Today was pretty fun!
Slept in. Had some omelettes for brunch.
We had gotten invited on a little day trip. Blair's boss picked us up around noon and we drove out, out, into the woods where a part of her family owns a huge plot of land. There was a log cabin on it, a cottage, an old barn, and this huge prairie that has been stripped, burned, and re-planted to resemble its original condition. It was all situated on the top of a bluff, and the view was beautiful.
Anyway, we were there because the relative works as part of a raptor conservation group, and one of their duties is to scale the cliffs down to the nest box where there were new baby falcons, remove the chicks from the nest and bring them up, and place bands on their legs. It was a pretty amazing thing to behold. This man repelling off the bluff while the parent falcons scream and swoop.
It didn't take long. We got to touch and hold the little chicks, although the majority of this privilege went to the two little girls that were along with us (of course, kids are afforded the coolest experiences, haha).
My allergies are doing alright. I've been taking pills and my crazy reaction the cedarwood incense was easily dealt with, fortunately.
Tomorrow, I work. Thursday we're going to clean the apartment and, if the weather holds, finally go out there and do Blair's graduation photos. Friday, if all goes well, we'll go see The Mandalorian and Grogu.
Slept in. Had some omelettes for brunch.
We had gotten invited on a little day trip. Blair's boss picked us up around noon and we drove out, out, into the woods where a part of her family owns a huge plot of land. There was a log cabin on it, a cottage, an old barn, and this huge prairie that has been stripped, burned, and re-planted to resemble its original condition. It was all situated on the top of a bluff, and the view was beautiful.
Anyway, we were there because the relative works as part of a raptor conservation group, and one of their duties is to scale the cliffs down to the nest box where there were new baby falcons, remove the chicks from the nest and bring them up, and place bands on their legs. It was a pretty amazing thing to behold. This man repelling off the bluff while the parent falcons scream and swoop.
It didn't take long. We got to touch and hold the little chicks, although the majority of this privilege went to the two little girls that were along with us (of course, kids are afforded the coolest experiences, haha).
My allergies are doing alright. I've been taking pills and my crazy reaction the cedarwood incense was easily dealt with, fortunately.
Tomorrow, I work. Thursday we're going to clean the apartment and, if the weather holds, finally go out there and do Blair's graduation photos. Friday, if all goes well, we'll go see The Mandalorian and Grogu.
Dead Poets Society Fan Fiction: "circe Regna tonat (it thunders through the realms)"
May. 19th, 2026 10:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
topaz_eyesI will, eventually, prepare better. I did some stairs that lead into Forest Park and some trails. I didn't plan on going on the trails... but I did. I can go up the ridges, but down is spicy. I went a little further than I should have without a stick, but it was fine.
Anyway, look, stairs:
View from my lunch spot:
How I'd never been up those stairs is insane... but honestly they are weirdly hard to get to. The walk there is... there's a sidewalk but also gravel trucks and oil trucks be zooming. Actually I tried to get there once before, but I was with someone had had a full on panic attack due to the trucks making things shake. There's a lot I should have done in this town a long time ago, but I'm going to start knocking it all out.
I need to reshoot that staircase because that on a rainy/misty day would go hard
( Stairs and... more stairs )
Anyway, look, stairs:
View from my lunch spot:
How I'd never been up those stairs is insane... but honestly they are weirdly hard to get to. The walk there is... there's a sidewalk but also gravel trucks and oil trucks be zooming. Actually I tried to get there once before, but I was with someone had had a full on panic attack due to the trucks making things shake. There's a lot I should have done in this town a long time ago, but I'm going to start knocking it all out.
I need to reshoot that staircase because that on a rainy/misty day would go hard
( Stairs and... more stairs )
still alive. have had to stop doing finger sticks to double-check my blood sugar because my pcp's office does not appear to understand the concept of a prior auth and i only have enough test strips left to cover the week i expect to be without a cgm before my endocrinologist appointment since i do not expect the pcp to be able to get me a cgm if they can't even get me test strips. also i'm having to reuse insulin needles both because medicaid will only cover 100 a month (which you may notice is less than the 120 a month needed to do four daily injections each with a fresh sterile needle) and because i also don't expect to get another box of needles prescribed until i, again, see the endocrinologist in mid june.
i forget if i mentioned i'm fiddling with titrating up my insulin so i'm not stuck in the 250 range (on the blood sugar scale where a non-diabetic is ideally between 70 and 120, i can never remember which units that one is) for the next month. so far i have managed to get my blood sugar to hover around 220 instead of 250 most of the day, and i just managed to have a post-meal sugar not hit the alarm for 250+, so i think i'm making progress. i really really want to have something mathematically solid figured out in the next three weeks before i run out of CGMs, because i am *not* willing to play this kind of guessing game with my blood sugar when i'm limited to four finger sticks a day.
there has been a weather system sitting on my head the past couple days which is unhelpful for doing anything but lying around feeling vaguely migrainey, since i get both light sensitivity and sound sensitivity with my pressure migraines. (technically they aren't diagnosed as migraines but i think i have at least half a dozen more specialists to sort shit out with before i get around to figuring out what species of doctor you ask about migraines.)
i forget if i mentioned i'm fiddling with titrating up my insulin so i'm not stuck in the 250 range (on the blood sugar scale where a non-diabetic is ideally between 70 and 120, i can never remember which units that one is) for the next month. so far i have managed to get my blood sugar to hover around 220 instead of 250 most of the day, and i just managed to have a post-meal sugar not hit the alarm for 250+, so i think i'm making progress. i really really want to have something mathematically solid figured out in the next three weeks before i run out of CGMs, because i am *not* willing to play this kind of guessing game with my blood sugar when i'm limited to four finger sticks a day.
there has been a weather system sitting on my head the past couple days which is unhelpful for doing anything but lying around feeling vaguely migrainey, since i get both light sensitivity and sound sensitivity with my pressure migraines. (technically they aren't diagnosed as migraines but i think i have at least half a dozen more specialists to sort shit out with before i get around to figuring out what species of doctor you ask about migraines.)
What's going on, ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
smallweb? Big projects, little tweaks, sidelined by [the universe], something else?
Share all the things!
smallweb? Big projects, little tweaks, sidelined by [the universe], something else? Share all the things!
4 days left in creation period! + Open PHs & extension info
May. 19th, 2026 06:20 pmfirebatvillain posting in bitesizedfandomsexWe are now roughly four days from the deadline (May 23, 11:59 PM US Eastern)!
If you need more time, we are offering a three-day extension to anyone who needs one, so if you'd like an extension please feel free to email us at bitesizedfandomsex@gmail.com. The due date for those with extensions will be May 26, 11:59 PM Eastern.
Due date countdown | Treats for pinch hitters
We also have some returning pinch hits! These pinch hits assignments are for a complete story of 1,000+ words or a 1 finished art piece as per the requester's medium, in one of the requester's fandoms and featuring at least one of their requested characters or relationships, minding their DNWs.
The due dates for these will be the same as those for extended assignments: May 26 at 11:59 PM US Eastern Time. Please comment or otherwise let us know if you'd like to pick one up (we will need your AO3 username and the number of the pinch hit you're claiming).
Comments on this post are screened if you have any questions or need help! Happy creating!
( PH 1 - Pure Taboo (s4e26 Take What You Can Get), Pure Taboo (s2e89 His Brother's Blessing), Pure Taboo (s2e92 It Slipped In) )
( PH 3 - The Other Side of Paradise - Glass Animals (Music Video), ALICE - Erin LeCount (Music Video), Only Ever You - Shoto (Webcomic) )
( PH 4 - Alien Nine, Dragon Half (OVA), プラスチックリトル | Plastic Little (Anime), 魔法少女サイト | Mahou Shoujo Site | Magic Girl Site (Anime) )
( PH 6 - The Love Hypothesis - Ali Hazelwood, My Roommate Is a Vampire - Jenna Levine, Deliver Me - Ashley Hawthorne )
( PH 7 - The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin, Kindred - Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower - Octavia E. Butler )
( PH 8 - Sanctuary (2022), Best Sellers (2021), Wooing the Witch Queen - Stephanie Burgess )
If you need more time, we are offering a three-day extension to anyone who needs one, so if you'd like an extension please feel free to email us at bitesizedfandomsex@gmail.com. The due date for those with extensions will be May 26, 11:59 PM Eastern.
We also have some returning pinch hits! These pinch hits assignments are for a complete story of 1,000+ words or a 1 finished art piece as per the requester's medium, in one of the requester's fandoms and featuring at least one of their requested characters or relationships, minding their DNWs.
The due dates for these will be the same as those for extended assignments: May 26 at 11:59 PM US Eastern Time. Please comment or otherwise let us know if you'd like to pick one up (we will need your AO3 username and the number of the pinch hit you're claiming).
Comments on this post are screened if you have any questions or need help! Happy creating!
( PH 1 - Pure Taboo (s4e26 Take What You Can Get), Pure Taboo (s2e89 His Brother's Blessing), Pure Taboo (s2e92 It Slipped In) )
( PH 3 - The Other Side of Paradise - Glass Animals (Music Video), ALICE - Erin LeCount (Music Video), Only Ever You - Shoto (Webcomic) )
( PH 4 - Alien Nine, Dragon Half (OVA), プラスチックリトル | Plastic Little (Anime), 魔法少女サイト | Mahou Shoujo Site | Magic Girl Site (Anime) )
( PH 6 - The Love Hypothesis - Ali Hazelwood, My Roommate Is a Vampire - Jenna Levine, Deliver Me - Ashley Hawthorne )
( PH 8 - Sanctuary (2022), Best Sellers (2021), Wooing the Witch Queen - Stephanie Burgess )
Last Friday was an experiment in being social. I had met a lady while I was wandering around the Willits nursery and handed off my contact info. We made plans to get together Friday. I also made arrangements to go and look at some used plant pots. I'm using a ton of 5 inch and gallon and a half sized pots. So many marijuana growers are going out of business that it seemed like a good idea to try and find cheap pots. In the morning I got a bunch of mowing done, along the road in Slides Pasture plus around the Day Use Parking lot, picnic area and camping area. Around 3, having talked to the guy with the pots, I headed for Willits. I was just getting off the freeway when I got a text, it said: Have to be in Willits at 4, be back by 5. Which was very much NOT ok with me, as I was meeting my new friends for dinner at 5! Instead I went back to the very nice nursery and got a couple of dozen 2 gallon pots.
We had a very lovely dinner.
We had a very lovely dinner.
( Lots of pictures )
Pick a year from 1975 to 2026. I'll tell you a favorite song, TV show, book, or movie from that year and why. (You can pick your media or leave it to me.)
Title: A Drop of Corruption (In the Shadow of the Leviathan #2)
Author: Robert Jackson Bennett
Genre: Fantasy, murder mystery/crime thriller
Author: Robert Jackson Bennett
Genre: Fantasy, murder mystery/crime thriller
Yesterday, with hours to go until my library hold expired, with another hold not on the horizon before 3 weeks, I finished A Drop of Corruption, the second book in the In the Shadow of the Leviathan series by Robert Jackson Bennett.
Ana and Din are back with another grody and baffling murder. I think the consistency between the first book and the second is very good; if you liked one, you’ll like the other. Bennett maintains the same quality mystery narrative here, dropping believable misleads while feeding out enough information that when Ana makes her breakthrough realizations you can look back and see the path she took.
Bennett’s fantasy world is coming into its own as well. We pick up many months after the end of the last book, so Ana and Din have developed a stronger rapport and working relationship. We are fed more information about the world itself—with some outside perspective, as this book takes place entirely in the nation of Yarrow, which is essentially a satellite state of Khanum, pending full annexation once negotiations with Yarrow’s king complete.
I enjoy how the women are written in these books. Ana and our new, local connection, Malo, are wholly unmoored from concerns about what others think of them. Ana is brash, loud, demanding, and arrogant—except that she’s almost always right. She has a masterful understanding of her own capabilities and weaknesses and she’s not afraid to openly discuss either. She’s also crass, gluttonous, and does not have great personal hygiene habits. And yet, everyone simple handles it, because she’s so good at what she does. I feel it’s rare to see a female character like this.
When it comes to the other women in service to the empire, like Thelenai and the female members of Uhad’s crew from the last book, there is little distinction between them and their male colleagues. A number of fantasy stories have posited that their worlds are gender-equal, but many fall utterly short of showing that beyond having women around. In Bennett’s world, in Khanum, I believe it, in part because the women lack the self-consciousness that comes of being raised in a sexist society.
However, this book is politically confused. It is obvious, even before the author’s note, that Bennett thinks very little of monarchy, and its destructive power is hammered over and over throughout the book. In that closing author’s note, Bennett is highly critical both of real-world leaders behaving like kings, and the glorification of monarchy in fantasy literature. However, the glaring hole in this, to me, is that no commentary is made on the empire. Ana and Din hail from what is nothing more than an elevated monarchy—one where their centuries-old emperor has chosen to extend his power well beyond his initial borders. Now, it makes perfect sense that Ana and Din believe in the good of Khanum. They serve it, they are members of its government. However, Khanum’s pending annexation of Yarrow is posited as almost universally a good thing for Yarrow—indeed, the only character we see strongly opposed to it is easily the most loathsome character in the book. There is criticism also of Yarrow’s practice of slavery, but when Din protests that a potential Khanum retreat from the annexation would leave the slaves of Yarrow to their fate, Ana warns him it is not Khanum’s place to legislate the morality of other places. And yet, over and over and over again for all of human history, empires have believed it was their place to do just that—and violently (Hello, White Man’s Burden).
Perhaps these inconsistencies would be less sharp if we understood more about Khanum and its role in the world. In A Drop of Corruption, we are told the empire no longer conquers with strength of arms—ergo the protracted negotiations with Yarrow. However, that means it did, and even in the last book we saw how the empire treats its cantons, with the utter destruction of Oypat accepted as a reasonable price to maintain the wealth of various noble families. Even if the emperor is only a figurehead, we know that Khanum is tightly bound by the whims and desires of its nobility. It was baffling to me why this is never raised in the political discussions of Yarrow and the annexation.
Moving on, we get new backstory on both Ana and Din here, which bulks their characters out (although Din’s apparent lifelong yearning to join the Legion feels a bit out of left field) and leaves us in a very interesting place for the third book. Ana continues to be a vicious delight and without spoilers, we are finally learning what makes her so unique.
I also had to appreciate the importance the narrative places on civil servants. One of Din’s gripes about life in the Iudex is, essentially, that it is unglamorous and frequently bureaucratic. Yet the narrative champions those who do the day-to-day drudgery of running a country, frequently for no thanks. It takes the garbage men and the post office workers and the teachers and the Social Security Administration clerks to run things, and A Drop of Corruption says these people are important, and the work they do is important, even if it is rarely recognized.
Bennett has hit his stride with this series and I’m curious to see where it goes next.
This is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time) on Tuesday, May 19, to midnight on Wednesday, May 20. (8pm Eastern Time).
Poll #34615 Daily Check-in
Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: Access List, participants: 17
How are you doing?
I am OK.
12 (70.6%)
I am not OK, but don't need help right now.
5 (29.4%)
I could use some help.
0 (0.0%)
How many other humans live with you?
I am living single.
6 (35.3%)
One other person.
6 (35.3%)
More than one other person.
5 (29.4%)
Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.
Erica Skyberg is a 35-year-old teacher in a small town in South Dakota who’s just realized that she’s a trans woman. Or rather, the knowledge that she’s a trans woman has finally become impossible to suppress. Unfortunately, she’s deep in the closet and the only other trans person she knows is Abigail, who is 17 and the only openly trans student at her high school. Erica is in the stage of identity where she can’t think about anything else; Abigail is fine with carrying the banner of being out but would really like her life to not be just about Being Trans.
Erica comes out to Abigail, who is equal parts annoyed and fascinated by the chance to take on the role of being a mentor to an adult. Their relationship is definitionally inappropriate, but not predatory or harmful. Abigail can be a lot and Erica has enormous issues with self-esteem and boundaries, but they’re both essentially kind and well-meaning people trying to just live their lives in a world that has cast them as Public Enemy # 1.
This novel is also essentially kind. It’s a very warm and often pretty funny look at two people who have one somewhat random thing in common and create a relationship based on that one thing, which becomes a relationship based on more than that, and how the repercussions of that relationship spiral outward and affect others: Erica’s ex-wife, Abigail’s boyfriend, Abigail’s boyfriend’s mother, a lonely student who wants to be friends with Abigail, the woman running against an anti-trans political candidate who is guaranteed to win, and many more.
Content note: Obviously transphobia and internalized self-hatred are central to the overall story, but it’s not the kind of book where people are constantly getting slurs screamed at them.
I will mention, since it’s a mistake that I made, that Emily St. James is not Emily St. John Mandel who wrote Station Eleven.
Recommended by Naomi Kritzer. Thanks!
Erica comes out to Abigail, who is equal parts annoyed and fascinated by the chance to take on the role of being a mentor to an adult. Their relationship is definitionally inappropriate, but not predatory or harmful. Abigail can be a lot and Erica has enormous issues with self-esteem and boundaries, but they’re both essentially kind and well-meaning people trying to just live their lives in a world that has cast them as Public Enemy # 1.
This novel is also essentially kind. It’s a very warm and often pretty funny look at two people who have one somewhat random thing in common and create a relationship based on that one thing, which becomes a relationship based on more than that, and how the repercussions of that relationship spiral outward and affect others: Erica’s ex-wife, Abigail’s boyfriend, Abigail’s boyfriend’s mother, a lonely student who wants to be friends with Abigail, the woman running against an anti-trans political candidate who is guaranteed to win, and many more.
Content note: Obviously transphobia and internalized self-hatred are central to the overall story, but it’s not the kind of book where people are constantly getting slurs screamed at them.
I will mention, since it’s a mistake that I made, that Emily St. James is not Emily St. John Mandel who wrote Station Eleven.
Recommended by Naomi Kritzer. Thanks!
Slow Internet Day
by Kory Heath
Nobody texts you;
Email’s a chore;
Tinder rejects you;
And Discord’s a bore.
Poker’s not lawful;
Twitter’s a jerk;
Facebook’s awful;
You might as well work.
(with apologies to Dorothy Parker)
by Kory Heath
Nobody texts you;
Email’s a chore;
Tinder rejects you;
And Discord’s a bore.
Poker’s not lawful;
Twitter’s a jerk;
Facebook’s awful;
You might as well work.
(with apologies to Dorothy Parker)
For bringing me some much-needed comic relief at work today, I would like to thank the guy who, during a conversation about Star Trek, informed me in the tones of someone imparting a rich, strange, scandalous, juicy secret that there was a lot of fanfiction out there, and did I know a ton of it was about Kirk and Spock having a relationship? Isn't that weird?
I think I deserve an Oscar for mostly keeping a straight face at that point.
I think I deserve an Oscar for mostly keeping a straight face at that point.
Title: Don't Care
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Rating: G
Length: 633
Author notes: spontaneously written in an hour after seeing the prompt
Summary: Cloud gets a job - an he's not taking it because he cares at all.
( Story )
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Rating: G
Length: 633
Author notes: spontaneously written in an hour after seeing the prompt
Summary: Cloud gets a job - an he's not taking it because he cares at all.
( Story )
![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
Our releases in March included a slew of collection, bookmark, and history bug fixes, as well as several improvements for site admins.
Special thanks to first-time contributors charliewhiskee, Dobe, goose, Lubczi, Marianna, mellowmarsach, Nathan Cunningham, nghz, Oyon Ganguli (0ce10tsgit), and Xiang Rassul Li!
Credits
- Coders: Bilka, Brian Austin, calm, charliewhiskee, Cubostar, Daniel Haven, Danaël / Rever, Dobe, EchoEkhi, FlyingFalcon, goose, Lubczi, Mae Light, Marianna, mellowmarsach, Nathan Cunningham, nghz, ömer faruk, Oyon Ganguli (0ce10tsgit), Richard Hajek, sarken, Scott Venkataraman, varram, Yi Fang, Xiang Rassul Li
- Code reviewers: Bilka, Daniel Haven, marcus8448, redsummernight, sarken, Scott Venkataraman, slavalamp
- Testers: Berix, Bilka, Brian Austin, calamario, choux, EchoEkhi, hvalrann, Lute, lydia-theda, marcus8448, pk2317, therealmorticia, Ven, wichard
Details
0.9.462
On March 2, we deployed a patch for the gem we use to manage authentication (to address a performance issue related to the March 2026 Downtime).
- [AO3-7306] - Devise patch to prevent an excessive amount of strain on the database.
0.9.463
Our March 6 deploy included a few gem updates.
- [AO3-6916] - Migrated from Gitpod/Ona to devcontainers for our development needs, as Gitpod was no longer suitable.
- [AO3-7271] - Updated which data is included when comments are sent to our spam checker for evaluation.
- [AO3-7305] - We updated the internationalization of some emails based on feedback from translators.
- [AO3-7227], [AO3-7304], [AO3-7308] - Code cleanup and gem updates.
0.9.464
On March 12, we released a whole bunch of bug fixes.
- [AO3-6359] - In some rare cases it was possible to delete the pseud that corresponds with your username. We fixed this edge case.
- [AO3-6688] - In order to prevent tragic accidents, we've made it harder to delete your entire History. Instead of a small "Are you sure?" popup, you are now directed to a confirmation page that requires another button click.
- [AO3-7214], [AO3-7215] - On a page with several bookmarks, closing and opening the "Edit" or "Save" functions on several bookmarks would get the popup form all confused which bookmark you wanted to edit or save. Or, in some cases, the buttons would just disappear on you! We've now sorted out the underlying JavaScript to let you save, or indeed edit, the bookmark you clicked on last.
- [AO3-7273] - When an account is banned for posting spam, we now also automatically delete all its profile contents, including any icons and alt text.
- [AO3-7285] - The user ID was missing from a page accessible to Policy & Abuse volunteers; we've added it now.
- [AO3-7290] - When you access AO3 without being logged in, you might be able to scroll down the page a bit, but then a popup will inevitably ask you to agree to our Terms of Service before you can continue. We now take you back to your scroll position once you click the button.
- [AO3-7314] - We've fixed the draft deletion to make sure it adheres to the correct deletion dates even for drafts created in the short month of February.
- [AO3-5683] - We fixed some security warnings pointed out by the helpful Brakeman tool.
- [AO3-7302] - We changed the code for displaying work meta-information so it accesses the work in one unified way.
0.9.465
On March 18, we released a bunch of bookmark, admin, and accessibility fixes.
- [AO3-5937] - On some pages, the "Save" button on bookmarks was visible to logged-out users, not that clicking it would do anything. Now it's only there when you're logged into your account.
- [AO3-6203] - On tag pages, we display a list of tags associated with the one you're browsing, e.g. the characters or relationships for a fandom (with a limit of 300 tags per type). For large fandoms, for example, that would put a considerable strain on the database. We have now moved to getting this data from our search engine, so retrieving the associated tags doesn't hammer the database servers anymore.
- [AO3-7030] - When we introduced Archive skins, we envisioned a system where users could create custom CSS to change the appearance of AO3, and then apply to make the code available to other users with a button click. This was never a sustainable idea, so we've been working on phasing it out. Now only official accounts, e.g. those belonging to the AO3 development team, can apply to have their skin reviewed for general usage. (All users can still create skins for themselves and make the code available in other ways, e.g. on GitHub or Tumblr or as a fanwork on AO3.)
- [AO3-7131] - The text used by screen readers to announce a help link was confusing, reading out the question mark we use to indicate the availability of the help popup. We've cleaned up the way we generate the text, which should be easier to follow now.
- [AO3-7256] - We've added a limit to how many times a specific bookmark can be submitted to the Policy & Abuse team for review.
- [AO3-7272] - When accessing a comment via the "Reply to this comment" link, some buttons would be gone for site admins or logged-out users that they'd normally be able to use, e.g. if viewing a single comment thread. Now the buttons are always there!
- [AO3-7303] - On your Statistics page, the tool-tip you get when hovering over a graph would flicker if it popped up right under your cursor. That's fixed now, so it should be easier to read.
- [AO3-7317], [AO3-7318] - We removed an incorrect ARIA attribute from some HTML.
- [AO3-7319] - If a site admin bans an account for posting spam, they are now redirected to the admin dashboard for that account (after the successful deletion of all the spam).
- [AO3-7335] - We fixed that running all the tests in one sitting would leave extra files and models behind.
0.9.466
We upgraded to Rails 8.1 on March 20.
- [AO3-7328] - We updated Rails, the framework the AO3 runs on, to the next major version.
- [AO3-7346] - Updated a gem used by our search engine to address a security issue.
0.9.467
For our penultimate March release, we deployed several display fixes and small site improvements on March 25.
- [AO3-5866] - The links to work creators in our RSS feeds were broken; now they're fixed!
- [AO3-6138] - Leaving kudos on a work with JavaScript disabled would previously knock you back to the top of the page. You can now see the success message (or the friendly hint that you've already left kudos) without having to scroll down to it.
- [AO3-6385] - On the page displaying all prompts in a prompt meme, or all requests in a gift exchange, the page content would overlap the sorting buttons at the top if viewed on a small screen. Now everything looks tidy.
- [AO3-6498] - To assist in abuse cases involving our gifting feature, members of the Policy & Abuse team can now access a user's refused gifts page.
- [AO3-7059] - We will now display a warning message if the password you're using to log into AO3 was found in a data breach documented on HaveIBeenPwned.
- [AO3-7255] - We've added a limit to how many times a specific series can be submitted to the Policy & Abuse team for review.
- [AO3-7268] - If you try to navigate to the inbox for a nonexistent user, you will now get an Error 404, since, like the user, the inbox does not exist.
- [AO3-7280] - Creating a multi-chapter draft and then hitting "Post" on the first chapter would indeed post that chapter, but treat the work as a whole still as a draft. It now publishes the work, with the first chapter, leaving any other chapters alone so you can post them later.
- [AO3-7315] - Members of the Policy & Abuse team can now edit and save a work's tags, e.g. to change the selected language, even if it has more than 75 tags. (As a regular user, you'd be prompted to remove tags from your work until you're below the limit.)
- [AO3-7323] - We updated the introductory text on our homepage.
- [AO3-7352] - Our previous fix making help text links more accessible for screen readers unfortunately prevented some content in work blurbs (e.g. warnings and ratings) from being read out loud. This has now been fixed!
- [AO3-7329], [AO3-7330] - Your History page and the page listing your blocked users now have your username in the browser's page title, as they always should have.
- [AO3-6906] - Updating the autocomplete for users and pseuds no longer depends on an unmaintained library!
- [AO3-7120] - In the rare case that the admin search results for a user are outdated, admins can now manually mark the search to be updated.
- [AO3-7338] - We recently changed how we cache bylines, and now all that new code is organized neatly in its own file.
- [AO3-7354] - We updated Rails to 8.1.2.1 for some security fixes.
0.9.468
On March 31, we deployed another batch of miscellaneous fixes and performance improvements.
- [AO3-6998] - Trying to search all signups in a gift exchange by pseud would cause an Error 500; now it returns the signup you were looking for!
- [AO3-7062] - AO3 site admins can now view all work blurbs on a user's "Works in Collections" page.
- [AO3-7223] - We prepared the help pop-ups on the Preferences page for translation.
- [AO3-7284] - When we rebuild our Elasticsearch indexes, we batch multiple objects together into one reindexing operation. We can now easily configure how large those batches are.
- [AO3-7292] - On the page for managing wranglers assigned to fandoms, the button to remove a wrangler only had a small clickable area around the X. Now the whole button does what it's supposed to do.
- [AO3-7311] - When a collection's settings were changed, e.g. from moderated to unmoderated, that information wasn't fully reflected everywhere. Now we make sure that listings and search results are updated immediately.
- [AO3-7321] - If you subscribe to a work that is then added to an unrevealed collection, we now display a "Mystery Work" placeholder on your subscriptions page until and unless the work is revealed again.
- [AO3-7332] - The page listing your muted users now has your username in the browser's page title!
- [AO3-7341] - If old jobs are still running on the development environment when a coder pushes changes to their branch of the Archive software, those jobs will now be stopped to save resources.
- [AO3-7347] - We cleaned up an unused method related to prompts.
- [AO3-7350] - We improved the performance of the History page by reducing the number of queries required to show each page.
Ring the wedding bells and toast your champagne glass, author Mary Berman has brought us a tale of love. Or, more accurately, a tale of being afraid of ending up alone, in the Big Idea for her newest novel, Until Death.
MARY BERMAN:
In 2021, I met my now-husband on Hinge. (This was before the death of the algorithm, RIP.)
On our first date, he asked, “So, are you looking for a relationship?” and I said, “No.” And he said, “Oh… so you’re just looking for someone to hook up with? I’m not really —” And I replied with something like, “God, no. I’m just afraid that if I don’t find a partner now, I’ll be alone in thirty years when my parents die.”
#
Two years later, in 2023, I found myself surrounded by weddings. My cousin got married, my other cousin got engaged, my best friend’s other friend got engaged, someone else kept texting me about her coworker’s crazy wedding in Italy, etc. I truly had no desire to be engaged yet — although my partner had, after that first conversation, mercifully decided to hang around, and we were still together — but I was still out here making wedding spreadsheets for fun. I couldn’t help it. Weddings were everywhere. We were all losing our damn minds. It was as Jia Tolentino had written in her very excellent essay “I Thee Dread”: “I, on the topic of weddings, like so many women before me, had gone a little bit insane.”
And at some point I thought: Oh, there’s a thing that makes everybody insane? I could write a horror novel about that.
#
That was my moment of inspiration: Ooh, a horror novel about wedding planning! I also had my protagonist, Ophelia, right away. She, like me, would start out thinking, Mmm, I’m not sure this whole relationship business is for me. But over the course of the novel, she’d get dragged into a marriage. Unlike me, though, she would not be dragged into it by Love. No, she would be ensnared by Something Bad. But what Bad Thing could get someone to make a huge decision like that?
And then I thought: Maybe, like me, she’s also terrified to end up alone.
And — because I love to turn shit up to eleven — I thought, Maybe she’s a lot closer to that point than I was when I met my partner. Maybe her dad is gone already, maybe her mom is sick. But sick is too easy, it’s too black-and-white. What’s worse than sick? What’s worse than dying?
#
I have two family members who died of dementia. The first of these slow declines, I witnessed as a young teenager. Because of this, I spent a surprisingly long time thinking dementia and aging were the same thing — which is to say, I didn’t think there was a way to do the latter without the former.
Here is what I thought would happen to me, and to everyone else as we aged:
We would grow old. And as we grew old, we would lose bits and pieces of our memory, like an old coat losing shreds of itself to moths’ teeth in the dark.
Eventually, we would lose so much memory that would no longer remember our own histories. We would have no lingering understanding of our selves. We wouldn’t remember our spouses, or our children. We would catch sight of our own hands and panic because they were the gnarled hands of an old woman and we believed ourselves to be twenty-two. We would call our daughter and our granddaughter by the same name, because we would think they were two versions of the same person and our grasp of time would have grown so tenuous that this would not alarm us. Eventually we would also lose our mobility, and our speech.
We wouldn’t lose our lives, though. Those, for some strange reason, we would keep. Some tiny, unquenchable fire would burn inside us still. It would always leave just enough of us to give our loved ones hell.
#
That was it, then. Ophelia’s mother would be diagnosed with early dementia. And Ophelia, who up until this point would have felt, for reasons I shall not spoiler here, that marriage was a bad idea, would suddenly be staring down the barrel of a life without any family in it.
This, to me, is really what makes Until Death a horror novel. Not the wedding planning (well, that too), and not the supernatural element (well, that too). But those things come later. The horror, though, is always in the novel, even before Ophelia makes the decision to get married. That’s because the horror comes from Ophelia’s mother’s illness, Ophelia’s own sense of obligation, and her terror of being alone.
—-
Until Death: Amazon|Barnes and Noble|Bookshop
Round 7 - Jaune/Pyrrha (RWBY) - sarajayechan
May. 19th, 2026 05:20 pmsarajayechan posting in ships20in20
