Never mind November, let's do December!

Fujoshi, fudanshi, fujin, and friends,

We thought so long and hard about how to react to the US election that we reset our entire update schedule: from now on, you can expect these updates at the beginning of the month instead of the middle!

What we most want to say is that now more than ever, we believe in the importance of  our mission: to empower fujoshi and other online countercultures to shape their respective corners of the web, to teach marginalized web users the tools of community organizing and technological rebellion, and to fuel the larger movement towards a free and decentralized internet.

No matter what the future throws at us over the next four years and beyond, the fight for a kinder, weirder internet must not stop. We’re glad you’re with us on this journey, and we hope you’ll commit during the upcoming holidays to stake a claim of your own on your online world, whether that’s making your own NeoCities fan page, learning to use a terminal, writing your first TamperMonkey script, volunteering with us, or pitching in with a different community project. 

You have more power than you know 💛

Company Credit

• Nudging the Newsletter: As mentioned above, we’re sending this at the beginning of the month, rather than in the middle. This is because we’ve decided to shift our schedule going forward, which makes this the last newsletter of the year! From our team to all of you, happy holidays and thank you for your support throughout 2024 and beyond 🎇

• A January Escapade: In January, we’re heading to Los Angeles to table and mingle at EscapadeCon! We’ll skip our usual in-depth newsletter that month, so the next time you get a normal newsletter will be the beginning of February. Come get your news in person at one of the oldest slash conventions out there (it’s been going since 1991!). You can buy tickets on their website—they even offer scholarships! 

• FujoSky: BlueSky offers a similar user experience to Twitter, but it also offers a bunch of fun customization opportunities under the hood. Come hang out with us on stream, we’re building AtProto-based tools to learn how it works. We’ve been making custom labelers: 

  • Labeler 1: What type of fujin are you?
  • Labeler 2: Give your BlueSky account an AO3 rating tag!
  • Labeler 3 (work in progress): Posting fanwork? Label it by type! Looking for fanworks? Follow feeds by type!

Recent Progress on Our Backerkit Campaign

• That Ship Has Sailed: All physical BackerKit campaign rewards have officially been shipped! When you get your rewards, please consider posting them on social media and tagging us 😎 If you haven’t received a shipping notification yet, let us know at contacts@fujocoded.com!

• hacker voice “You’re in”: 20% off store discount codes have been shipped to all our eligible BackerKit backers. Thanks for your support—hope you enjoy the stuff in the store you helped us finance!

• Article Physics: One of our stretch goals was raising funds for an article on the Javascript package manager NPM. Here’s the progress we’ve made so far: 

  • Our founder Ms Boba talked with NPM beginners to get a sense of the information they needed the most, then dumped all her observations into a single document with a draft of a potential outline. We’ve also recruited another volunteer to finalize this outline and prepare it for our future tech writer!

  • Long-time BobaBoard volunteer and core FujoCoded supporter enigmalea has been selected as the lead of the BobaBoard/FujoVerse Documentation Bubble. They’re putting together a team that (among other things) will:

    • Research license options for the articles we’re planning to commission
    • Work with our legal recruit (introduced in October) to finish drafting tech writer contracts for both BobaBoard and the rest of the FujoVerse projects
    • Draft work requirements for prospective tech writers  

  • BobaBoard volunteer and FujoCoded supporter Dove has been selected as lead of the BobaBoard/FujoVerse Volunteering Bubble. She’s putting together a team that (among other things) will:

    • Finalize work requirements for prospective tech writers 
    • Publicize our need for a tech writer and make job postings

• (Article Physics, con’td): It’s been really great to watch more of the BobaBoard organization take shape in a way that will continue to empower the FujoVerse to get things done even after this specific campaign has wrapped.

What’s Next for the FujoCoded Backerkit

• Blowing Bubbles: We’ll be using the coming month of December to have the first meetings of the Documentation and Volunteering bubbles (see above).
• Cons & Contracts: While much of our focus in January will be on our con appearance at Escapade, our other focus will be collaborating with the Documentation bubble on wrapping up our own contract efforts and getting them approved by our lawyer.
• Budge(t) up: With all the production and shipping complete, we can now accurately determine exactly how much money we have left to pay article writers.
• It’s drafty in here: We’ll continue revising the draft outline of the NPM article based on the research our founder Ms Boba put together with the help of fannish NPM beginners. The clearer our draft is, the better our tech writer will do!
• THE END IS NIGH: With the digital and physical rewards distributed, we’re well on our way toward wrapping up campaign fulfillment. All that’s missing are the articles and the legal contracts we need to get them done! 😌

Recent Progress on the Fujoshi Guide to Web Development

• Results are (partially) in: As you know, we delivered the digital preview version of Vol. 0, Issue 1: Git! The feedback we’ve received so far has been incredibly positive, which has been incredibly validating! We’re glad our hard work is resonating with readers! However, the number of people leaving any feedback whatsoever is still pretty low. If you have time, even just to give your brief first impression of the beginning of the issue, we would really appreciate it!

  • The email that delivered the digital issue files was called Project Update #45: The Fujoshi Guide to Web Development by Essential Randomness if you need to dig it up in your inbox.

  • You can leave feedback on the digital issue here.

  • Here’s some examples of great feedback from social media:

    • On tumblr
    • On twitter
    • On mastodon

• Webbed site: A vital accessory to the digital preview of Vol. 0, Issue 1: Git is our companion site, where we catch you up on how to use a Terminal, how to edit HTML and CSS files, and  how to install Git in the first place. We’re very proud of the site, but we’re sure it could be even better. That’s why we need your feedback! If you need some distraction from the chaos of the holidays or want to gift yourself the pleasure of learning something new,check out the companion site and then let us know what you think.

• Gateway drug: Don’t know where to start? We think going through the terminal article is a great first step for people who aren’t ready for the full guide but want to take ONE action that will set them up for long-term success.

What’s Next for FujoGuide

• Fujo (Hiber)Nation: It’s vitally important that we get as much reader feedback as possible on Issue 1 before we make any major progress on Issues 2 & 3. And getting the digital issue out was a lot of work, so we think we’ve earned a bit of a holiday! Accordingly, we’re holding off on news about future issues until the beginning of February. In the meantime:

  • Read Vol. 0, Issue 1: Git!!!
  • Give us feedback on Issue 1 and on the Companion Site!
  • If you can’t find the time to read the issue, start with reading the Terminal article on learn.fujoweb.dev. As mentioned above, it’s a great first step for people who aren’t ready for the full guide but want to take ONE action that will set them up for long-term success.

Around the Fujoverse

Escaping to Escapade

We’re heading down to Los Angeles to table at EscapadeCon from January 31 to February 2. Escapade bills itself as a “slash slumber party” and has been a celebration of fujoshi, fudanshi, fujin, and friends since way back in 1991, which means it’s exactly the right crowd to introduce to the Fujoverse. Both our founder Ms Boba and our communications manager Dove will be there selling merch and preaching the good word about the Fujoshi Guide to Web Development, FujoCoded, and the rest of the FujoVerse. 

You can buy tickets here on their website—and if your budget is tight, they offer scholarships!

Hang Out with FujoCoded on Twitch 💬✨

This Month’s Streaming Schedule Is All Bluesky All the Time, Baby!

• Thursday, December 5 @ 3pm PST: BlueSky Hacking: Let’s Learn AtProto!
• Thursday, December 12 @ 3pm PST: BlueSky Hacking: Let’s Learn AtProto!
• Monday, December 16 @ 3pm PST: BlueSky Hacking: Let’s Learn AtProto!
• Thursday, December 19 @ 3pm PST: BlueSky Hacking: Let’s Learn AtProto!
• Monday, December 23 @ 3pm PST: BlueSky Hacking: Let’s Learn AtProto!
• Monday, December  30 @ 3pm PST: BlueSky Hacking: Let’s Learn AtProto!

Fujostore Highlights

Restocks, Sales, and Limited-Time Offers

• A Folger’s Christmas: It’s time for the annual FujoVerse Holiday Special! You can use our discount code FOLGERS_SEASON for 15% off everything in the FujoCoded store. Brighten the holiday of your nearest and dearest fujin & friends with yaoi cheese boards, snarky stickers, or even an official Ownership Certificate of their favorite slash pairing!

• More discounts?: Remember, if you backed our FujoCoded launch campaign at $15 or above, you should already have a unique coupon code in your inbox that gives you 20% off. 

• EVEN MORE discounts??: And if you become a sustaining monthly supporter on Patreon, you’ll receive a coupon for 25% off your order! Tiers start at just $3 per month, and every bit truly does add up to support our mission: building a kinder, weirder, more diverse, more collaborative internet. 

• Shipping deadlines: If you need to receive your order on or before Decmber 25, here are your target order dates:

  • United States: Wednesday, December 18th (USPS Ground Advantage)
  • Africa, Central America (including Mexico), and South America: Monday, December 2 (International Shipping)
  • Canada & all remaining countries: Monday, December 9 (International shipping) 

• No time to wait? Whether you gift a RobinBoob ship certificate to a friend or buy your own OTP to treat yourself, your recipient will receive it in their inbox right away!

You Can Help!

We’re putting together a group of volunteers to assist with revamping BobaBoard.com (the static home page for BobaBoard, not the social media platform called BobaBoard) and docs.bobaboard.com (the repository of articles about every different part of BobaBoard.) Here’s the kind of help we could use:

• Nitpickers (for BobaBoard): Volunteers to give feedback on the BobaBoard home page, help us identify things that are outdated or confusing, catch typos, and find broken links. All you need to bring to the table is your opinion!
• Astro coders (for BobaBoard): Know the Astro framework, or willing to learn? The revamp of these sites will involve moving from React-based frameworks (NextJS, Docusaurus) to Astro (and its documentation framework, Starlight)! This is a great chance to gain some relatively entry-level experience with one of our favorite technologies to build personal websites with and learn more about frameworks.
• Copywriters, UI/UX folks, and/or web designers (for BobaBoard): After we move everything to Astro, we’ll need to rewrite, redesign, or rebuild the outdated parts of the home page. Whether you have decades of experience or just a hobbyist level of interest, we’d love to have you.

If you’d like to try any of these roles, or if you’d like to get involved in other ways, let us know via contacts@fujocoded.com.

That’s All, Folks!

We hope you’re enjoying the annual holiday store discount, and we wish you all the best during this holiday season. May the winter-themed fanfic featuring your faves be plentiful!

Warmest wishes,

The FujoCoded LLC Team
(a bunch of frantically busy elves in dweeby color-coordinated outfits)