered what blog you saw a piece of art or a text post on, the search might still fail or that particular blog's tag system might be impenetrable--or, a personal horror of mine (shared by rose_griffes), the blog might not use tags at all. URL changing is free and forwarding is not provided by default,² meaning some links were irreversibly broken even if the user was active and keeping the original post online and accessible.³ Just about the only way I could be sure to find content in the future was to reblog it and lock it down to my own tagging system. It was like I was playing Pokémon with Tumblr posts, "gotta catch 'em all!" Looking back I was very much showing my traditional blogging background, seeing my blog as a fixed archive rather than something fleeting and ephemeral.

On the creator side I again found myself producing long and involved analytical essays which have always been my default mode of engagement with fandom. I know Tumblr is not really the right format for long essays, or for content organization in general, but my posts were getting read and generating discussion which was really all I wanted.

I also branched out into the kind of content that Tumblr's image hosting and gallery format made possible, such as edits of animated gifs and visual parallels. This edit set illustrating the concepts of cultural appropriation and cultural sharing through Avatar: The Last Airbender was arguably a meta post in itself that would have been a lot wordier and, frankly, more boring in pure text.⁴ The emergence of such edit and gif posts was a case of the medium defining and creating content, and as far as I can tell fandom is still searching for an alternative to Tumblr for these kinds of posts.⁵

I had come around from disliking Tumblr outright to enjoying myself and spending a great deal of time on it, but all was not well. The very things that made Tumblr so engaging, the constant flow of content, the drama and discourse, were also starting to wear on my nerves. Looking back at my DW entries, I was making noise as early as December 2017 about spending time away from Tumblr.

I would still go on with Tumblr for another year until, eventually, Tumblr discourse caught up to me on a personal level and Tumblr's business model caught up to it on a sitewide level. Exactly one year after my 2017 post about taking a break/leaving, I made another post announcing I was spending less time on Tumblr and spreading out to other platforms.

For two years of intensive use, Tumblr was my go-to place for all sorts of fannish content whether it was suitable for that content or not: Long meta essays, liveblog threads composed of short impressions, image-heavy posts of animated gifs and edits, and reblogs of other people's content. The first category, essays, are being ported over here to DW. I have Mastodon now for liveblogs and it works much better for the purpose than Tumblr did.⁶ The third category of animated gif/edits posts have no easy alternative, and I will continue to use Tumblr for that purpose in the near future alongside Pillowfort.

As for the fourth category, reblogs, I don't feel as much of a need to collect content now that I've leaned back from Tumblr. When I do go on Tumblr I still queue things I like on my dash and that's about it. Reblogging is such a distinctive function of Tumblr, a very fraught one at that which takes away or at least limits creators' control over their content. It has also been an avenue for conflict and harassment along with sitewide search/tagging. It's no wonder there was horror at the suggestion of bringing reblogs to Dreamwidth. As much enjoyment and creativity as the reblog channeled for me and millions of other users, it should be left at Tumblr's doorstep.

I'm glad for the time I spent time on Tumblr. I was able to stretch myself as a fan and as a writer there. It's where I made--and broke--relationships with other fans. I'm just as glad to get away from Tumblr, and to make more use of other platforms. Tumblr will remain a tool for me in fandom communication and content hosting; it just won't be my only outlet anymore, and it never should have been.

Notes:
1. Source: My Tumblr archive. You can look through your archive, too, by appending /archive after your URL. I think you'll find it interesting.
2. Users could code a redirect into their blog themes, but as with all client-side replacements for what are properly server-side functions it was imperfect at best. The linked example would not work for clients who had disabled Javascript.
3. This wouldn't be a problem if it were a case of the creator not wanting the post to be accessible anymore, e.g. they deleted the post or deactivated. But you frequently had these situation where creators wanted their content found and users wanted to find it, but couldn't because the site functioned so poorly. And of course, reblogs that persisted despite edits and deletes to the original meant that creators who didn't want their content found and circulated anymore were out of luck if it had already been reblogged too widely.
4. In fact, I started that post as a text post before I realized it would be better in visual form.
5. Pillowfort has reblogs but no reblog with commentary, and currently next to no image hosting.
6. For example I did a thread on S1E12 of Star Wars: Resistance while watching, and Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis trilogy starting with Book 1: Dawn.

Dreamwidth entry URL: https://lj-writes.dreamwidth.org/2019/02/01/tumblr-trouble.html

Rey and Finn: Responses to political and economic oppression

ljlee — Wed, 30 Jan 2019 23:52:59 GMT

In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.
-Anatole France

I have written before about how Finn’s decency was an act of subversion against the militaristic totalitarianism he grew up under. There’s another character in TFA who is also kind and selfless in an unjust system, and that’s Rey. The difference is the kind of oppression these two characters lived under, which are diametrically opposed but just as corrosive in their different ways.

Finn was a slave soldier of a totalitarian dictatorship, while Rey was an exploited worker under a capitalist who could rob and swindle people in the absence of law and order. To put it in a simplified way, Finn lived in a system with no freedoms while Rey lived in a system of unchecked freedoms. And while freedom without any restriction might sound like a wonderful thing, in practice it tends to mean that people with power and capital get to restrict the freedoms of people without such advantages.

The only reason I don’t call Rey a slave is because, as Finn pointed out and she doesn’t deny, she was always “free” to leave. Of course, not everyone has Rey’s skills (these being another form of capital) and for them the freedom to leave was meaningless when they had no better alternatives. It’s also worth pointing out that the reason Rey wasn’t leaving and wanted to go back was her amnesia and trauma, which parallels the way many mentally ill people are trapped in exploitative situations due to their illness.

One way to see the contrast between these two systems of oppression is the tragicomical scene where Finn stumbles into Niima Outpost straight out of the desert, begging for water. Horrific as Finn’s former circumstances were, as little kindness as he had been taught to expect from the world, it didn’t occur to him that he couldn’t get a glass of water when he was parched. The First Order had no reason to dehydrate or starve their soldiers, after all, unless the deprivation served some useful purpose such as punishment or making an example. It says something that the inhabitants of Niima did not offer the most basic resources that even an escapee from a fascist armed force took for granted.

(And no, the lack of assistance to Finn was not because Niima Outpost was located in a desert. Many desert cultures in our world developed customs of hospitality to strangers in part because their surroundings were so harsh. There is nothing about being in a desert environment that by itself makes people standoffish to strangers and unwilling to offer aid.)

And how did Rey react to this dog-eat-dog disorder where no one did a kindness for anyone else and it was everyone for themselves? She went out of her way to fight for and save a droid she didn’t even know. She gave up what was an actual feast in her hunger, and spent what was to her precious time away from Jakku where her loved ones might come looking for her. Like Finn, she acted directly against the logic of her surroundings: Finn disobeyed orders in a situation where defiance meant swift punishment, while Rey refused to go along with a brutally exploitative capitalism where only profit and survival counted for anything.

This difference shows in what I see as the definitive moments early on in the movie when these two characters show who they were. For Finn it was when he refused to shoot unarmed prisoners when ordered to do so, and for Rey it was when she refused to sell out BB-8 for her own survival and comfort.

These choices had real consequences for both characters. For Finn it meant immediate danger; for Rey it meant not just hunger pangs but also the lack of a much-needed store of food when she could never be sure when she would get her next meal, and how much of it.

Of course both political and economic oppression, when pushed, converge into violence against the weak. Although the trade for BB-8 was presented to Rey as a transaction, that supposed deal (which was already incredibly unfair–I mean, food in exchange for a fully functional military-grade astrometrics droid?) escalated to robbery once Unkar Plutt decided “no” was not an option. The same lack of governance and order that allowed him to rip the scavengers off and keep them in a soft form of indentured servitude also allowed him to rob these desperately poor people with impunity. In this way, markets without government or rules overlap with totalitarianism in deprieving the vulnerable of their choices and exposing them to violence.

(There are still significant differences, of course. For one thing Rey did not seem overly worried about retaliation, and later wanted to return to Jakku–and probably Niima Outpost, since that was where her family would know where to find her–once BB-8 was safe. This is in contrast to Finn, who knew his life was forfeit if the First Order caught up with him. Of course, Rey could be so confident because Unkar Plutt can’t bring to bear much more force than a few goons she can dispatch easily. For people without her fighting skills, or for those faced with a more dangerous opponent, the situation could be very different.)

Though originally Finn and Rey started with simple refusals to go along, they both had to escalate to more overt defiance because of the pushback their actions got. Finn’s refusal to kill led to the threat of discipline and his choice to escape with Poe; Rey’s refusal of Unkar Plutt’s offer led to his attempt to kidnap BB-8 and her choice to fight back. After these acts of defiance, Finn’s and Rey’s paths converged on helping the Resistance and carrying on Poe’s mission.

Both characters were, however, limited in what they were willing to do because of their personal traumas, which were rooted in the different ways they had been hurt by their upbringing. Finn was very reasonably terrified of the First Order’s willingness and ability to annihilate whatever stood in its way, while Rey feared being abandoned and forgotten all her life. It’s true that her original trauma came from being left on Jakku, but it says something about her isolation at Niima Outpost that no one helped a child who was hurting and alone. Her surroundings were as hostile to a girl starving in body and soul as they were to a man desperate for a sip of water. Both violence and alienation left deep marks on our two leads’ spirits.

As I will discuss in a later essay, the core story of The Force Awakens is the story of how Rey and Finn helped each other heal so they could fight back against the forces that had hurt them. Their acts of courage and decency, though personal at the start, were ultimately acts of resistance that would bring down the political and economic orders that had tried and failed to crush them.

And though the tyrannical First Order is the more visible and immediate enemy, it’s important to remember from Rey’s story how unjust and damaging unchecked markets can be. The fight is not only about bringing down fascism but what comes after: unless the Resistance and their allies can establish communities based not only on political and economic freedom but also mutual aid and justice, they may find themselves fighting the same fight again much as their legendary heroes are.

(This essay was originally posted to Tumblr on January 26, 2017.)

Dreamwidth entry URL: https://lj-writes.dreamwidth.org/79367.html

Icon posting!

ljlee — Sun, 27 Jan 2019 23:43:39 GMT

Comment "hit me up" and I'll pick 3 of your icons for you to comment on! Here are the three lb_lee picked: Soseono, Deokman, misil.

This one is my icon of the character Soseono, from I think the show Jumong. As longtime readers know, she is an ancient Korean queen from the first century B.C., and is my personal heroine whom I've been trying to write a story about. I especially enjoy depictions of older Soseono because older heroines are so rarely acknowledged both in history and fiction. I don't use it nearly often enough and should begin to do so when the neutral face of displeasure is called for.

This is a fictional depiction of another historical Korean lady--Princess Deokman who would become Queen Seondeok, a seventh-century Korean queen. This is her as portrayed in the show Queen Seondeok. I particularly like this picture because of its anachronistic depiction of a woman in period costume with earbuds. Obviously this is not a scene from the actual show, as that would have been a very different show, but is rather a picture of actress Lee Yo-won relaxing during downtime. (Koreans find pictures like this endlessly amusing; see also heartthrob Lee Joon Ki using a smartphone in costume.) Due to the earbuds I often use this for my music-related posts as well.

You know how it's often the villain that makes the show? In the case of the aforementioned Queen Seondeok this was DEFINITELY the case. This icon is a depiction of Lady Misil, Deokman's main antagonist from the show, whose ambition and ruthlessness threatened Deokman literally from birth. As Deokman's political rival Misil was a major source of conflict and tension, not to mention a charismatic and sympathetic character in her own right. When she died close to the end of the show's run after her final defeat to Deoman, viewers were posting faux ending notices like "The show Queen Misil has drawn to an end. Thank you for your viewership." QS still dragged on a few more episodes afterward, but ratings fell significantly and it wasn't interesting anymore without Misil providing that constant sense of menace. She truly was the heart of the show, and the way the show focused on the relationships of women with the tension between Misil and Deokman as the central conflict still makes it unusual in the annals of K-Dramas and, dare I say, media in general. Dreamwidth entry URL: https://lj-writes.dreamwidth.org/79358.html