Daily Happiness
Oct. 3rd, 2025 07:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torachan1. I am definitely over my cold (did not have any stuffiness or sniffles today) and slept a lot better last night. Still woke up a few times, but was able to get back to sleep quickly.
2. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it, but a house at the end of our street (four doors down) has been semi-abandoned for about thirty years and fully abandoned for at least 10-15. It's a house with attached apartments, and the house has been unoccupied for about thirty, and a few people in the apartments hung on for longer due to the rent being low, even though the landlord was, according to people we knew in one of them who moved out earlier than the stragglers, completely MIA. It's been slowly falling down in that time (a few years ago I noticed some of the stairs outside were missing) and after years of squatters that eventually led to a small fire (thankfully fire department responded quickly and no major damage was done), the windows and doors were boarded up, and a few years after that a chainlink fence was put around it.
Now finally starting last month they are working to remodel it! I assumed at first it would just be completely torn down and something new put up, but after they stripped it down to the bare bones, earlier this week new lumber appeared on the site and they started replacing bad spots and reinforcing things. Apparently it had asbestos inside, as when they first started work on it, it was all hazmatted up and had warning signs around. I'm really curious to see what it will look like when it's all done.
3. This morning I noticed a puzzle piece on the floor under the desk and knew right away it was too large for the puzzle I'm currently working on. Sure enough, it's from the Country Bear Jamboree one we just finished. Which I put out in the little library a couple days ago! D: I always am so careful when putting the puzzles away, especially if it's one I'm going to give away. I'd hate to give away a puzzle with a missing piece. But thankfully when I went out to check, the puzzle had still not been taken, so I was able to add the piece back in. I will be even more careful from now on!
4. Jasper's so handsome.
2. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it, but a house at the end of our street (four doors down) has been semi-abandoned for about thirty years and fully abandoned for at least 10-15. It's a house with attached apartments, and the house has been unoccupied for about thirty, and a few people in the apartments hung on for longer due to the rent being low, even though the landlord was, according to people we knew in one of them who moved out earlier than the stragglers, completely MIA. It's been slowly falling down in that time (a few years ago I noticed some of the stairs outside were missing) and after years of squatters that eventually led to a small fire (thankfully fire department responded quickly and no major damage was done), the windows and doors were boarded up, and a few years after that a chainlink fence was put around it.
Now finally starting last month they are working to remodel it! I assumed at first it would just be completely torn down and something new put up, but after they stripped it down to the bare bones, earlier this week new lumber appeared on the site and they started replacing bad spots and reinforcing things. Apparently it had asbestos inside, as when they first started work on it, it was all hazmatted up and had warning signs around. I'm really curious to see what it will look like when it's all done.
3. This morning I noticed a puzzle piece on the floor under the desk and knew right away it was too large for the puzzle I'm currently working on. Sure enough, it's from the Country Bear Jamboree one we just finished. Which I put out in the little library a couple days ago! D: I always am so careful when putting the puzzles away, especially if it's one I'm going to give away. I'd hate to give away a puzzle with a missing piece. But thankfully when I went out to check, the puzzle had still not been taken, so I was able to add the piece back in. I will be even more careful from now on!
4. Jasper's so handsome.
All nominations approved!
Oct. 3rd, 2025 04:01 pmtwistedchickThere was a delay on some of them; I wasn't sure if the person reviewing had stopped for lunch or if there was a problem.
Dark Winds (tv)
Kate Shugak series (Dana Stabenow) [and yes, Mutt is a character]
The Saint (tv)
The Equalizer (tv, 2021) [this is the one with Queen Latifa]
This Rough Magic (Mary Stewart)
I have some ideas for a couple of them.
I haven't written up my Dear Author letter yet; how could I when I haven't picked out what I want to write? I don't see nominations as being about my writing -- I put in something I'd like to write, yes, but others simply should be in the lists because I know of other people who would like to write them.
And, speaking of writing, I spent the other four afternoons this week in a free 8-hour workshop on publishing from Hay House. It was worth the time, I think, to get a better sense of how that business works and what it does and doesn't do; that has all changed a lot since I wrote my first manuscript decades ago. (You will never see that one; it has been burned, it was that awful.)
Dark Winds (tv)
Kate Shugak series (Dana Stabenow) [and yes, Mutt is a character]
The Saint (tv)
The Equalizer (tv, 2021) [this is the one with Queen Latifa]
This Rough Magic (Mary Stewart)
I have some ideas for a couple of them.
I haven't written up my Dear Author letter yet; how could I when I haven't picked out what I want to write? I don't see nominations as being about my writing -- I put in something I'd like to write, yes, but others simply should be in the lists because I know of other people who would like to write them.
And, speaking of writing, I spent the other four afternoons this week in a free 8-hour workshop on publishing from Hay House. It was worth the time, I think, to get a better sense of how that business works and what it does and doesn't do; that has all changed a lot since I wrote my first manuscript decades ago. (You will never see that one; it has been burned, it was that awful.)
Fancake Theme for October: Uncommon Settings
Oct. 3rd, 2025 08:26 amrunpunkrun posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
fandomcalendar
fancake is a thematic recommendation community where all members are welcome to post recs, and fanworks of all shapes and sizes are accepted. Check out the community guidelines for the full set of rules. This theme runs for the entire month. If you have any questions, just ask!
Dear Festividder 2025
Oct. 3rd, 2025 12:36 ameruthrosThank you for making me a vid!
I have a couple things that I put outside the cut tag, because I have two visual triggers:
1) Fast, high contrast flashes of lights or colors. This can be triggered by strobe lights, strobe effects, glitch effects, full-screen lighting effects, or repeated lightning strikes. It can also be triggered by stutter cuts (very fast intercuts of 2-3 frames) where there is high contrast in the footage used for the stutter effect. Stutter cuts are fine between two similar scenes, but not between one dark green and one bright red lit scene, between a nighttime and daytime scene, etc. Flashing has to be very fast to bother me—think three lightning strikes in a second (dark, light, dark, light, dark, light, dark in one second).
2) Frame rate fuckery—when a show or a vid plays 24 fps footage in 30 fps or vice versa. So, like, when a film puts footage at the wrong frame rate to make it feel awkward or tense, which is super common in action films. (For example, the Bucky/Steve knife fight on the street in Winter Solider.) It can also happen by accident, if footage at one frame rate is put into a project with a different frame rate, or sometimes when a show needs to stretch or compress footage and they do it by duplicating every third frame.
I'll call these out in the source notes below for any fandom where they're relevant.
Please also feel free to run a sample bythingswithwings. She can explain them with examples if that would be helpful.
The rest of this post is additional details if you're interested!
( General Preferences )
I asked for: Babylon 5, Backspot (2023) [SAFETY], Bring Them Home / Aiskótáhkapiyaaya (2024) [SAFETY], Extraordinary Birder with Christian Cooper, Fancy Dance (2023) [SAFETY], The Great Canadian Baking Show (TV), Lego Video Games [UMBRELLA], Mythbusters (TV), Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards, This Place (2022) [SAFETY]
( Babylon 5 )
( Backspot (2023) )
( Bring Them Home / Aiskótáhkapiyaaya (2024) )
( Extraordinary Birder with Christian Cooper )
( Fancy Dance (2023) )
( The Great Canadian Baking Show )
( Lego Video Games [UMBRELLA] )
( Mythbusters )
( Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards )
( This Place (2022) )
I have a couple things that I put outside the cut tag, because I have two visual triggers:
1) Fast, high contrast flashes of lights or colors. This can be triggered by strobe lights, strobe effects, glitch effects, full-screen lighting effects, or repeated lightning strikes. It can also be triggered by stutter cuts (very fast intercuts of 2-3 frames) where there is high contrast in the footage used for the stutter effect. Stutter cuts are fine between two similar scenes, but not between one dark green and one bright red lit scene, between a nighttime and daytime scene, etc. Flashing has to be very fast to bother me—think three lightning strikes in a second (dark, light, dark, light, dark, light, dark in one second).
2) Frame rate fuckery—when a show or a vid plays 24 fps footage in 30 fps or vice versa. So, like, when a film puts footage at the wrong frame rate to make it feel awkward or tense, which is super common in action films. (For example, the Bucky/Steve knife fight on the street in Winter Solider.) It can also happen by accident, if footage at one frame rate is put into a project with a different frame rate, or sometimes when a show needs to stretch or compress footage and they do it by duplicating every third frame.
I'll call these out in the source notes below for any fandom where they're relevant.
Please also feel free to run a sample by
thingswithwings. She can explain them with examples if that would be helpful.The rest of this post is additional details if you're interested!
( General Preferences )
I asked for: Babylon 5, Backspot (2023) [SAFETY], Bring Them Home / Aiskótáhkapiyaaya (2024) [SAFETY], Extraordinary Birder with Christian Cooper, Fancy Dance (2023) [SAFETY], The Great Canadian Baking Show (TV), Lego Video Games [UMBRELLA], Mythbusters (TV), Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards, This Place (2022) [SAFETY]
( Babylon 5 )
( Backspot (2023) )
( Bring Them Home / Aiskótáhkapiyaaya (2024) )
( Extraordinary Birder with Christian Cooper )
( Fancy Dance (2023) )
( The Great Canadian Baking Show )
( Lego Video Games [UMBRELLA] )
( Mythbusters )
( Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards )
( This Place (2022) )
Daily Happiness
Oct. 2nd, 2025 07:49 pmtorachan1. I'm pretty much over my cold. Nose was a little runny this morning, but I'm not stuffed up anymore. Still tired from not getting enough sleep, but maybe tonight will be the night? (Maybe not, though, since I was so tired this morning I bought a coffee when I got to work and then a Coke at lunch. Even though that was early in the day, it still might keep me up...)
2. I'm very glad tomorrow is Friday and it's the weekend. We're going to see Adam Conover live on Sunday, so that will be fun. (It's at the same venue where we've seen Paul F Thompkins a couple times, and Carla was browsing their upcoming acts a couple months ago and spotted it.)
3. Speaking of Sunday activities, the last Sunday of the month is our Oogie Boogie night, so I just remembered to put in a PTO request for that Monday. It only runs until 11pm, not like some of the nighttime events on the Disneyland side (DCA ones always start and end earlier), so it wouldn't be terrible to have to go to work the next day, but it's just a nice excuse to have a day off. And I do need to use up some more of my PTO balance or it will max out again before we go to Japan next year.
4. Tuxie's challenging me.
2. I'm very glad tomorrow is Friday and it's the weekend. We're going to see Adam Conover live on Sunday, so that will be fun. (It's at the same venue where we've seen Paul F Thompkins a couple times, and Carla was browsing their upcoming acts a couple months ago and spotted it.)
3. Speaking of Sunday activities, the last Sunday of the month is our Oogie Boogie night, so I just remembered to put in a PTO request for that Monday. It only runs until 11pm, not like some of the nighttime events on the Disneyland side (DCA ones always start and end earlier), so it wouldn't be terrible to have to go to work the next day, but it's just a nice excuse to have a day off. And I do need to use up some more of my PTO balance or it will max out again before we go to Japan next year.
4. Tuxie's challenging me.
resizing while keeping proportions without using aspect-ratio
Oct. 2nd, 2025 05:37 pmpixellated posting in style_systemthis issue is solved! turns out
hi again! this is more of a general html/css question, but it has to work within dreamwidth's constraints, so i decided to ask it here. please let me know if this isn't the appropriate comm for this. i hope i used the right tags for this post.
here's what i'm trying to achieve (this would be displayed inside the most recent entry on my journal, so i can use regular CSS and not just inline, in case this matters):
i want to have a big box, and inside it a picture and a small box below that. i want the big box to resize responsively while keeping its proportions: suppose its width:height ratio is 1:2; i want it to keep that ratio always. as it resizes, i want the picture and small box inside to also resize while also keeping their proportions.
normally this would be really easy to do with
assuming this is true and i can't use
thanks again for your time!
aspect-ratio works just fine on DW, i was just not using it correctly so the problem was in front of the keyboard and not in the code, hahahere's what i originally posted:
hi again! this is more of a general html/css question, but it has to work within dreamwidth's constraints, so i decided to ask it here. please let me know if this isn't the appropriate comm for this. i hope i used the right tags for this post.
here's what i'm trying to achieve (this would be displayed inside the most recent entry on my journal, so i can use regular CSS and not just inline, in case this matters):
i want to have a big box, and inside it a picture and a small box below that. i want the big box to resize responsively while keeping its proportions: suppose its width:height ratio is 1:2; i want it to keep that ratio always. as it resizes, i want the picture and small box inside to also resize while also keeping their proportions.
normally this would be really easy to do with
aspect-ratio (<- this is a link to mozilla's developer resources) but that property doesn't seem to work on dreamwidth -- when i put it in my custom CSS, it doesn't seem to do anything, and it gets highlighted in red. (it works okay when i try it in online CSS editors, so i think it's not my mistake that's causing this.)assuming this is true and i can't use
aspect-ratio on DW, i need to cobble together some other solution, but i'm completely out of ideas. is this possible to achieve without aspect-ratio, or should i just change my idea to something that can be done on DW?thanks again for your time!
Highlander: HLH_Shortcuts, the annual Highlander Fanfic Exchange
Oct. 2nd, 2025 08:33 ambrightknightie posting in fandomcalendarSign-ups are now open for hlh_shortcuts 2025, the long-running annual Highlander Holiday Shortcuts fanfiction exchange! (The name "Shortcuts" nods to the 500-word minimum, from the days when 1,000 words was the usual minimum.)
When:
How:
Yay, Highlander fun and friends! Come play with us?
hlh_shortcuts 2025, the long-running annual Highlander Holiday Shortcuts fanfiction exchange! (The name "Shortcuts" nods to the 500-word minimum, from the days when 1,000 words was the usual minimum.)When:
- Sign-up: October 1 to 11, 2025 at 11:59PM CDT on AO3
- Receive assignment: By October 14, 2025
- Default deadline: November 20, 2025
- Submissions: By December 15, 2025 on AO3
- Stories revealed: The first on December 20, 2025 (the winter solstice, Duncan's birthday) and the rest a few per day as long as they last, per tradition
How:
- This year's collection: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/hlhshortcuts2025
- Guides: HLH_Shortcuts AO3 Sign-Ups + HLH_Shortcuts AO3 Submissions + HLH_Shortcuts AO3 Defaults + Find a beta-reader / be a beta-reader
Yay, Highlander fun and friends! Come play with us?
AO3 Releases 0.9.427 – 0.9.432: Change Log
Oct. 2nd, 2025 12:02 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
otw_news_feedIn September, we deployed a major upgrade to our HTML sanitizer (which interprets formatting tags) and introduced new features to collections! We also made a variety of fixes across different areas of AO3, including clarifying some confusing language and making new site elements translatable as part of our ongoing internationalization work.
Special thanks and welcome to first-time contributors brooke x, Jamis Gelvin, katieyang, Kylia Miskell, ömer faruk, Samridhi, and Yanpei Wang!
Credits
- Coders: Bilka, Brian Austin, brooke x, Jamis Gelvin, katieyang, Kylia Miskell, Jo Kingswood (Littlelines), ömer faruk, Potpotkettle, Samridhi, sarken, weeklies, Yanpei Wang
- Code reviewers: Bilka, Brian Austin, Hamham6, irrationalpie, redsummernight, sarken, ticking instant, weeklies
- Testers: Allonautilus, ana, Aster, Bilka, Brian Austin, Lute, lydia-theda, megidola, ömer faruk, Pent, Sam Johnsson, Sanity, sarken, Teyris, therealmorticia
Details
0.9.427
On September 5, we deployed some improvements to get our HTML sanitizer up to date for HTML5 and fix a number of tiny but annoying parser-related bugs.
- [AO3-5801] – We changed the sanitizer and parser to use Nokogiri’s newly available native HTML5 features.
- [AO3-3282] – If your summary or notes had formatting followed by blank lines, extra blank lines would appear each time you edited those fields. Now the spacing stays the same, like it’s supposed to.
- [AO3-4599] – We prevented the parser from modifying the formatting inside of <pre> tags, since that defeated the point of marking text as preformatted.
0.9.428
On September 8, we deployed a lot of changes by first-time contributors. If you’re interested in contributing code to AO3, check out our GitHub Contributing Guidelines.
- [AO3-5552] – We removed some unused code as well as the tests for it.
- [AO3-7110] – We fixed an automated test for the database data we use for development, which was failing intermittently.
- [AO3-6921] – We made it so the commas used in series browser page titles are now translatable.
- [AO3-6924] – The browser page title translations for some user-related pages (e.g., the Change Password page) were in the wrong place, so we moved them to the right locale file.
- [AO3-7089] – We cleaned up some duplicate code in our automated tests.
- [AO3-5769] – We updated the phrasing of the text you see when you hover over the “Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings” icon in the work blurb.
- [AO3-6581] – We changed the title on the page that lists works you’ve marked for later to “Marked for Later,” so you don’t get it confused with the overall history page.
- [AO3-6914] – We clarified the error message site admins may see when updating language codes.
0.9.429
On September 15, we did a small release to improve the technical implementation of how certain AO3 pages are accessed.
- [AO3-5953] – Some actions, such as marking a work for later or switching back to the default site skin, could be performed by simply visiting a URL. That isn’t great for a number of reasons, including security, so we’ve updated those actions to use more standard routing.
0.9.430
On September 26, we moved collections to Elasticsearch and added collection tags and better filtering options when browsing collections.
- [AO3-6026] – We added collections to Elasticsearch for better filtering capabilities, made it possible to tag them, and also automatically added tags to existing collections.
- [AO3-3748] – We changed the Collections page to also list subcollections, not just top-level collections.
- [AO3-7122] – We updated the default value of two database columns in the collections table to work better with Elasticsearch.
0.9.432
On September 28, we made two more changes as part of our collections upgrades as well as a few low-impact updates that were easy to get done at the same time.
Additionally, our deploy script accidentally bumped us a release ahead and skipped 0.9.431 so this ended up being released as 0.9.432 instead!
- [AO3-7141] – When we moved collections to Elasticsearch, we inadvertently started sorting items on users’ Collections pages and collections’ Subcollections pages by date. We’ve changed the sorting back to alphabetical order.
- [AO3-6133] – The service we were using to deploy code to our testing environment will be discontinued in 2026, so we switched to using GitHub Actions instead. This switch also brought us some sweet speed improvements and better integration into GitHub and Jira, so it’s a win all around!
- [AO3-7117], [AO3-7118] – Our friendly dependency updater bumped the version of two GitHub actions.
- [AO3-4698] – We added a missing hyphen to the browser page title for the New Challenge Sign-up page.
- [AO3-7123] – We added the ability to filter for collections based on whether they are marked as multifandom.
![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png){kind=small}
Okay, this is very cool
Oct. 2nd, 2025 08:16 amrydra_wongGuardian: Nearly 100 years after her death, Oxford’s first female Indigenous scholar honoured
Reading the lost diary of the first indigenous woman to study at Oxford (by her descendant June Northcroft Grant, who accepted Papakura's MPhil certificate at the ceremony)
What a cool person and fascinating life; really interesting and impressive to see someone succeeding in doing academic scholarship on an Indigenous group from within that group, in that time period.
Reading the lost diary of the first indigenous woman to study at Oxford (by her descendant June Northcroft Grant, who accepted Papakura's MPhil certificate at the ceremony)
What a cool person and fascinating life; really interesting and impressive to see someone succeeding in doing academic scholarship on an Indigenous group from within that group, in that time period.
OH SHIT IT'S HAPPENING
Oct. 2nd, 2025 08:14 amrydra_wongSomeone's finally cast Francesca Mills as Ophelia:
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/gallery/2025/oct/01/hamlet-national-theatre-hiran-abeysekera-shakespeare-in-pictures
Which I have been saying should happen for six years, since seeing her in Barrie Rutter's Two Noble Kinsmen as the Jailer's Daughter (a role which I described as "semi-comic shitty-first-draft Ophelia"). Also Juliet now please, casting directors.
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/gallery/2025/oct/01/hamlet-national-theatre-hiran-abeysekera-shakespeare-in-pictures
Which I have been saying should happen for six years, since seeing her in Barrie Rutter's Two Noble Kinsmen as the Jailer's Daughter (a role which I described as "semi-comic shitty-first-draft Ophelia"). Also Juliet now please, casting directors.