So gay we bleed glitter

Oct. 28th, 2025 11:19 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

Queer club Halloween party tonight: the blood-red face paint dripping from one of the organizers' foreheads was in fact glittery.

There was also a LARP vampire, a few sets of fairy wings, some witches, somebody wearing a shirt he'd attached forks to and covered in fake blood to make it look like they were stabbing his torso and arms, who only belatedly realized that this meant he couldn't hug anyone, or squeeze as close to anyone else for the group photo as had been encouraged...

...and D and I as sheet ghosts, underneath fitted bedsheets that'd had the elastic taken out and holes cut for our eyes. D insisted on a slot for his mouth too, which he intended as a way to consume snacks, but the slot was too small to fit a cookie through. "I can see the crumbs on the mouth," from it someone later commented when he explained his costume.

V loves sheet ghosts and it was very nice to have costumes that they helped us make.

Creature feature

Oct. 27th, 2025 11:27 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

I got to see the Guillermo del Toro Frankenstein tonight, and it was great. Not only did I enjoy it, I was also relieved because I was expecting more body horror and, after his Pinocchio left me emotionally devastated, more of that too. Luckily I found both much more manageable than I had feared! Not to demean it with faint praise, just to note that I'm surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

Sadly V wasn't able to come along with us tonight, but I'm already looking forward to the excuse this gives us to watch it on streaming in a couple weeks.

My body clock is never on time

Oct. 26th, 2025 09:11 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

I woke up and looked at my alarm clock: 8.30. That's early!

Then I looked at my phone which said 7.30 - that's REALLY early!

"Gained an hour," but on the one Sunday in months when I have no plans at all so it doesn't do me any good.

I'm not normally bothered by the clocks changing -- I'm not normally bothered by eight-hour timezone changed -- but today once I got out of an excruciating conversation with my parents (they have their first laptop and they don't know what "browser" means and "the printer is in a file and I can't get it to come out!") all I could think was ah thank god it's bedtime and it was seven forty two pm.

8:42 I could accept as a typical time for me to go upstairs and get ready for bed. But this is silly.

And I was also very hungry and very overwhelmed by the time I ate dinner, because "the same time as usual" was in fact an hour late.

Weekend goals

Oct. 25th, 2025 02:29 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

I got up early and went to the gym and then basically went right to the Springsteen movie, and now I feel physically and emotionally amazing but by 2pm on Saturday I'd done everything that I had planned for the weekend and it's a weird feeling!

Database maintenance

Oct. 25th, 2025 08:42 am
mark: A photo of Mark kneeling on top of the Taal Volcano in the Philippines. It was a long hike. (Default)
[staff profile] mark posting in [site community profile] dw_maintenance

Good morning, afternoon, and evening!

We're doing some database and other light server maintenance this weekend (upgrading the version of MySQL we use in particular, but also probably doing some CDN work.)

I expect all of this to be pretty invisible except for some small "couple of minute" blips as we switch between machines, but there's a chance you will notice something untoward. I'll keep an eye on comments as per usual.

Ta for now!

Powerwash Simulator 2...spoilers?

Oct. 24th, 2025 09:15 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

"I saw an ad for the talking dog car movie on the toilet that came up out of the ground!"

That's a real sentence that I heard [personal profile] diffrentcolours say this afternoon.

Dear Yulegoat 2025

Oct. 23rd, 2025 06:37 pm
ceb: (Default)
[personal profile] ceb
Dear Yulegoat,

Thank you for writing for me! I love hand-made presents and I am easy to please. I hope you will find something you enjoy writing here. This is me at AO3.


General likes/dislikes:

I would prefer gen fic for all the fandoms I've nominated, though plot-relevant sex is fine (especially for the Saint of Steel books) if that's where your plot needs to go. I like happy endings and bittersweet endings, and noble tragedy is my catnip.

I like competence and the ability to think things through; I am annoyed by plots where a character does something out-of-character stupid just to advance the plot. I have no problem with in-character mistakes and if written well they can make the story.

I adore experimental and unusual formats (and, apparently, lists). Please, if you want to, tell me a story as a game or a series of drabbles or a shopping list or a puzzle or a 1-line fic with a very large set of intertwined footnotes or a poem or an ASCII map or half of a scribbled note exchange... if there's some crazy thing you've been wanting to try to write forever but aren't sure if it would work or if your recipient would get it, I am the right person to send it to. Take this as a 'HELL YES' opt-in for IF also. If you're not that person and just want to write a story, I will also be delighted, so please play to your strengths and don't feel you need to reach for a weird format if you don't want to.

DNW: No 2025 real-world politics please (e.g., no fascism, no real wars, no TERFery, no disintegrating climate doom).

All my specific suggestions are intended as idea sparks, I don't have my heart set on any of them and I will not be even slightly disappointed if you have a different idea you'd like to pursue. Run with them, or not, as suits your story.

AO3 Name: molybdomantic


Fandom: Glamourist Histories Series - Mary Robinette Kowal
Characters: Worldbuilding

I am completely fascinated by the artistic and technological potential of glamour. We see it change during the series from merely a polite pastime for genteel women to a thing with uses beyond parlour tricks. What might it be used for later in the history of this world? Photography? Does glamour show up on film? Theatre? What might glamour music hall acts look like? Did the Victorians use glamour for educating the masses, like they did with plaster cast galleries and magic lanterns? Movies? Seances? Fashion? Modern art? I would be delighted to be given a guided tour of a glamour art installation from basically any point in time.


Fandom: Powerpuff Girls
Characters: Space Towtruck

I really enjoyed the return of the Powerpuffs after such a long hiatus (in the real world and also in Yuletide :-).I find I desperately need to know more about the girls' new favourite TV show, Space Towtruck. What is Space Towtruck's greatest secret? What other adventures has Space Towtruck encountered? Don't worry too much about canon; I get the feeling this is the kind of show that has multiple reboots, comic versions, etc. Feel free to include the girls if you would like to (maybe they get sucked into a Space Towtruck story via the magic of plot, or have an argument about which is the best Space Towtruck reboot). I like Mojo Jojo too, especially in his wordier incarnation of the earlier series, but find many of the other villains a little irritating.

I can't find full episodes online anywhere but 90% of the existing Space Towtruck canon is in the first half _The Big Sleep_ and the theme song is in _Tiara Trouble_.


Fandom: LEGO Natural History Museum
Characters: Worldbuilding
Fandom: LEGO Botanical Garden
Characters: Worldbuilding

I would love some worldbuilding set in either or both of these lovely sets. Both are packed with details. The botanical garden has lego versions of many real plants (see the build instructions linked below) and the natural history museum's collections include dinosaur skeletons, minerals, historical lego sets, and spaceships. What's it like to curate one of these museums? What do their accession records look like? Who smashed the pot? What do the exhibit labels / interpretational texts say? If you're feeling festive, I'm extremely fond of my local botanic garden's cheery winter light art display, what would that look like in lego?

Natural History Museum (10326)
https://www.newelementary.com/2023/11/lego-icons-set-review-10326-natural.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX1Uf37xCXE
https://www.lego.com/en-gb/service/building-instructions/10326

Botanical garden (21353)
https://brickarchitect.com/2024/review-21353-the-botanical-garden-lego-ideas/
https://www.brickfanatics.com/lego-ideas-21353-the-botanical-garden-review/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSDN-w7mJic
https://www.lego.com/en-gb/service/building-instructions/21353

Stronk

Oct. 22nd, 2025 11:04 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

I went to the gym after dinner tonight.

Not only did I get through work (I forgot to re-set my normal alarm after not needing it yesterday and woke up eight minutes before my first meeting, oops). Not only did I get a flu shot (I was very brave). Not only did I make dinner even though I was exhausted (I made the broccoli and halloumi thing because D really likes it and he's had A Bad Day at work).

But even after all that, I still was awake and energetic enough to go to the gym. And I even walked both ways (waiting for the bus would have taken a lot longer).

I didn't make it at all last week, and after losing the first two days of this week to the stupid away day, I wouldn't have blamed myself if I wasn't up for it now. But, surprisingly, I just about was.

Which is great. I was despairing that the whole winter might be like last week was, where I'd just work and sleep, or fail to sleep, and that's no kind of life. Especially when work is making you miserable like mine is.

Dollar signs

Oct. 21st, 2025 10:57 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

Caught up with my mom today. It'd been an eventful few weeks; I know they were closing on Grandma's house a week ago, and for most of the intervening time my parents had been visiting our Wisconsin family. Now that they're back, today my parents picked up the check for their share of the house, and deposited it, including a big chunk for me.

I tried to refuse it, I really want my parents to have it because they have less money than I do, but they also have a huge aversion to believing themselves to have less money than I do. And I think this might help them pay less taxes, so: fine. (I'm normally in favor of paying taxes but not federally right now! ugh.) And some of it is a little sentimental for my mom. And me too. I miss my grandma.

I'd trade all the money for the lefse spatula and rolling pin that I never got, and I may well have to buy myself another one. Maybe I'll make a batch at Christmas. It won't be the spatula with the blue handle and the hand-painted yellow flowers and the decades of use, but at least I can have some lefse.

Having heard today too that the U.S. government shutdown has reached the point of stopping SNAP (food for poor people) and knowing online a bunch of people who are reliant on that and scared about how they're going to survive, I just want to give all the money away. I feel so uncomfortable that I have this useless money when others could use it so much.

Support

Oct. 20th, 2025 08:37 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

I was an hour late for the away day, thanks to a combination of my own doofusness and regular transport hell. And this was so stressful for me because I knew an hour in that I was gonna be involved in the agenda item.

But of course it turned out not to matter because nothing ever gets done on an away day. I mostly think I'm pretty extroverted and neurotypical in this regard but since covid I'm like "...does any of this justify the increased chances of contracting a deadly and disabling illness?" and of course few things are.

One thing that would feel worth it for me is to have someone here to rub my feet. I just got back to my hotel room after wandering around, sometimes with my colleagues, finding food and trying to be normal enough.

The planned afternoon session couldn't happen and so we just carried on with more of my topic from the morning. It was hard work and stressful, and I'm not sure if much good came out of it.

I don't want to sound miserable; I did have a nice evening because I spent it with my favorite team member K, her support worker who's great company and who's also very kindly willing to help me out if I tag along with the two of them, and her friend W who I hadn't met in person before.

I kinda wish I had a support worker, not for every day but for trips like this. But I don't know anyone feasible and I don't want to deal with Access to Work so. This is the lesser evil. But it is nice to be able to borrow K's support worker on team events. And I met W's support worker today too who's also great.

AWS outage

Oct. 20th, 2025 10:11 am
alierak: (Default)
[personal profile] alierak posting in [site community profile] dw_maintenance
DW is seeing some issues due to today's Amazon outage. For right now it looks like the site is loading, but it may be slow. Some of our processes like notifications and journal search don't appear to be running and can't be started due to rate limiting or capacity issues. DW could go down later if Amazon isn't able to improve things soon, but our services should return to normal when Amazon has cleared up the outage.

Edit: all services are running as of 16:12 CDT, but there is definitely still a backlog of notifications to get through.

Edit 2: and at 18:20 CDT everything's been running normally for about the last hour.

🫶🏻

Oct. 19th, 2025 11:20 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

It was a grim drizzly counterprotest today, but I helped with logistics for there to be hot water for tea and coffee, and at one point I waved at and made heart-shapes with my hands at people in the windows of the asylum accommodation.

It was a nice moment in a kinda grim day; I've been thinking way too much about angry white men lately. Nice to literally turn my back on them and focus on the people we're there to support.

It's a small gesture, they're all small gestures, but doing them is better than not doing them.

Parody of the Rings

Oct. 4th, 2025 11:00 pm
lathany: (Default)
[personal profile] lathany
I took Dom to see Parody of the Rings. It was funny and worth while (based on the films, rather than the books). Best bit for me was Merry and Pippin portrayed by a couple of hand-puppet muppets.
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

My heart is warmed by the photos from protests: the huge crowds in big cities, the animal costumes, the clever signs, but especially the groups in small towns. I really wish I could have been there with them.

But instead I've had a quiet day, conscious that tomorrow D and I'll be Being Boring at bussed-in fash again who are trying to intimidate my neighbors, and then going to see New Model Army.

First date

Oct. 17th, 2025 11:10 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

A couple weeks after Gary died, back when I still looked at Facebook (I gave it up early this year), I got a Facebook ad for Borrow My Doggy. I told V it's like tinder for dogs) and they were like "oh that might be a good idea actually" so I've signed up.

Filling in the profile was kinda funny: since I was doing it on behalf of all of us, I felt like I was saying "hey, my metamour and our boyfriend and I saw you from across the dog park and we like your vibe..."

Like I understand dating apps for humans to work, results have varied. One person ghosted on us once we got to the details of where we live and stuff, one person's timing wasn't good (my professed ability to host was stymied by the request coming only a couple weeks after Mr. Smith joined the household which was deemed too much for the little blind cat so soon after his second move this year).

Someone great got in touch -- a couple that were moving to the area and both they and their dogs needed friends; they described the dogs as possibly a little bit of a handful but it sounded like, uh, a walk in the park after the intensity we'd gone through in the last couple years of being Gary's humans. Still I much prefer owners who go "my dog(s) can be a lot, it's fine if you don't want that inflicted on you!" and it ends up feeling like a little bit of an exaggeration...rather than vice versa: the ones who tell you "my dog is so perfect and he's never misbehaved" and then the dog is an ill-trained nightmare.

I assured them that we'd be there whenever they'd gotten moved and settled in and whatnot. And then I didn't hear for a few months and I forgot. Until the other day, the person got back in touch full of apologies for how long it had taken. Which is fine of course, we're still here and life is a lot and I was still delighted to meet her and her dogs.

And we arranged a date! Today after work V and I met her and her dogs at the park nearest us and it was brilliant. The dogs, standard wire-haired dachshunds Rufus and Coco, were so fun and their human was full of the kind of details I'd have offered so of course I think this is what conscientious owners should do, heh: how to manage their weaknesses (they get very excited about squirrels) and enjoy their strengths (Rufus loves everyone and he also loves treats). Coco isn't allowed off-lead right now because of recent Naughtiness; Rufus is better from an operation on his spine but not as spritely as he was before. She and her partner haven't been going out a lot since they moved here because they don't like to leave the dogs on their own for that long even though she knows the dogs are fine and I could tell her I was exactly the same with Gary. (There was a lot of "we were like that with Gary" -- but not as much as there was "oh Gary was way worse.")

We had a great time, and I'm sad D wasn't well enough to join us but I want there to be more visits. It made my heart feel full in a way I haven't been able to access in the last ten months. Dogs are so good.

By the time we got home, I already had a new message:

Hey thanks so much for coming to meet us. You were a big hit! Just message me if you want to meet again. As I said though, no pressure whatsoever.

Bless her, we were so effusive with praise for her and both dogs, and she's still like "it's fine if you cannot face these nightmares again."

siderea: (Default)
[personal profile] siderea
Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1885137.html


Content Advisory: US government classified and controlled unclassified info leaked to news outlets, within.

[Previously: The Essequibo (Buddy-ta-na-na, We Are Somebody, Oh): Part 1]

Now, when looking at these strikes being carried out in the Caribbean, shockingly, I think there's not been a ton of coverage on this. CNN, for one, their Pentagon reporters, have been some of the only ones consistently covering what's happening in Venezuela. CNN and the New York Times right now, I would say, are the two that are kind of all over this and have been for a while. I don't know why it's getting so little coverage elsewhere, but it is. So, normally I would like to look at these, uh, these reports and source them from multiple different outlets and we just don't have that because there's so limited coverage around US military operations in SOUTHCOM right now.

— Preston Stewart [PrestonStewart on YT], 2025 Oct 15, "American Bombers Send A Message To Venezuela"


[...] I know that the people of the United States are attentive observers and the people of the United States are very aware of what is being attempted against Venezuela is armed aggression to impose regime change.

— Nicolás Maduro, 2025 Oct 3, via Times of India via AP via VTV, "Venezuela Deploys Army & Tanks After Another Deadly U.S Attack, Fighter Jet action"


I am still desperately trying to pull together Part 2 of this series, but in the meanwhile, more things keep happening. I keep checking in with my focus group, aka, Mr. Bostoniensis, about what he is seeing in the news, because my own algorithms are, uh, rather peculiarly trained at this point, and the answer seems "rock all", so I thought I'd post a news round-up of some of the developments over the last couple of weeks. (Holy crap it's been two weeks.)

October 2nd


It comes out that the Trump administration has literalized the 'War on Drugs'. [CW: 'controlled but unclassified'] )

US terminates diplomatic relations with Venezuela )

October 3rd


Fourth US strike on a boat in Venezuelan waters is announced by Trump admin )

October 6th


Venezuela announces it foiled a false-flag plot against the US Embassy in Venezuela )

October 8th


Democrats in Senate try to limit Trump's war powers but fail )

October 9th


The Venezuelan opposition leader wins the Nobel Peace prize )

Venezuela requests emergency intervention from the UN Security Council )

The US asks Grenada, 100 miles off Venezuela's coast, to allow US military installation )

October 10th


The Nobel Peace Prize winner dedicates the prize to Trump, confusing a lot of people who haven't been keeping score )

It comes out that Maduro had been trying to negotiate his way out of US demands for his outster by offering up 'a dominant stake in Venezuela's oil' )

UN Security Council has emergency meeting per Venezuela's request )

October 13th


Maduro closes Venezuela's embassies in Norway and Australia )

Venezuelan activist and political consultant in exile in Colombia were shot )

October 14th


US bombs fifth boat off Venezuela, six killed )

US announces Admiral in charge of US SOUTHCOM visiting Antigua and Barbuda and Grenada )

Which brings us to today. (Well, it was today when I started writing this.)

October 15th


Trump has authorized covert CIA operations in Venezuela [CW: 'highly classified'] )

Three US Air Force B-52 bombers buzzed Venezuela for four hours; Venezeula scrambles an F-16 in response )

It comes out that the boat of Colombians bombed in September was not bombed by mistake, but was deliberate )

Nobel Laureate Machado exhorts Trump to rescue Venezuela from Maduro )

Trump is musing aloud to the press about airstrikes on Venezuela )

This post brought to you by the 220 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one
of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.


Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks!

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