Controlling Pseudo Elements like Regular Elements

[CosetteGirardot 0]

In trying to make a "talkbubble" styled div- box change colors completely upon being clicked, I ran into a problem of getting the :before pseudo element that I'm using (to shape the arrow for the talkbubble) to actually change colors with the rest of the element. My script is http://jsfiddle.net/petiteco24601/3xuuq2fx/.

When I couldn't get it to work, I did some research and it seems what/how to control pseudo-elements is a question that most web developers seem shaky about. For the most part, a lot of what I found was basically saying that there's no way to really force javascript on a pseudo element, since the pseudo element doesn't REALLY exist. However, with more research, I found things like http://css-tricks.com/pseudo-element-animationstransitions-bug-fixed-in-webkit/ andhttp://stackoverflow.com/questions/2610497/change-an-inputs-html5-placeholder-color-with-css/2610741#2610741 that say that those bugs were fixed and it is possible with some browsers to use javascript on pseudo elements. What's the actual deal? How extensively can a person control pseudo elements?

[Ingolme 1,020]

You can control it with CSS without any problem. You'll have to make a real element if you want to use Javascript on it.