ex-step-bf-in-law

Typing this from Graphene now, in fact. But, both of those take the Android Open Source Project, without all the bloatware--and largely de-Google the whole thing. They give you much more control over privacy and what the apps you choose to install can do and access on your phone.

I know Graphene sandboxes everything, including the optionally installed Google Play Services which a lot of apps unfortunately require to run. (Lineage uses an alternative to Play Services instead.) So, you can install what would normally be unacceptably intrusive apps and just lock them away from pulling any funny shit with your data, or phoning home. Including the couple of Google things I do still keep around.

I also prefer running much more transparent, privacy-respecting open source apps where possible. Besides the transparency, I'd rather avoid the shitty tech corps entirely where I can. There are pretty good alternatives available for a lot of the usual suspects.

An alternative app store:

🏳️‍⚧️ TRANS RIGHTS 🏳️‍⚧️

1. make a syllabus for yourself - books, media, places, recipes

2. complete 40% of it

It's late spring/early winter; the streets are permanently damp, smeared in salt and mud, and even the sunlight is dirty, meagre -- early mornings and late twilight, filtered through skinny trees, slit classroom windows, the gaps in the security door.

Even Owen and Chrissy's budding friendship (the thing that morally saves Owen) is conducted in backlight, shown from Matt's point of view in long lens, cut by intense and unflattering shadows.

Warmth is a precious commodity and the only place we see with any to spare is Matt's cave of a basement, where sunlight literally doesn't reach, lit by a sterile fluorescence and modulated only by Matt and Owen's familiarity with the space.

But then we get to Jay's classroom and it's lit like the shadows can't touch him. His classroom is airy, spacious, the opposite of low ceilinged basements or claustrophobic hallways. It's also private and intimate, and Jay is warm, supportive and kind. It's the only time we see any kind of kindness being extended to the boys by an adult, and crucially it's the only time the camera rejects one of the boys as its subject--even though Owen is right there! -- and forefronts a third party.