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lilydalexf · 3 years

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Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Sophia Jirafe

Seven of Sophia Jirafe’s fics are at Gossamer, but more of her X-Files stories are at AO3 (as sophiahelix). I’ve recced some of my favorites of her stories here before, including Stones and Bones. She was active in the fandom during the show’s run and has never strayed far from fandom in general. She co-founded Glass Onion, a great multi-fandom mailing list that now has nearly 1,000 fics from 100 fandoms at AO3. Big thanks to Sophia Jirafe for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

It did initially, but so many old shows are on streaming now and getting discovered by new people, it makes sense.

I did get a comment from someone who said my first story under this name, posted in early 2000 when I was a college freshman, was older than her by a couple of months, and THAT took me aback.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

It was my first fandom, discovered when I was 17 and searching for info about the show on the school library computer, and it really shaped my whole life! I met a lot of people I still know today (mostly in non-fannish venues like FB, though I do still have some connections in fandom), and learned a lot about writing and just life generally, since I was younger than most of fandom at the time.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

I started off on a tiny forum at a website called Squirrel’s Nest, but I kept seeing people thanking Scullyfic in fic headers and eventually I was able to join the mailing list (which was capped to 500 members). Scullyfic was everything to me — I made friends, betas, discussed the show, learned about all kinds of things on Off-Topic Fridays, etc. A lot of those friends, I would email with or more often chat on AIM (individual or these sprawling group chats that would go on all day), and then at the end of 2001 we started migrating to Livejournal. I was getting into Buffy more by then, but it was still mostly the same crowd of people I knew from Scullyfic.

What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

I feel like it started me on a whole life path really — finding that my deep obsession with fiction could be channeled like that and shared with other people, as well as deepening my writing. Online fandom has been a major part of my social life for over 20 years now, and I love the mix of getting excited about things with friends and also the creative outlet.

My corner of X-Files fandom in particular was just very calm and enjoyable for the most part, full of older professional women who were happy to be friends and give me advice about all kinds of things, and it really set the bar for me with my online interactions. Now I’m almost 40 and trying to be that person for my younger friends, as well as having no patience for toxicity and in-fighting in my fandom spaces.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

A combination of the creepy conspiracy angle and just adoring Scully. I remember how mysterious and fascinating the show seemed when I discovered it right before S5, and there was no way to find out more except to keep watching and hoping they explained. Scully was so smart and tough and beautiful and interesting, and as a teen I was just captivated by her (and the UST, though I didn’t care about Mulder as much).

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

I ran across it a couple times early on but felt embarrassed by the concept, but then I read the first in Karen Rasch’s Words series and suddenly it clicked for me. After a while I started daydreaming my own conversations between them, very similar to what happens to me now when I’m getting into a new pairing, so after reading tons of recommended fic by big authors, I started writing my own (the 3-4 stories I posted in high school are all wiped from the internet now, though).

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

Good memories, though because it was my senior year of high school and college, I know a lot of it is just tied to that time in my life, and also being in my very first fandom. I will rewatch episodes from time to time, but I basically never revisit former fandoms because they’re kind of like exes, even if I finished on a good note. I also think my taste in fic has changed (and there isn’t the same novelty of “characters I like getting together omg!”)

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

So many! None of them had quite the same combination of excellent central architecture (especially pre-AO3) and a really high level of discussion and friendliness without being enormous, but I’ve loved them all in their own ways. I’ve done fandom on LJ/DW, Tumblr, Discord, and now on Twitter, and I think I miss the mailing list days the most. You didn’t have to repeat yourself so much in multiple conversations, you weren’t character limited, and the discussion was all in one place, with personal stuff more confined to your side conversations. Discord is a little like that, but it moves too fast and there’s too much noise for my taste.

Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? Why?

Heh, after X-Files I went through a whole phase of faves in the Scully vein — Buffy, Aeryn Sun, Kara Thrace, etc. Like many people I’ve shifted primarily into m/m in the last decade (Sherlock, YOI, and recently The Untamed have been my major fictional fandoms, along with a lot of sports RPF), but for non-fannish shows I’m always looking for awesome new female characters, like Elizabeth on the Americans, Peggy on Mad Men, Nadja on What We Do in the Shadows, etc. And I do LOVE Killing Eve and have written a little f/f over there.

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

I’ll rewatch favorite episodes occasionally, and I keep thinking about a full rewatch but it takes so much time! I never saw the second movie, and I didn’t finish the first of the new seasons because I was hating it, so it’s a little hard for me to think fannishly about them when I disliked basically everything after “Je Souhaite” so much (as far as I’m concerned the show ends there).

Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

X-Files no, but yeah I’m still very active in fandoms.

Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

I lost all my saved fic several computers ago, but I recall loving “Blue Christmas” by Plausible Deniability and “Diamonds and Rust” by MustangSally (obviously everything she wrote was great).

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

Looking at my X-Files fic, I can’t believe how short it is and how comparatively little of it there is (I have lost track of a few ficlets). It felt like such a big deal to finish anything back then! I think my favorite remains Alphabetum, which involved a tricky structure and 5 elements given by people as part of the Scullyfic Improv challenge, where you had a week to write a story around those elements.

My favorite of my recent fic in fictional fandoms is probably the GoT/YOI crossover novel I wrote a couple years ago, for a completely opposite experience to this (and proof you can grow as a writer with a lot of effort!)

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

It’s honestly hard to imagine going back (like I said, I usually don’t), but I guess I could get inspired by something.

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

I certainly still write, and I do have to give credit to XF fandom and Scullyfic in particular for giving me the start I got, where I really wanted to be writing good fiction. The few things I wrote in high school were just me jamming out romantic cliches, but the people I was lucky to know in XF fandom showed me that “just” fanfic can still aspire to be high quality. I am a much, much better and more disciplined writer than I was back then, but I might never have started on this path without fandom friends encouraging me.

Where do you get ideas for stories?

Usually just daydreaming about emotional dynamics between characters/people, but sometimes something specific in canon or real life (I write a lot of RPF) gets me going, or maybe something I read.

What's the story behind your pen name?

When I wrote for X-Files, I picked “Sophia Jirafe” combining my favorite first name with a fancy spelling for my favorite animal (I was 18! Don’t judge!) Over on Livejournal, my friend Jintian and I initially shared an account with the same name as our website, double_helix, and when she got her own account I changed to sophia_helix, which is now sophiahelix just about everywhere. A little clunky, but I like the continuity (and I do run across old friends who remember the name).

Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?

The friends I’ve known for a very long time know about it, but we have never talked about it in depth. My husband, who I met not long after getting into fandom, also knows about it, and he’s encouraging and also a writer so we talk all the time. I told my mom in college and she was pretty dismissive, so we haven’t talked about it since (but my younger sister knows and is cool about it).

When I was younger, it was something I shared readily (I bonded with a new friend in law school I saw looking at LJ), but now I don’t really bring it up with new acquaintances.

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

I just made a Carrd the other day with all my various fannish addresses (Twitter, locked fannish Twitter, AO3, Tumblr)

Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?

Just that it really was a high quality fandom — so much excellent long casefic, so many cool down to earth people, just generally a great launching place for a young fan. The friendships I made with older people were really important to me, and it makes me sad to see a lot of younger people now getting upset about the idea of anyone over a certain age being in their fandom spaces. I hope someday fandom can get back to appreciating that people of all ages can be the fandom type, and that everyone brings something different to the community.

(Posted by Lilydale on December 1, 2020)

#new post #old school x #xfiles fanfic #xf fanfic #xf fanfic author interviews #sophia jirafe

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coastalhorrors · 4 years

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I Want To Believe (In Us)

For @oumasaiexchange s Autumn Exchange, written for recipient number 1!!

Prompt: Drama! I like angst with a happy ending. I adore bittersweet content in fanfics. And as art, I like anything with really pastel colors and cute things.

Word count: 4,924

Summary: Shuichi Saihara wasn't too keen on summoning the undead this late at night, especially when the temperature outside his beaten down Subaru Legacy had just gotten down to below freezing.

Shuichi Saihara wasn't too keen on summoning the undead this late at night, especially when the temperature outside his beaten down Subaru Legacy had just gotten down to below freezing.

The car itself rattled with each labored breath it took attempting to keep its inhabitants warm, and dust had started to pile up on the far reaches of the dashboard, but it was in better shape now than when Shuichi had gotten it.

He had bought his car earlier that year from one of his Uncle's coworkers and had spent nearly half that amount of time trying to repair it. When he had gotten the car its seats were worn and stained with who knows what, and both the tail lights were out. There were also multiple dents on the trunk and on its sides, and upon seeing it Shuichi had realized why he had gotten the car so cheap. He had managed to fix the taillights and sanitize the inside, but from various investigations and some dubious late-night research, he figured those dents were just there to stay.

He sighed as another sneeze sounded out from beside him and more dust scattered itself around them.

"You're going to catch some sort of disease if you keep digging through the library's collection of occult tomes," Shuichi said, laying his headache-ridden skull back on the headrest. 'The black plague is back you know, and you're not immune."

He could practically hear the sly smile creeping its way onto Kokichi*s face.

"Aw, is my Shumai worried about me? Oh! Maybe he's just jealous that I'll find evidence of the supernatural before him, the Super High School Level Detective of all people!" He giggled mockingly, a childish lilt to his voice.

"Hardly," Shuichi replied wryly, gazing down drowsily at the dim blue light of the clock.

11:47 P.M.

Thirteen more minutes.

Then Kokichi would try to summon whatever demonic creature he found this week in one of his many forums, historical books, or maybe even a newspaper, ultimately failing, and Shuichi could drive them back to the dorms so that he could watch more of the X-Files until he fell asleep.

That had been their routine since about halfway through their first year at Hope's Peak Academy. Shuichi remembered the day when the infamous Kokichi Ouma had come to his dorm room one night, loud, out of rhythm knocking interrupting the peaceful quite Shuichi had become accustomed to throughout his small-time staying there. He had said he needed a ride somewhere and that he wasn't taking his chances with the questionable form of art that was public transportation.

He also made a point to say that Shuichi was the only classmate he knew with a car, which was utter nonsense if you asked him. Mondo in the class three years above them had a motorcycle and made sure everyone knew it, and Kazuichi from the class above them was a mechanic for Pete's sake. Even Miu and Kaito owned their own trucks and Kirumi had a motorcycle she cherished dearly.

Shuichi recalled brushing it off, Kokichi did enjoy his lies after all. And he didn’t mind going out that night, especially since he meant to go out anyway and grab some snacks for his study session with Kaito, Maki, and Kaede the next day. Which, coincidentally, he ended up almost missing because of how late he slept in.

They ended up staying out until about 3:00 A.M. that night. Kokichi had said it was a stakeout for something Shuichi wouldn't understand, which was probably true considering to him it was a complete waste of time since the only memorable thing that happened that night was a particularly loud owl cooing from somewhere in the trees nearby.

And yet Kokichi came back a few days later with another reason to take Shuichi out into a field in the middle of nowhere, where the stars above shone brighter than any street lamp, and the tranquility was omnipotent.

Shuichi had figured out where he was driving them to a few days in. It was a small field brimming with red and purple wildflowers in the spring and summer, near an old farm where a nice lady lived with her sheep and chickens. She had apparently inherited it from her grandfather who had been missing for years, it had made front-page news about two years ago.

There was a shuffling from beside him, and when Shuichi looked over Kokichi seemed to be going through some sort of hastily written notes. Then he remembered what Kokichi's handwriting looked like and determined that it was probably actually pretty thorough, just too messy to read at a glance. He didn’t bother trying to read it, and he honestly wasn’t too interested in what it was pertaining, only because he knew even if Kokichi did try to explain it to him without lying through the whole thing he still wouldn’t understand why it was so important.

The only words he was able to glean from his momentary glance were the title headers that contained such words as 'continued from page two','very dangerous', and 'what to do if…'. He had no clue what Kokichi was trying to accomplish, or if he'd even succeed, he only knew that this was one of the things he openly took seriously. At least in Shuichi’s eyes, he didn’t know what the rest of his classmates saw.

He was pulled out of his thoughts when the passenger's side door opened. "Well Shuichi, wish me luck in not getting my head completely obliterated by a demonic entity!" The smaller boy chirped, exiting the vehicle and trekking through the snowy field, occasionally sidestepping a slippery patch of ice hidden in the weeds. Shuichi watched the other boy for a while, followed him with dull golden eyes, how Kokichi gazed up at the stars for an answer to his question, whatever that was, how he scrutinized each star falling upon his gaze, always searching for something, even in the dead of winter.

And yet Shuichi still couldn't figure the other boy out.

He didn't understand what was so important about this field if there even was anything really important about this field. He figured Kokichi probably wasn't above lying about taking Shuichi out someplace in the middle of nowhere.

He'd have to keep going on these escapades with him to find out what was so important with this place.

Apparently, there wasn't anything important about the field. And if there had been, then Kokichi had completely blown it off.

It was late December when Kokichi decided to take a look down in Hope's Peak Academy's basement. Which, granted was better than driving icy roads at the midnight hour, but at least in his car Shuichi had heating.

The basement was dark and dank, smelling of dust and mold, and Shuichi got the distinct feeling that if he touched one of the walls on accident, he'd catch some sort of wicked disease. Kokichi, naturally, thought it was just right.

"You know Shuichi, this would be the perfect place to summon an unholy monstrosity," Kokichi said, walking beside him, flashlight in hand, round eyes glancing about the large room. "I wouldn't be surprised if there was a dead body hidden somewhere down here either."

"Kokichi why are we down here? Don't you have anything better to do? Like studying for that physics exam maybe?" Shuichi said, ignoring the other boy’s previous statements, he had long gotten used to Kokichi's ramblings by now. He twisted his flashlight towards his right, coming across nothing but a slate grey wall and empty space.

Kokichi gave him a wild look, violet eyes and bright white teeth gleaming from his light. "Oh Shuichi my beloved, when will you learn," he tsked. "I never study for those stupid things, we get them like every week, and as long as you pay attention in class, you're good enough."

"You don't pay attention though," Shuichi said doubtfully, peering at him through his peripherals. "Earlier today you got into an argument with Rantaro in the middle of class."

Kokichi grinned, "Oh you've got it all wrong! I'm a master at multitasking, a leader such as myself would no doubt be able to know what's going on in class whilst debating with my lab partner about whether or not contacting aliens is unethical!"

Shuichi rolled his eyes back into his head, he should've expected an answer like that.

"Ew, what's that creepy look on your face for?" He heard Kokichi say disgustedly.

Shuichi hummed questioningly in response, somewhat quirking a brow, as his gaze fell back to Kokichi.

"You got an ugly smile on your face, you look like a sadist or something," Kokichi said, pointing his lithe fingers towards Shuichi's face. And to his shock, Shuichi realized he had let a small smirk cross his features. Unconsciously he took a small step back and raised his hands in defense.

"O-oh it's nothing, I just remembered something funny from earlier," He said, hoping he successfully blew Kokichi's question off.

He leered at Shuichi for a moment before something caught his eye ahead of them and he jumped forward.

He sighed in relief, then paused abruptly. Why was he relieved? He had nothing to hide, so why was he so nervous under Kokichi's glare? Why did he feel so guilty all of a sudden?

He eyed Kokichi, who had gotten a good few meters away by then, as he crouched down to pick at something on the ground. He was like a child, Shuichi thought, a really disturbing child, and he found himself wanting to let another smile crawl onto his face.

He determined that Kokichi was way too charming for his own good.

As the sun set on a snowy evening a few weeks after their basement escapade, Kokichi found himself back in the same boat. Not that he'd ever left, bugging Shuichi had been a hobby of his since late October.

He sighed wearily and rested his head against the desk in his dorm. He had ended up pulling another all-nighter preparing for tonight’s investigation. They would be going down to the basement again, this time looking for a special type of worm Kokichi had heard about in a podcast. The midnight worm, as they were called, were bloodsuckers and could leap up to seven feet, maybe higher, and he wasn’t passing up the chance to possibly find such a rare specimen.

Shuichi didn’t know that of course. Kokichi made sure he always goes into their little adventures blind. He liked watching the detective piece together the clues he was given, it was fascinating, especially for a runagate like him. The puzzled looks, the tentative movements, it was all just like sweet cream, and Kokichi was the cat lapping it up.

His favorite was when Kokichi had planned a particularly difficult puzzle and Shuichi got fidgety. He bore witness to nose scrunching, nail-biting, clothes tugging, and the like. It made him extremely pleased to know that he’s stumped his starcrossed rival.

Shuichi never learned of what those investigations were about, Kokichi never told him. And he could see how crazy it made the detective, not knowing just what he had gotten himself into. Which was the best part, Shuichi wasn’t entitled to come with Kokichi anymore, now that they had moved indoors for the deep winter. He could easily say no and reject coming with, and yet he just kept doing it.

This also made Kokichi happy to see, as he had piqued the interest of Shuichi so much so that he just couldn’t say no.

This was Kokichi's most nefarious plot yet.

He'd keep coming up with these inspections, keep traveling from basement, to field, to the coast to wherever, as long as Shuichi came with him, until… well. He hadn’t figured that part out yet. He only knew that whatever it was going to lead to, it would be amazingly entertaining.

Kokichi smiled to himself as he gathered up his notes on the midnight worms. He hadn’t had this much fun in a long time.

The corridors were quiet as he made his way down to Shuichi’s room, stark white walls clashing with the dark wood. Finally, he stood in front of the door of his acquaintance. His friend? His colleague. Though that still didn’t seem right as he knocked quickly on the door. A pattern Shuichi had no doubt gotten used to.

There was a sound like someone had just set something down and some slight curious mumbling from inside when the door swung open.

"Hello, there Mr. Detective! I’ve finally come to murder you in cold blood!" He lilted, stretching out the 'hello' for effect.

The boy in front of him didn’t look fazed in the slightest, in fact, he looked almost expectant.

"There you are, I was starting to worry if I had gotten my timing wrong," Shuichi said, clearly relieved.

Kokichi grinned, "Aw, were you worried about little old me? Don’t worry, I’m always at your door on Thursday evenings, rain or shine!"

"Its Wednesday."

He shrugged, "Tomato, Tomahto. Ready to get moving? We don’t have all night."

Shuichi gave him a long look before blinking, coming back to his senses. "Yeah definitely, just let me grab my bag quick." He turned around, rummaging behind his door. He returned after a few seconds and gave Kokichi a courteous nod.

He started forward, not looking back to see if Shuichi was following him, because he always was.

"So what are we looking for today?" Shuichi asked. His footsteps were even, but Kokichi could feel the expectancy radiating off him. It made his smile return, even brighter this time.

"Oh you know I can’t tell you that, it’d be no fun that way. You are a detective after all." He called, looking over his shoulder. He saw Shuichi blow a small breath out of his mouth. He was glad to know the other boy was still interested.

That was Kokichi's last thought before they descended the staircase into the basement.

Shuichi had a problem. Quite a big one in fact. It had kept him up night after night, and the worst thing about was he couldn't even do anything about it.

He was falling in love with Kokichi Ouma. Except there was something wrong with that sentiment, it being that he really couldn't fully say that he was in love.

He had seen firsthand how people act when they're in love, he knew the consequences of it.

And Shuichi was terrified.

He had seen relationships fall apart, sometimes while he studied at his Uncle's detective agency, and other times just out in the world.

He remembered one time when he was younger and still lived with his parents, his mother had taken him out Christmas shopping. They were almost finished and were about to check out when an older guy, a high schooler he had assumed at the time, started shrieking about his girlfriend breaking his heart. And Shuichi was not too keen on replicating that.

Not that he ever thought he'd go on an angry rampage in a craft store decorated to the brim with wreaths and poinsettias, he liked to think he had much more self-control than that.

No, Shuichi knew he couldn't deal with the aftermath of heartbreak, especially his very first one. It was common knowledge that high school relationships rarely ever last, and if they did, they developed into cruel, twisted and spiteful ones after a good while. And just thinking about the thought that he may never recover from a heartbreak that bad kept him up at night.

Even more so now that there was a person he liked. Not loved. Definitely, totally not loved, he was way too young for that.

But the way that Kokichi always had a puzzle for him, always made sure to keep some sense of mystery going, absolutely captivated him, and he was met with the mental image of a certain infamous mastermind playing a game of cat and mouse with a familiar detective.

And his heart ached every time Kokichi brought him out somewhere now, as he watched violet eyes sparkle with delight at stumping him. He noticed that when the other boy was particularly excited for something, he'd twirl his hair around his finger ever so often. Which made his heart swell with something, all because Kokichi actually cared. He had spent numerous days, weeks even, of his life researching things for Shuichi to help him 'discover', and the thought that someone was there for him, and thought about him so often drove him insane.

But high school relationships never last. It's not love. It's just some silly game they played. Nothing more. This was never going to go anywhere, so why even bother right? There'd be someone else when he was older, more mature.

Shuichi was not going to ask Kokichi out, no matter how much he wanted to. Because as long as he kept reminding himself of that one simple fact that has so far been proven true and just, it would all be okay in the end.

At least he hoped so anyway.

Kokichi was suffering.

Valentine’s day was just around the corner, and he was choking on hearts of red and pink, all because he went and started liking some stupid detective. A very handsome stupid detective. A handsome, and capable, but nevertheless foolish detective.

He had done everything in his power to make Shuichi see him in that way, but it still hasn't worked, and he was starting to get frustrated.

Kokichi had created case after case, researched day and night for something, anything to get Shuichi interested in him. And to a degree, it had worked. Now, they were what most people would safely call 'friends'. And that was well and good, but just friends, the thought of nothing more ever happening between them, made his stomach fall through the floor all the way to some sort of afterlife.

But he couldn't stop trying. There was no harm in trying, only progress. At least that's what Rantaro and Miu would tell him when he lamented to them about his failing love life. That, and some other, less motivational words.

There was nothing left to do except suck it up, do some more exploration into things that might pique the other’s interest even more so than he had already accomplished, and continue with his plan.

Kokichi was either doomed to fail or gain a mediocre at best win.

Shuichi couldn't do this anymore. It was time to throw in the towel.

He couldn't take the late nights with Kokichi, the unnoticed glances he threw the other boy. The teasing was unbearable as well, he found it impossible not to be flustered around the other boy, and Kokichi would always respond with some snarky comment like, for example, accusing Shuichi of having a crush on him.

Which really wasn't very nice at all, specifically because of the way Kokichi would stare at him when he asked the question. Like he was actually expecting some sort of answer.

It made Shuichi's gut turn. Because really what was he supposed to say? 'Actually, you know what, I do like you Kokichi, a lot.' What kind of sadistic person would do that to themselves? People with a crush on a short, immature, liar that's who.

No.

No, he was done with it. He had to end it now or else it would never happen.

Shuichi had planned it all in his head. Each step in a specific fashion, planned carefully so that he'd have the best results. Which really would just be Kokichi not calling him out on the spot.

Yet as he walked down the hall towards Kokichi's room, he felt his legs moving at an unearthly slow pace. He had to convince himself multiple times that it would be okay, that he could do this, and he wouldn't disintegrate while in the middle of speaking.

Because it was either this or more useless pining after a foolish dream.

As he arrived at the door, Shuichi realized he was shaking the tiniest bit and had to will himself to raise his hand towards the door. His fist clenched so hard, he wouldn't be surprised if he drew blood soon. Then the door swung open, and Kokichi Ouma stood in front of him, eyes wide and brows raised.

"Oh hey Shuichi," he chirped pleasantly. "Are you stalking me now? Because you know, standing outside someone’s door is kinda creepy."

Shuichi felt his face heat up as he stumbled back a step. No doubt his face was as red as the wildflowers just starting to grow in the gardens outside.

He quickly realized his fist was still raised and shot it down beside him.

"Well, no actually, um, I have-" he started but was interrupted by the boy in front of him.

"Whatever, anyways Shuichi we're going out tonight!" Kokichi exclaimed happily, grinning from ear to ear. Except something seemed off.

Something he couldn’t quite pinpoint.

"O-out?"

"Yup! Remember that old field we went to a few months back? The one by the spooky old murder barn? We're going back there tonight!"

Shuichi did remember that field. And that barn in fact, though he didn’t recall any homicides occurring near it. "You mean you’re going to make me drive you out there again?" Shuichi asked, knowing the answer already as Kokichi nodded his head casually. "Look, Kokichi, I would really love to drive you there but-"

"Great! It's a date then! I'll see you tonight Shuichi!" He said, leaning forward and dragging out Shuichi’s name in a way that made his heart leap.

And just like that, there was a door back in his face as Kokichi closed it on him.

He stood there for a few moments, unsure of what to do next. His choice of words and use of 'date' made his voice catch in his throat, but ultimately he decided it was just a coincidence.

He decided to go along with Kokichi that night, and he’d tell him there that they couldn’t continue these late-night shenanigans.

Tonight would be the last time.

The air was cool with an early spring breeze when they arrived at the grassy meadow. It was nearly dark when the two left the dorms, so Kokichi had made sure to pack some flashlights. He laid down a small linen blanket he'd also made sure to bring over the fresh grass, they were going to be here a while he figured, so why not be comfortable?

Shuichi stood awkwardly at the edge of the blanket, eyeing Kokichi wearily as he relaxed down onto it. "What’s that look for Shuichi?" He asked in a way that hopefully resembled his usual tone and hid the nervousness he was feeling. "If I was less humble I'd say you look a bit flustered."

He swore he saw Shuichi’s face turn pinker than usual, but he blamed it on the lack of light. Kokichi did, however, watch as the detective shifted his weight, clearly on the fence about something, before settling onto the blanket next to him.

Kokichi looked up into the night, staring into the vastness of the universe. They had traveled far enough from the cramped urban cityscape to be able to see a majority of the stars that covered the sky like a curtain. It was one of the reasons he enjoyed coming out here so much. That and watching for otherworldly spaceships.

Though that’s not why he brought Shuichi out here, at least not this time. Kokichi was going to confess. He was tired of waiting and of feeling his heart sink into what seemed like a black hole of hopeless aching. He didn’t care if he got rejected anymore, he just wanted it out.

He took a deep breath and shoved his anxiousness into the corner of his mind. "You know why I brought you out here, right Shuichi?"

Shuichi turned to him, the hands on his chest fidgeting in habit, and an eyebrow quirked in intrigue. "If I was to give a wild guess, I'd assume you took me out here to look for extraterrestrials again?"

Kokichi smiled, he had figured that one out months ago, back when freezing snow still coated the ground in layers.

He was about to speak when Shuichi interrupted him. "Do you really believe in all that stuff? The aliens, the shapeshifting wolves, all the things you brought me with you to find?"

He turned to the other boy, eyes wide in shock, he hadn’t planned for a question like that, especially having been already busy with his own agenda.

"I…Want to believe in them." Kokichi responded, surprising himself with such an honest answer. "It's more fun that way. There are so many boring things in the world. Stuff like that… Like spaceships and vampires and teeny leprechauns, it all just makes life so much more interesting you know? Just like…"

He paused, clamping his eyes shut tight in preparation for what he was about to say. It was now or never.

"Shuichi, you’re really smart you know?" Kokichi began, sitting up from the blanket, "like crazy smart, and so tolerant of everyone, even if they start wearing your patience thin. I could never do that. I think it's really admirable of you."

He felt Shuichi shift beside him and nearly combusted on the spot when he spoke. "Are you alright Kokichi? You’re not acting like yourself, do you want water? Or do we need to get back to the dorms?"

He winced, opening his eyes back up but looking to the left to avoid the others' intense gaze. "That too. You’re so kind. Too kind if you ask me, especially towards people like me who don’t deserve it."

"Kokichi-, "Shuichi started, but he had to keep going, or else he would never get it out.

"Listen, I know it doesn’t make sense, and I know you’re going to hate me afterward but…" He sucked in a breath, "But I like you Shuichi. Like, I really like you. And I know you don’t like me that way, or else I would have known by now, but I physically can’t keep it in anymore Shuichi, if I did, I'd probably die on the spot. That’s… That’s why I brought you here…" Kokichi said the last words slowly, absorbing in sections what he'd just said.

Now Shuichi would scream at him and tell him he’s worthless and foolish for somehow falling for him, and Kokichi would be able to go on with his life and finally get over this. He could deal with the hateful stares and glances in the hallways, as long as the truth was out.

He flinched slightly when he felt a warm hand wrap itself around his arm. "Look at me Kokichi," he heard Shuichi say in a soft voice that made Kokichis heart yearn. "Please?"

Slowly, he turned back towards Shuichi. His face shone dimly in the moonlight, but still, his golden eyes stared through him fiercely, picking every bit of him apart. He didn’t seem angry, however, but he still couldn’t figure out exactly what Shuichi was feeling.

Then, in a nearly inaudible voice said, "I like you too, Kokichi."

It took him a moment to figure out just what Shuichi had meant, but when he did, his heart jumped into his throat.

"What?" He managed to choke out between nervous breaths. Shuichi really couldn’t be serious.

"I said-" he paused, seemingly trying to gather his words. "I said that I really like you too. I was just… Scared, I guess." He quieted again after that.

He was serious.

Kokichi made a small 'O' with his mouth and looked down at the blanket. Shuichi’s hand was still clasped around his arm. He could definitely guess what he was afraid of. Rejection, heartbreak, falling out of love. The like.

"Well," Kokichi started. "We can always deal with that later, down the line when we get to it." He said, looking back up at Shuichi when something caught his eye.

He gasped, "Look Shuichi, a shooting star!" Kokichi said, a childish tone returning to his voice.

"That’s a plane, not a shooting star," Shuichi stated after looking up, clearly still a bit apprehensive from their conversation.

"That doesn’t mean you can’t wish on it though." He said in a sing-song voice, he was tired of their serious discussion. Kokichi saw Shuichi glance back up at the plane. It was small compared to the open sky. He smiled.

Kokichi stood then, brushing off Shuichi’s hand and stretching his arms and legs when he caught the look Shuichi gave him.

"What are you doing?"

"I think, dear Shuichi, that we deserve a treat. Ice cream sounds good right now. And maybe some fries." Kokichi responded. Truthfully told, he had forgotten to eat all day due to his restlessness.

Shuichi smiled up at him, and Kokichi saw him take a breath. Yeah, that sounds nice. We should get going before it gets too late and nothing's open though." He stood and cautiously, reached out his hand towards the other boy.

Kokichi took it.

They walked back to Shuichi’s old car in comfortable silence. It was new, and it made Kokichi shiver at the thought of it, but it was welcomed.

Right then Kokichi decided they could deal with their anxieties later. Right now, he just wanted to enjoy Shuichi’s company.

#IM SO SORRY ABOUT HOW LONG THIS TURNED OUT TO BE #honestly it was meant to be way shorter but then i got ... carried away.....#i hope its not too messy and you enjoy it!!!!!#for an exchange #my writing #danganronpa #danganronpa v3 killing harmony #oumasai #saiouma #oumasai autumn exchange

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pizsospa · 6 years

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Schneeplestein ARG

So this blog @schneeplestein made by @crazions caught my attention some day and it looked very interesting and I decided to follow it. Since they there have been a bunch of posts in what looks to be like an ego ARG (Alternate Reality Game) which also involves 2 other blogs. (It might not really be that but I will call it that anyway)

I like code solving and I love ARGs so i took the time to read through all of the story and decode what I can to combine it all in one post for anyone interested... Note that this thing has ended

Also note that I’ll only really go about the “hidden” material, not story, and I don’t want to repost any logs so I highly encourage anyone interested to go take a look at the original blog first. Some great work has been put into it and it deserves to be appreciated!

NOTE!! After I finished this post I did find out someone else made something and I don’t want to change anything in what I solved and take credit for stuff I haven’t done so I will just leave BIG LINK to this doc file by @3ksal that contains a lot, some stuff which I would have never been able to do

(Its a bit long so... everything is under read more)

TO SET THINGS DOWN FIRST! I might have been a bit too late to investigate all of this since I started this basically few posts before it offically ended. Some stuff seems to have changed and I have missed it :( So we start off with Henrik’s blog posting a text post containing a nice big link.

This link leads to a Vimeo upload with a placeholder text title, black and white patter and seems to contain morse code and someone speaking, all distorted. (I don’t know if there is anything behind that speech, I’m not good at all with such stuff. I also tried to solve the morse code, really tried, downloaded the video to slow it down but I just really have trouble with making out audio so... sad but I gave up on it) Besides that there is one QR-code displayed 2 times! That code is a Imgur link which will lead to this

A nice edited hospital hallway gif with some text, one of which is a code and the other another Imgur link to that

(thanks for no double coding)So we have a key and a code which I put into AES 128bit decoder (I know the creators seems to like that) and got..

A blog @97-110-116-105 . Now I found this blog way before I saw this so it was kinda useless to solve and the blog already had some posts on it. From what it looks like it belongs to Anti, so I’ll just call it Anti’s blog.

The actual story starts of with Henrik telling us his blog has seem to got all posts deleted and he has memory problems. He finds out he has some logs laying around and starts posting them along with general text posts about his situation and answered asks. After the link the first suspicious post there is this one. Some zalgo and some binary which translates to:

Someone clearly mocking Schneep On his post “a small update” is also the first time google doc links is added under the word “God”. More links like this are on some other posts later too

Some time later Schneep’s blog posts a second post similar to his very first one, it contains a Vimeo vid uploaded by the same user who uploaded the first one. It’s a glitched out distorted old ad for Camel cigarettes and wouldn’t you know? There is another QR-code in it! This time it links to a private page on Anti’s tumblr.

It shows us a morse code and a hexadecimal one.

First and foremost: I haven’t solved this. The hexadecimal code brings ”aGFwcGllc3RiaXJ0aGRheS5jYXJyZC5jw==“ which def looks like AES again but I can’t make out the key. I’m sure its in the morse code from the post plus from the video description and title but different decoders give me different answers and it just looks like a lot of random letters. Might be an anagram (that contains the word fun) but idk...

Sometime later regarding the story you might have noticed a 3rd blog from Chase that is also part of the story. It doesn’t have any hidden codes on it like the others. He interacts with some of Henrik’s posts and later even posts a convo between them!

But after some time we get a post of him on the floor along with a google doc that sounds like someone had shot him.

(Small post to note with a google doc link, I just like the writing)

Sort of hidden in some text posts throughout is a whole seperate website! (it is linked on 2 different posts)

NOTE that there was a countdown!

Taking a look at the header you can clearly tell it was counting down to Henrik’s birthday. I only found this on said date so i didn’t get to see this live, only when you click on the link it appears for half a second. And of corse... more aes code...

A sweet little message! Doesn’t mean much so back onto what the website showed after the countdown:

A german “welcome” greets us and you can have a dialogue with someone (sounds like Anti imo).

You will reach an end and depending on if the one you’re talking to liked your answers or not you will be guided to a blank page or to a site on Schneep’s blog.

Sneaky little creator has changed the picture on this page and I wouldn’t doubt it didn’t change before I saw it too, I only got to see 2 images though. First time visting I got this

Probably a picture of infusion bags hanging? highly saturated with filters on top. Changing levels of the picture in the right top corner you can see some binary but...

The picture is small... and it was way too hard to read no matter how I changed filters so what/if that means anything is still out there and hopefully not too important.

The changed picture is this now:

This is all that was to the extra site if the picture doesn’t change again. (I checked the source code too but since it seems to be made with the help of a website tool i doubt you can even hide anything in there)

Anti’s blog starts off with this

I fairly simply Cipher that really doesn’t mean anything(or does it?). It translates to: I REMEMBER IT LIKE IT WAS YESTERDAY

In general he laughs around at the other’s misery and mocks them.Here he links to some imgur post

(”DO YOU WANT HIM TO DIE?”) Doesn’t look like there is something hidden in it, but I have to appreciate the work, it looks really cool imo

In another post he tags it something weird looking but the “?=“ definitely told me it should be a youtube video link. I have tried to solve this and the “https://youtube.com/watch?=v” is sure but the rest of the link is hard to do. I have put it through Caesar Cipher decoder and decoded it by hand a few times, but the link doesn’t seem to work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i73ddxye4c I don’t know if it’s on my part and I actually did do something wrong, the video was deleted or lil Anti just played a trick all along.

Second post that links to another imgur site:

Looks like Henrik’s workplace with all these logs, a phone with broken screen, sticky notes and empty coffee cup and yet again!

Another code...There is one across all and then even damn morse code on the red one, really doesn’t make it easier to read with the 3d effect on top. I like to think I typed it off right and that “XILDM” was the key but it didn’t work. Plus the morse code is hard to read and I’m not sure in which order it should be so.... this is still open to be solved.

The last suspicious thing he posts is an audio post that sounds like an old clock ticking (?) getting louder. The name of it is yet another code and the picture a QR-code! The QR-code just leads to this, a google search for “does space have a sound” I thought for sure that would be the key to the code to solve it but no. I even thought ‘Maybe the key is the answer’ or the zalgo tag but no, don’t know what this one means.

All in all... I really enjoyed this!! I’m really sad to leave a bunch of things unsolved but I am not the brightest person for this. I haven’t seen anything like this in the community and outside it only a few that aren’t that interesting. While many will do a lot of code solving like this one, this also had more story and so much extra work put into it. Seriously, Google docs, the logs that were actual scanned papers, photographs, polaroids, The videos, A whole other website, The amazingly edited gifs and 3 whole blogs. A lot was put into this and I really like it, kudos to the creator, it was a really neat project! :)

#jacksepticeye #dr schneeplestein #schneeplestein arg #idk what else to tag this really?#blood tw #knife tw

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savanahdppadillaim10insuran-blog · 5 years

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Whats a good medical insurance to switch to?

Im 18 and currently with medicaid. They dont cover most of my cost. I need to get a tooth extraction and they denied paying for it. I am prone to keloids and had a raised keloid from getting my ears pierced. This keloid was very aggitating. Constantly itching, displeasing to look at and very uncomfortable. I had to get surgery on it and medicaid denied my treatment and refused to pay for anything cosmetic. If i have to pay $50-$60 monthly for a better insurance so be it.

BEST ANSWER: Try this site where you can compare free quotes :HELP-INSURE.NET

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netmaddy-blog · 7 years

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10 Things to Hate About the iPhone

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10 Things to Hate About the iPhone

10 things to hate about the iPhone I took delivery of my iPhone at the start of September, the start of a trying month personally that saw me out of the office for very long periods and only in touch with the world via my phone. It was a baptism of fire for me and the device.

You will have seen the adverts, played with it in phone shops, looked over fellow commuters’ shoulders, borrowed your friend’s … great isn’t it? Or is it?

In this article I touch on some of the things about the device that have really irked me. Just a bit or quite a lot. And to maintain the celestial karmic balance I have a companion article on some of the things about the iPhone that I absolutely love. There’s enough material for both articles, I assure you!

So here we go, in reverse order, the 10 things that you should hate about the iPhone!

10. Grubby fingers and the onscreen keyboard The iPhone’s onscreen keyboard is surprisingly effective and doesn’t take long to get used to Stump Blog.

Just remember to wash your hands before you do so, however! This isn’t just cosmetic: For some reason I manage to leave a sticky mark under my right thumb that attract dust, biscuit crumbs, or whatever, right over the erase key. Usually the crumb lands there just as I finish the 2 page email and starts to rub out the whole message character by character! This is not an exaggeration!! It is, however, not a daily occurrence!!

9. External memory I went the whole hog and took the 16GB iPhone immediately. I don’t regret it! I haven’t been selective with my music collection and have more or less all my ripped CDs stored on the iPhone. That’s 14GB. Which leaves precious little room for real data.

On other devices this is rarely a problem and non-volatile storage is usually flash memory of some description, the size of which obeys Moore’s law and doubles in size and speed every 9 months or so and halves in physical size every 2 years or so with a new “mini” or “micro” format. I have yet to run out of space on a mobile phone or smartphone, even with an address book of over 500 names.

The problem on the iPhone is that there is no external memory slot and no way (short of wielding a soldering iron) of expanding the internal memory. A shame. The iPod Touch has recently spawned a 32GB version and I imagine that the 32GB iPhone is on its way. When that happens the legacy user base will be left wondering what to do next.

8. Battery and battery life The iPhone is sleek – barely a centimetre thick and enticingly smooth with those rounded edges. There are few buttons, no little doors to come open and break off in your pocket and no memory slots to fill up with fluff and dirt.

One of the reasons for the smooth design is that the iPhone does not have a user removeable battery. The battery can be changed by a service centre, and over the two years I will keep this device I expect to have to change the battery at least once, but I cannot do it myself. Also the battery is surprisingly small – it has to be to fit into this neat little package.

The price you pay for this is battery life. My device is now 6 weeks old and have been fully cycled about 5 times (I tend to keep the battery on charge but allow it to run flat at least once a week). If I am not using the device constantly, just checking the device twice an hour and answering calls, using 3G and Push, I can rely on a full working day of 10 to 12 hours between charges. If I turn on WiFi this drops to 6 or 7 hours. If I use the GPS without WiFi, autonomy drops to 4 or 5 hours. If I wanted to be really frugal and last a full 24 hours, I would need to turn off both Push email and 3G, and reduce screen brightness to a minimum.

For some people this is a major issue. For me, since I usually either have a PC on and can trail a USB cable, or spend the day driving with the iPhone hooked up as an iPod and being charged by the car, it is less of a constraint. But it remains an annoyance. I haven’t yet seen an iPhone equivalent of the Dell Latitude “Slice” – a battery “back pack” for the iPhone that could more than double autonomy with minimal extra thickness, but I assume that someone, somewhere, is working on an aftermarket device.

7. Document management There is no equivalent of the Windows Mobile File Manager or Mac Finder on the iPhone so there is no way of manipulating file objects on device.

Admittedly the iPhone does a credible job of shielding you from the need to do any file level manipulation: For example the Camera has a photo album that is also accessible in other applications that need to access images (for example, the iBlogger application I use to write short articles on this site). But there are still occasions when you need to manipulate individual file objects.

One is during installation and set up when installing root certificates for SSL so that the device can talk to an Exchange server: Unless you use Apple’s enterprise deployment tool (which locks down the device and prevents further configuration changes, so not always desirable), the only ways to set up the device for Exchange are to set up a temporary IMAP account and download an attachment that you open, or to set up a website with the root certificate and define the appropriate MIME types on the web server (I could not get this to work, incidentally!). How much easier it would be to download the certificate onto the device using Windows explorer (connecting to a PC via USB exposes the device’s memory as an attached storage device) and to be able to open the certificate file from memory on the iPhone.

The other key need for this functionality is when manipulating attachments on email messages. There is no way of saving attachments, or attaching documents selectively to a new or forwarded message.

6. Navigating through email folders I tend to keep a lot of emails in my mailbox. I archive once a year, and usually towards the end of the following year. I’m also fairly busy and work on a dozen consulting and business development projects at a time. That means two things: a lot of emails, and the need to organise those emails sensibly.

I organise my emails into trees – consulting projects in separate folders and these folders organised by client, all kept separate from companies I’m invested in and from my personal stuff. Probably 40 or 50 folders.

On Windows Mobile devices I can organise this quite cleanly, with the ability to expand or collapse sections of the folder tree. The iPhone recognises the tree, but gives me no means of collapsing the hierarchy. The Inbox is always at the top: Junk email is always at the bottom. Moving incorrectly junked emails means traversing the whole tree, which is a pain even using the classy flick scroll gesture. It’s clumbsy and unnecessary.

5. Filtering offline email content The other side of this complexity is managing how much of my “online archive” to take with me.

There is no need (and no space) to take it all with me: I am quite used to placing sensible limits on the section of the mail folder to take with me. Windows Mobile allows me to take 1, 2 or 3 months worth of email with me, to say whether I take attachments with me, all the email or just the headers. I can even select which folders to take or leave behind. And I don’t need to worry if I go away and find I am missing a crucial folder – I can change the parameters and the device will download what’s missing.

The iPhone is slightly less flexible. It won’t let me download attachments pre-emptively: It will only load the message header and leave the attachment behind unless and until I select the email manually. I can define how many days of emails I download from 1 day to 1 month, but beyond that I cannot specify a limit. I have a filter on the number of messages within a folder that I display from 25 to 200 messages but the interaction between this setting and the time limit is not entirely clear. If you are a light user this is less of an issue: For a heavier email user with a complex folder hieracrchy you have less control and can run into memory management issues as a result.

4. Message management and Exchange The worst problem with message management on the iPhone is actually specific to Microsoft Exchange.

I am an expert user and really love Microsoft Exchange. It isn’t just my mail server: It’s a full collaboration engine, with group and resource scheduling, rich address book, “to do” lists, journaling, contact histories etc. I don’t use it for fax and voice mail yet, but that is just a question of not having made the time to buy the interface box to the PBX and turn that feature on. So I am up there with the other 60% of enterprise mailbox users that are hooked on Exchange.

When the iPhone first appeared the Exchange interaction story was weak. It could do IMAP, but that’s just a fraction of the story. No problem, that wasn’t Apple’s intended primary audience either, but the enterprise users clearly wanted the iPhone, so Apple got to work.

To be fair to them, Apple have done a lot with iPhone 3G to improve the Exchange story. Most of the security protocols are there, including critical features like remote wipe and SSL, and it supports Push. Enterprise deployment is straightforward too with a dedicated enterprise setup tool that supports remote device configuration. Unfortunately Apple seem to have stopped halfway through the API and a lot of Exchange functionality is overlooked. Some of this, like losing some data richness within calendar and contact items, doesn’t affect all users equally. Other elements are more critical, however.

The best way to describe this is how you forward email messages with attachments. The Exchange API permits clients to forward the message without the message content being stored locally: You can forward the header and the server will attach the attachments and other rich content before forwarding. The iPhone doesn’t understand this: First it has to download all of the message and attachments from the server to the iPhone, then it has to add the forwarding address and send the entire message back to the server. Moving a message between folders is the same and involves the same telecommunications overhead. A nuisance for me, but no more than that: If you aren’t on a data bundle and pay by the MB then you need to be wary of this.

[Another side effect of this issue is that server-side disclaimers and signatures get placed at the end of the forwarded message, rather than under new message text.]

3. Reading HTML and rich text messages I love HTML emails. I know that is considered a cardinal sin in some quarters, but as someone once said, if email had been invented after http would email have been done any other way? HTML is ubiquitous, it is clean and it works.

And of course being the best mobile web device on the market, the iPhone should be a fantastic HTML email reader, shouldn’t it?

Well, it very nearly is. It does some things really well. It gets the layout, it renders inline graphics, it’ll even show some background. But what if the text is really wide? It’ll wrap won’t it? No, it won’t. It’ll shrink the text to fit. It’ll make the text really, really small. And you can’t cheat by rotating the device, making the screen “wider” and the font larger, because the mail client doesn’t support landscape presentation (why?).

Of course you can zoom in, because it’s HTML, but then you have to scan the whole line, whizzing across the page to the end of the line, then whizzing back again to get the start of the next line. Oh dear!

2. Task switching The iPhone is a lovely, clean design. And part of the cool, clean look comes from the absence of nasty short cut action buttons.

The iPhone has only three buttons on the edges of the device: the on/off button on the top, the volume up/down toggle on the side and the excellent single button mute button above the volume toggle. That’s it. The only other button on the device is the “home” button on the front, below the screen.

The home button stops whatever application you are engaged on and takes you to the home page of the device – the pretty page full of icons that start up each application on the device. Good job it’s pretty, because you see an awful lot of it.

There is no way to jump straight to your calendar, or address book, or email. Apart from the one “double click” action (user configurable to either select phone favourites or iPod controls), the only way to start a task is to go back to the home page and up again into the application you want. Find an interesting URL in an email that you want to look at in Safari? Memorise it well, or write it down, because unless the text has been created as a link you’ll have to go back to the home page, start Safari, type the URL, realise you’ve got it wrong, press the home button again, start email, open the email, find the URL … and start again.

Or you could just select the URL and cut and paste it into the browser address bar … except …

1. How on earth do you cut and paste? Once Xerox had invented the mouse, the GUI and WYSIWYG editing, it was up to Apple to take that technology and make it affordable with the Lisa and the Mac. And Microsoft to make it ubiquitous, of course.

One of the joys of using the mouse, or any pointing device, is that it gives you a third dimension as you move around the page. You aren’t constrained by the line or the word or the paragraph – you can jump straight to any part of the document. And you can select parts of a document by dragging over a word, a line, a paragraph, and do something with it. Like cutting it out. Or copying it. Or dragging it. It’s normal. That’s just what you do. You don’t have 3 hour seminars and training courses on using a mouse (or a stylus) to point and select, click and drag. You demonstrate it once, the student understands and does it.

But the company that helped the mouse escape from the lab and get into the shops seems to have forgotten all about it. Get out your iPhone. Write a sentence. Write another one. Oops – that second sentence would make more sense BEFORE the first one. I’ll just cut and paste the sentence. Oh no you won’t! Because there is no cut and paste on the iPhone. Hear that? No? Well, I’ll say it again! THERE IS NO CUT AND PASTE ON THE IPHONE.

Google around a bit and you’ll find dozens of articles on the subject. You’ll find surprise, indignation, horror. You’ll even find brave Apple gurus explaining sagely that you don’t need cut and paste because the iPhone gives you more direct ways of using information, like linking URLS, or detecting phone numbers, or, er, something.

The most likely explanation is that once Apple has decided to do away with the stylus, the only UI gesture was to use two fingers and drag that over the page to select some text. But that gesture had already been taken with the excellent pinch zoom movement used on large documents and web pages.

There is a way out, however. Some very credible proof of concept demonstrations have been put on the web showing how a sustained point and drag with single finger (like the stylus selection action in Windows Mobile) would be workable and not conflict with any other screen action on the iPhone.

Let’s hope that the concept demos work and we see cut and paste implemented in an upcoming firmware release. In the meantime, at least twice every day I bet every iPhone user will silently curse, shrug and give up writing that urgent memo because they just can’t be bothered to type it all again.

So that’s it. Please don’t get me wrong, I think the iPhone is a wonderful, iconic and transformational device. As with the Mac, it has changed our perception of what a mobile device should be. Mobile phones and smartphones will never be the same again.

It’s just that for all it’s brilliance, it remains flawed. The iPhone is the product of a prolific and brilliant yet highly introspective group of engineers. Left free to innovate, unrestrained by any notion of reality or practicality or what the user currently thinks he or she wants, Apple have created a concept device. I’m grateful they have, but I fear that it will be up to other companies, with a clearer grasp of what the user can use, in particular what ELSE the user is doing, to take the iPhone to the next step.

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