Penny for your thoughts: how do you represent a page break in your writing? There are so many deviations (—, ~@~, -+-, a horizontal line, etc) and I just find it interesting to find in fics. Personally, I use “-+-+-+-“, so what about you?

ao3commentoftheday:

When I posted on FFN I did a line of dashes ———–. I still do this in google docs sometimes. These days in AO3, though, I just use the horizontal rule:

What about the rest of you?

I’ve heard that fancy separators made from characters can be annoying for blind readers. Screen readers tend to read each character individually.

If you want to take that into account, using only one type of symbol (many screen readers say ‘20 dashes’ instead of repeating ‘dash’ 20 times), or using the horizontal rule/line like ao3commentoftheday might be appreciated.

Personally, I find “-+-+-” really pretty, though. And tildes, “~~~,” with or without other characters. Tildes are the best!

That “writing gene” ask was really offensive. People write, draw, etc. with widely varying levels of ability. To suggest that some people outright just can’t do these things is ridiculous, and discourages new content creators from even getting started. If you want to write, and are willing to invest your time in it, you can.

ao3commentoftheday:

I think the intention behind it was that not everyone has the natural talent to write (or do anything else for that matter). I don’t think the anon was trying to insult people or discourage creators. They just wanted to give props to the people whose stuff they read. I agree that time and practice will greatly improve things. 

Disclaimer. Anon hit a nerve and I replied strongly. I’m too tired to rewrite, so can y’all try to add “I feel this way” and/or “It seems like you’re suggesting” every time I make a blanket statement?*

*Blanket statement: something that leaves no room for disagreement, ie. exactly what I got frustrated with Anon about.

It was NOT offensive. People can be disabled. They can not speak the language.

Sometimes I resort to gestures because I lose the ability to use nouns. Just days where half the nouns I say come out as the wrong thing. My sister’s reading disorder makes grammar and spelling very difficult.

Yes, we technically CAN write. And people who find things even harder can too.  But you need to respect people’s right to decide that the cost is too high, and say we can’t. If something is so hard that doing it saps all joy, insisting that ‘everyone can write’ becomes a form of pressure, not encouragement.

This isn’t to discourage people. It’s about shades of grey. Please don’t make black and white rules, and then police people for not abiding by them.

I know a lot of people get discouraged by looking at their kudos-hits ratios because it appears like only 5-10% of readers actually leave a kudo. I think it’d be interesting to do a study where users look at random works/pages of their History section and see how many hits they left, to get on average how many hits one person makes. This doesn’t including the effects of bots or other factors, but it could be a start to making the ratio less discouraging. (I’ve hit one fic I love 83 times >.<)

ao3commentoftheday:

Great idea! Also, I’ve totally got you beat XD

This is the post I’m referencing.

[Image show a story named ‘A Few Tricks Up My Sleeve’ by notapepper. It has 35 chapters. A red line is drawn around the words ‘visited 140 times.‘

End ID.]

@goldenfalls asked @ao3commentoftheday about people checking how many hits they’d left on various AO3 fics. People are discouraged by the rate of comments they get per fic vs. how many hits the fic has. 

So how do hits compare to actual people who’ve read the story? I spent the last 2 days going through 199 pages, and 5 years, of my AO3 History. Here’s some stuff I noticed while doing this:

  • For the last two years, if I actually read a one chapter fic it usually says I’ve visited from 2-3 times.
  • Fics I’ve only visited once are mostly fics I opened, read a line, realized that tone, spelling, or plot wasn’t what I wanted, and closed.
  • However, from 2013-2105, many of the 1 chapter fic I did read only had 1 hit from me. Maybe increased users mean another person is more likely to show up while you’re reading and make it count as two hits? Or I started reading on both phone and computer enough to affect things?
  • Fics that aren’t in my main fandoms end up with a lot more hits from me, because I have to come back multiple times before I finish.
  • If a fic has more than 10 chapters, I usually leave less hits than there are chapters. Even if I’m reading as it updates.
  • I’m bad with names, so a lot of fics had a bunch of hits because I kept checking it to remind myself who this authour I was following was.
  • I’d see favourite fics with only one note, even though I’ve read it 5 times. I’m assuming it’s because I read it on LJ or Tumblr. I may even have only clicked on the fic to navigate to the authour’s page and see if they have new fic. (Otherwise, I probably reread and commented.) 
  • Sometimes I get an email notification for a new fic, open it, and then go read it on Tumblr instead. (This has nothing to do with the data, I just saw a 86 chapter fic with one hit and was reminded that I never read that authour on AO3 for some reason.)
  • One fic had 10 notes and I never actually read it. I liked the authour and kept opening it and then leaving, before finally accepting I was just NOT interested in that fandom.
  • One 28 chapter fic that I read TWICE has only 4 hits from me. How?

I’d guess that everyone who takes the time to comment counts for about 2 hits, and as time goes on it’s going to be more like 3. Recently, a lot of fic I don’t remember reading twice has had 3 or 4 hits. If you’ve been on the site a while, it probably seems like a lot less engagement just from that.

@destinationtoast, was there a much, much easier way to do this?

I’m posting my tables on my Blogspot, because I can not format on Tumblr at all. The main table is up now, but I hope to do a few more that show changes over time, and that’s going to take some math. (A lot of boring subtraction, to be exact.) I’m also hoping to add colours, since Tableizer ate the ones I added in Word to make it more readable.

csykora:

chirotus:

constant-instigator:

ermefinedining:

This map should be included in every history book.

Oh wow! I’ve been wanting this for ages!

This needs to be in every history book along with a map showing where those nations have been pushed to now.

(I’m gonna be slightly annoying and show off many pretty maps that are not what was asked for before I get to the map that is what was asked for.)

native-land.ca

“One of the most distinctive things about the Native Land maps are the borders….Indigenous identities don’t map (pardon the pun) precisely onto modern European notions of nationality and territory…. Colonialism lives and dies by the map — and the carved-up world is so central to our perspective that many of us today see the earth’s lands primarily as chunks of nations….

The reality is just that borders don’t always function the same as the simplified maps imply when it comes to indigenous history; there is a lot more movement, overlap, and complexity than one nation on each chunk of land.”

The Aboriginal Mapping Network at nativemaps.org is a great site for finding resources (and a whole map community)! They got:

–Global ones like LandMark, an “online, interactive global platform to provide maps and other critical information on lands that are collectively held and used by Indigenous Peoples and local communities.”  

–Living Atlases created by nations and alliances like voicesontheland.org, created the Okanagan Nation

–More maps like these ludicrously pretty ones of Hupačasath lands, traditional sites, and place names. There are many, many more, and you’ll probably be able to find your region/people/language. Or just wander around!

-Links to Treaty Maps, this interactive map from the Canadian government, and historic maps like this series, which I like because it covers the early 20th century, which is often taught in classrooms as “After Indians.” Here are more maps of current populations and reservation lands in the United States.

Are none of these quite what you asked for? Yeah—I’m making a bit of a dig, but it’s not against anyone asking.

It’s against the fact that the map in the original post is from the 1970s. The linguistic theory has evolved since then; this is the map currently used in textbooks and even on Wikipedia. And I’m not talking about the level of detail, I mean there have been genuine changes in how scholars think the languages are related, and that has changed our picture of pre-Columbian historical events. It is very bonkers that the first map, which has been around long enough to look super dated to me, has never been taught this whole time.

This is the map you were asking for.

Land cessions animated by @sunisup from maps by Sam B. Hilliard of Louisiana State University, first published 1972.

I’m never criticizing anyone for starting with basic facts. We all should! I’m criticizing every history teacher you’ve had (and school board who limited the teacher, and college that didn’t prepare the teacher, and…) who didn’t do their job of tellin’ you the facts in elementary school, when you deserved to learn.

Facts about Native history aren’t Secret Wisdom. We don’t need a special reason to learn some facts. Native scholarship and Native scholars are thriving, so let’s explore their work, and question why information that exists has been deliberately overlooked so often.

loner-witch:

Just a little memory dump here, but stuff like the fidget spinner abuse bs has been happening since the fidget spinner was a thing.

Kids werent allowed to play with pencils, if we were caught fidgetting with something it was taken away and seen as a distraction.

I distinctly remember throughout highschool I was having an extremely hard time focusing BC of my ADHD, so I started attending classes with one headphone in and my music on the lowest volume setting possible. I got in trouble time after time after time and I kept getting told to keep it out of my ear. Of course I didn’t listen and kept doing it, because it helped me focus and I wasn’t gonna let kids that used it to ignore class get in the way of me being able to function.

Eventually my teachers gave up trying to make me stop and eventually also realized that it was improving my grades, so I was left alone as long as I was functioning to standard.

Word traveled around through the school staff (because they loved me for some reason and knew what i was going through at home) and basically teachers were told to give me a pass on one ear buds and sitting wherever, as long as i paid attention to class. And to confront me if I started having issues.

In my forensics and chem class I had a horrible time sitting at those tiny desks so I talked with my teachers and I was allowed to sit at lab tables where I could stretch and shake my legs noiselessly, and also gently swivel on the seat to stim (lab tables always had those flat circular swivel chairs).

I was sitting at my chair in chem one day and the entire class got stopped because kids had started seeing me sitting at the table and on the lab chair and tried to follow suit, but were only doing it fuck around and ignoring class. One kid had successfully joined me at the lab tables because he too functioned and focused better sitting back at the tables. Fair enough.

My teacher Mrs.Reals gave an entire ten minute speech about how we were allowed to sit there because we paid attention to class and got work done and didnt fool around, and that other people weren’t allowed to sit back there because A: they didnt ‘need’ to, and B: because they were only doing it to fool around and ignore class. After that, I got nasty glares from kids for the rest of the semester and half my class hated me for functioning differently, and them not being able to capitalize off it.

Another instance was during my forensics class where I discussed with my teacher Mrs Adams if I could use my ear bud, and we both agreed only if I were to pay attention. I proved I would, and was allowed to.

One day we were watching a cold case and dissecting it and taking notes, and out of nowhere she paused it and pointed in my general direction and said “ear bud. Out. Now.”. My stomach jumped into my throat and I reached to take it out and she said “not you –omitted–. David. Ear bud. Out.”. And David had the absolute ballsacks to say “but she’s allowed to!! That isnt fair!!” And Mrs.Adams promptly said and I quote “she is allowed to because it helps her focus and she actually gets her work done. Her grades prove it. You dont. Your grades prove it. Give me your phone.”. And for the rest of the class I could feel his eyes burning through the back of my head and Mrs.Adams (who was seated directly in front of me) just occasionally told me I was okay and she would handle it.

Thankfully where I went to school, the teachers liked me and understood that I needed to do things differently from other kids and that others did too. A lot of schools arent like that and couldn’t care less about defending their neurodivergent students.

So the tldr here is; neurotypicals, please take note: if you cannot function properly doing the things we do to function in class, please to not ruin it for us for the sake of ‘equality’.

If you can do it and it helps you, I fully support you. And you help normalize it for us, so that’s great too.

But please dont try to screw other kids over because you think it’s an easy way to get out of doing school work and to distract yourself from class, because then it ruins it for everyone. Especially kids like me who would suffer otherwise.

I’m 30. My son is 7, lives in Canada, and goes to a really good school. If you want to listen, I’d love to talk about some of the ways school is helping him suffer less then I did.

  • There are a variety of chairs around the room – rocking, wobbling, stools, little backs that sit on the floor as a sort of half seat. All kids are allowed to try them. If one helps/doesn’t distract you, you’re allowed to use it.
  • Same with fidgets. They sit in a basket, and can be freely taken, or a teacher will hand you one. My son isn’t allowed the skooshy balls with rubber hair, because he pulls the hair off, but plays with a bendy segmented snake. Other kids have similar allowed/not allowed rules.
  • HEADPHONES! Everyone is allowed to try noise cancelling headphones if they want. I sometimes see a kid wandering down the hall casually wearing a pair. It’s normal!
  • He’s Autistic AND has ADHD. It sucks. Sometimes he gets violent and aggressive with the staff. This makes the other kids nervous. So while he was gone one day, they did a teaching segment about Autism and the challenges he faces. Explained the reasons for his behavior and tried to make it seem logical. They also have him in a quiet room when he’s doing things he doesn’t like, so students don’t see possible melt downs. The staff want to avoid situations where the class sees him acting in ways that make them uncomfortable. 
  • When he gets aggressive, the staff tries to figure out why. He isn’t a ‘bad kid,’ they assume there’s been a trigger that can hopefully be eliminated or alleviated.
  • Kids are buddied up with him. Calm, patient kids who like people unless there’s a lot of reason not to. They do things together that are likely to go well. Hopefully they have fun. 

Everything is being normalized for the neurotypical students. My son’s needs are being met. A half dozen specialists are being contacted to provide advice.

In high school, I had a little skateboard I made out of lego. I held the wheels and spun the body around and around, endlessly. I hid under big sweaters to limit sensory overload. I ate to keep my body busy and head functioning. 

In elementary, all I had was my textbooks. I solved every question in the math textbook to keep from going crazy. But I also cut up a kid’s book because he was bugging me, slapped a boy in gym class, and spend every day crying while I walked laps every recess.

I made my own support. Not very well, and people thought I was weird, but I did my best. 

A lot has changed in 20 years, and my son might have it a little better.


http://kiragecko.tumblr.com/post/171131023839/audio_player_iframe/kiragecko/tumblr_p4hl1ff77N1u6c2v1?audio_file=http%3A%2F%2Ftraffic.libsyn.com%2Fharkpod%2FHARKEpisode159.mp3

harkpodcast:

This week we cover a request for two animated holiday musical numbers! We delight in the Seussian turns of phrase in “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” performed by Thurl Ravenscroft and ponder the murky moral implications of “Oh, Santa!” performed by Larry the Cucumber and the cast of VeggieTales.

RJ was a guest on the Book Club for Masochists podcast this week, check them out!

Thank you to kiragecko for this week’s requests!

This is everything I hoped for!

They were appropriated pleased by “Several Minutes Insulting the Grinch.” Seuss’ virtues were properly extolled.

Neither host was annoyed that I told them they were Wrong About Kid’s Music. (Which is good, because they are also wrong about music in a minor key, hip hop, praise music, and musicals.) And it made them less worried about trashing my faves! That’s great, because I don’t like stressing people.

I had a tiny hope that they’d appreciate Veggie Tales more than they did, though I was pretty sure they wouldn’t. All their complaints are justifiable – it isn’t the best Silly Song (I only had Christmas ones to choose from!), the IRS joke and Santa getting mad aren’t as sweet as listeners might expect, and it really helps to have listened as a child.

Or to have listened WITH children, like I did. Veggie Tales for me is all tied up with watching as a preteen and teen with my Very Little Sister and Brother With Down’s Who Loves Movies. When the only shows you ever watch are aimed at preschoolers, you learn to love children’s media. Or hate it, I guess – because of my kids I despise Animal Mechanicals and Bubble Guppies. (Stupid shows that don’t even TRY! Grumble.)

If the hosts were complaining about any song from Veggie Tales’ ‘Daniel In the Lion Den’ I may have had to fight them. But this was all good fun.

This is a really fun podcast, y’all.

littlemissonewhoisall:

I’m still trying to figure out how a mute runaway seven-year-old made her way from Macau to New Jersey by herself over the course of ten years. 

I really wish DC would tell that story. 

Cass was in Macau when the disastrous assassination happened?!? Do you know where it says that? I’ve only seen flashbacks without location information and had to assume the assassination took place in Gotham. This is information I am excited to learn!