Feb. 22nd, 2026

inchoatewords: Miss Piggy from the Muppets, dressed like a librarian with hair swept back, a long-sleeved white blouse, and a purple skirt. She is holding a book and is reaching up with her other hand to a case full of books. Above her head is the word book and a heart (books)
inchoatewords: Miss Piggy from the Muppets, dressed like a librarian with hair swept back, a long-sleeved white blouse, and a purple skirt. She is holding a book and is reaching up with her other hand to a case full of books. Above her head is the word book and a heart (books)

Media Post

inchoatewords: Miss Piggy from the Muppets, dressed like a librarian with hair swept back, a long-sleeved white blouse, and a purple skirt. She is holding a book and is reaching up with her other hand to a case full of books. Above her head is the word book and a heart (books)
Movies: None

Television/Streaming: a couple of episodes of Buffy and Farscape.
Buffy:
  • "Faith, Hope & Trick" - first appearance of Faith (she's an interesting foil to Buffy)
  • "Beauty and the Beasts" - Angel comes back. Oz might have mauled some kids out in the wood when he escaped his cage.
  • "Homecoming" - Both Cordelia and Buffy are annoying as fuck in this one, but I am watching this through adult eyes and that's probably coloring my attitude with some of these episodes. (Use your words)!
  • "Band Candy" - this one had some pretty funny bits; especially Giles being an absolute fool. And Principal Snyder!

    Farscape:
  • ". . . Different Destinations" - they end up going back in time at the memorial and change the path of history.
  • "Eat me" - they come upon a damaged Leviathan and find all the Peacekeepers turned feral and cannibalistic. Also some of the Moya crew get split into two. Crichton's double makes it back on board ship with him. That would be freaky! It will be interesting to see what happens with the two of them.

    Books: It has not been a great week for books! I had two books I stopped reading: T. Kingfisher's Hemlock and Silver and Ben Greenman's Emotional Rescue.

    The Kingfisher book was a book club read for January that I never got in time. It just recently became available as I was finishing The Reformatory. I got about twenty percent or so in and I was just kind of annoyed at the book, so I stopped reading.

    The Greenman book is essays on music. I thought it would be more like Rob Sheffield's Love is a Mix Tape or Talking to Girls About Duran Duran. No. Greenman's book was rather boring and also felt a bit misogynistic, so I had to quit reading that one, too.

    I'm now reading Pylon by William Faulkner. It's a bit different than the other fare of his I've read, but I'm interested to see where it goes. It's set in a fictionalized New Orleans during an air show, so lots of talk of planes and pilots.

    Listening to: only one Rolling Stone Top 500 album this week. Number 488 is The Stooges self-titled album from 1969. On the 2012 list, this album was at 185. Rolling Stone blurb:
    Fueled by “a little marijuana and a lotta alienation,” Michigan’s Stooges gave the lie to hippie idealism, playing with a savagery that unsettled even the most blasé clubgoers. Ex-Velvet Underground member John Cale produced a primitive debut wherein, amid Ron Asheton’s wah-wah blurts, Iggy Stooge (né James Osterberg) snarled seminal punk classics such as “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” “No Fun,” and “1969,” bedrock examples of the weaponized boredom that would become a de rigueur punk posture.


    This one is not really my cuppa, but I didn't outwardly hate it (like the Suicide album). It's a pretty short album, too. I can see the influences they had on other bands. Of the songs here, I like "I Wanna Be Your Dog," which I've also heard covered by several bands, as well.

    Playing: I finished Assemble With Care; this is by the same studio that did Alba: a wildlife adventure. It's a visual novel with puzzles; you are Maria, who repairs electronics and such, and you've come to a little town for their festival. Various folks want your help, so you take apart and reassemble game systems, tape decks, watches, and more as you learn about issues in these folks' lives. It's a short but sweet game. The controls were occasionally a little frustrating (you can use your mouse on PC, but sometimes if I clicked too quickly, I'd put the piece I was working on to the side and then would have to hover over and pick it up again).
  • Feb. 18th, 2026

    setsuntamew: (Kohaku & Madara → ring around my finger)
    setsuntamew: (Kohaku & Madara → ring around my finger)

    Highlights from Katsucon

    setsuntamew: (Kohaku & Madara → ring around my finger)
    I only went to one day of Katsucon, but omg it was fantastic this year!!!!! Alex was house/catsitting for her sister for the weekend, and since her sister lives near DC, it was closer than our place. Sooooo Liz and I headed there Friday night, grabbed a very late dinner at McDonald's with Alex, and then watched a bunch of enstars videos on youtube so Alex was ready to be excited for Absolute uwu

    Also, she gifted me an adorable new friend, who goes absolutely perfectly with my CNstars cat nuis ;w; I also made them ice cream cones to match Madara's global exclusive card, and I think they came out really good ♥

    Image
    if anything happens to my tutulong I'll just fucking die lmao

    .....and then I stayed up waaaaaay too late because I'm fucking nocturnal D: Even though we had to wake up at 7 am to drive down early enough to get parking....I'm not smart :T

    Liz and I didn't cosplay this year, cuz I didn't feel up to it, so I wore...a wig, a corset, and a floor length skirt XD wig is my Mayoi wig that I haven't styled yet - I pulled it out of the bag on Friday night and was delighted to discover that it's a lacefront - and the skirt is one I made for the Vampire Ball Liz and I went to in 2017. This did end up biting me in the ass because the corset ended up not sitting super well by the end of the night D: But we'll get to that later~

    First thoughts on this year's katsu: holy shit I didn't realize how bad lobbyconning had gotten. I could actually move through the halls without be crushed by crowds????? Like, I was there on Saturday and I didn't feel cramped every second of the day. They did move registration to its own building, which freed up space to give Artist Alley a larger location, but still. It was really nice to be able to breathe during the con.

    After getting our badges, we ran into some friends of Alex and Liz that they hadn't seen in over a decade, so everyone had a good time catching up. Which is, tbh, a classic Katsucon experience, since so damn many people go.

    The first programming we went to was an absolutely delightful performance by Special for Princess!- or should I say Nice? XD Nice Arneb Thunder was MCing and they did a fucking incredible job. like. not to spoil it or anything, but this was such a highlight of my day, idk if anything topped it :0

    Also, the esupuri group was just really sweet!!! They seemed so excited and a little surprised that so many people had come out to see them ;w; But seriously, they were quite good and did a good combination of songs and games. The trivia was great for me and Liz, since we actually keep current with the JP stories~ Liz won a tiara for answering some 4piece trivia correctly!

    We hit up the Artist Alley for a bit after that, got lost in conversation with a Nagisa cosplayer who usually cosplays Double Face Kohaku, and I was blown away by their gorgeous ita bag. They had so many can badges from the DF TRIP album *w*

    ....and then we remembered we woke up balls early and Liz & I hadn't eaten :T So after debating a few options, we made our way to our tried and true katsu food: Mezeh. They opened sometime between katsu 2017 and 2018, and we've gone basically every year since. It's affordable and actually filling, especially since they have fresh veggies. Sometimes you gotta get some greens in you- especially at a con!!!

    not me sounding like an ad read for my favorite fast casual restaurant lmao

    The dealers room is a bit of a blur to me because it's soooooo big and there's so much to see, but I remember it being.....fun? Busy? It was probably one of the more cramped places at the con, but that was partially because some people are just rude. Many people shoving their way through...I didn't come with much money cuz it was a last minute decision to even go, so I wasn't sure about buying anything besides maybe something small from the idol goods booth. But since the idol goods booth wasn't there this year (?????), I ended up getting a new ita bag~

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    I'd seen it around on insta and lusted over it, so now it is mine!! I'm planning something around Double Face's TRIP album for it OwO

    And then we had to hustle to finish artist alley before it closed, cuz we weren't coming back on Sunday D: Liz and I weren't planning on spending any more money, but 1) Alex wanted to buy more stuff and 2) we still wanted to see all of it. And in the end we did buy more XD We got a few more Trigun charms from [instagram.com profile] magpiesoddities, because we've been collecting their super chibi ones since Stampede came out~ They also gave us a free plantcest sticker for being men of culture (perverts).

    uhhhhhh what did we do after that..............

    OH RIGHT!!! Liz and I chilled on a bench sorta new the dealers room/artist alley area while Alex went to the MXTX photoshoot, and basically just took in the sights. I love people watching at cons :D We also got to help some youths (late teens/early 20s maybe?) learn the ways of Caramelldansen. They knew the dance and song, and it sounded like they'd heard people used to dance to it at cons? So they were trying to figure out how to bring it back. So while it was a conversation that made me feel very old, it was quite wholesome.

    After debating back and forth a bunch, we ended up eating dinner at the grab and go place in the Gaylord. It wasn't necessarily "cheap" but like...nothing in National Harbor is, you know? And we didn't have to leave the building, which was a big plus. I'd never grabbed anything from there before, so now I know that it's not half bad.

    We wanted to go to the video game room next, but my corset was fucking killing me and I needed to find a family bathroom so Liz could help me loosen it (since all the handicapped stalls in the Gaylord are barely wider than regular ones). So that was quite the fucking adventure. BUT WE EVENTUALLY DID IT. And I've learned I'm never wearing a floor length anything to Katsucon again.....idk how I forgot this lesson from 2017 lmao.

    Next up: video game room! And..............it kinda fucking sucked??????? Lie, the games were brought from the same people who supply them for a video game bar I go to here in Baltimore, and usually it's a much better selection?? Like how did Anime USA, a significantly smaller con than Katsucon, have such a better video game room? idk man like......it was kinda disappointing. They didn't even have Chunithm ;w; And it closed at midnight, which is baffling. Katsu used to run sooooo late into the night, I swear it was originally a 24 hour con. Maybe I'm wrong? But I've been going for 17 years now, so I'm pretty sure I'm right :T

    Whatever! Alex is gonna come down so we can go to the much better video game bar here~

    After we watch cookie monster and godzilla have a cage match in the hall, we were all wiped and ready to head home. So lemme share all the pics I didn't include throughout the entry, cuz it would have ended up even longer :T

    welcome to the party (many katsu pics inside) )

    Image
    Happy Valentines and goodnight from the boys!!!! I carried many nuis around all day but tbh it was such a rush that I barely took the time to sit, let alone take pics of them D: I will say that the cat kigu nuis with their ice cream cones were a hit with the many Double Face fans and cosplayers I ran into~

    All in all, a successful day at the con!!!!! Hopefully finances will be better and I can go for the full weekend next year, but I can now say I've been going to katsu for 17 fucking years.....which is wild. Here's hoping the next 17 are even better!!!!!!

    Feb. 17th, 2026

    goodbyebird: Xena: Xena, Gabrielle, and Argo walking towards bright green hills. (Xena a family of three)
    [personal profile] goodbyebird
    [community profile] spankulert
    goodbyebird: Xena: Xena, Gabrielle, and Argo walking towards bright green hills. (Xena a family of three)
    [personal profile] goodbyebird
    [community profile] spankulert

    [No Subject]

    goodbyebird: Xena: Xena, Gabrielle, and Argo walking towards bright green hills. (Xena a family of three)
    [personal profile] goodbyebird
    [community profile] spankulert
    Image
    welcome to [community profile] spankulert
    Goodbyebird's graphic community
    You'll mostly find icons, though I sporadically post wallpapers and tutorials. If there are things you're curious about, feel free to ask, and if you like what you see, watch the community!

    Comments
    They brighten my day :)

    Tutorials

    If you're wondering about something, ask and I'll tell you if I can. PSDs are member's only.

    Hotlinking/altering
    Is rude. Please play nice.

    Credit
    If you use anything. It will help people to find their way here; If you don't know how, I'll happily explain. I can't tell you how many times I've browsed someone's userpics, spotted something and gone oh so pretty! Who made this? only to have there be no credit. Sad times.

    Repost/use
    Don't repost on Tumblr, fanpop, boards or other websites.
    (userimages is just fine everywhere, I mean reposting whole batches. It's happened :/)

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    goodbyebird: 70s Show: Kitty Foreman with a brownie in hand: "Special brownies." (70s Show special brownies)
    [personal profile] goodbyebird
    [community profile] spankulert
    goodbyebird: 70s Show: Kitty Foreman with a brownie in hand: "Special brownies." (70s Show special brownies)
    [personal profile] goodbyebird
    [community profile] spankulert

    Forsquares Masterpost: misc vol2.

    goodbyebird: 70s Show: Kitty Foreman with a brownie in hand: "Special brownies." (70s Show special brownies)
    [personal profile] goodbyebird
    [community profile] spankulert
    01-20 that 70s show
    21-27 archer
    45-67 borgen (I fucked up the code and I ain't cleaning that up :p)
    68-74 cougar town
    75-82 damages
    83-105 leverage
    106-110 the middleman
    111-121 misfits
    122-140 the walking dead

    Image Image Image
    Image Image Image

    Ma'am, specificity is the soul of all good communication. )

    Feb. 14th, 2026

    nanslice: ([FFXV] eeeeehhh)
    nanslice: ([FFXV] eeeeehhh)

    Just some things

    nanslice: ([FFXV] eeeeehhh)
    Birthday was the 13th! I'm officially 40! I do not think I have the maturity levels to be a 40 year old! I smoke too much weed and forget laundry in the wash and stay up too late just to regret it deeply in the morning. Shit's crazy. But as Guillermo del Toro said, "As a kid, I dreamed of having a house with secret passages and a room where it rained 24 hours a day. The point of being over 40 is to fulfill the desires you've been harboring since you were 7." So...idek what 7 year old me desired, but it was probably something to do with being happy, so that's what I'm aiming for.

    [personal profile] cypher and I played Warhammer 40k: Kill Team today! They with their Plague Marines and me with my Hernkyn Yaegir team. It was a slow match at first but soon there was fierce battling. It ended up being 7 (me) to 10 (them). It was A LOT of fun and I think I learned some things. We're trying to get good enough that we can play in public, haha.

    I heard of [personal profile] spikedluv's passing. It's always so surreal when someone in fandom dies. Like...we're not supposed to do that? I don't know. It's strange. We were not friends but we ran in shared fandom circles and she was such a presence on DW. My heart goes out to all who knew her. <3
    love: ©️&lt;lj user=love&gt; (Default)
    love: ©️&lt;lj user=love&gt; (Default)

    locked. 🔑

    love: ©️&lt;lj user=love&gt; (Default)
    Image
    extremely private journal. Just be kind.
    inchoatewords: a drawn caricature of the journal user, a brown-haired woman with glasses in a blue shirt, smiling at the viewer (Default)
    inchoatewords: a drawn caricature of the journal user, a brown-haired woman with glasses in a blue shirt, smiling at the viewer (Default)

    Media Post

    inchoatewords: a drawn caricature of the journal user, a brown-haired woman with glasses in a blue shirt, smiling at the viewer (Default)
    Been a bit since I did one.

    Movies: None

    Television/Streaming:
  • Finished I'm in Love with the Villainess; as I said in my previous entry about this anime, Rei is a bit problematic with her obsession with Miss Claire. In the "real world," she'd be a stalker. However, this is a fantasy, the main character has been transported into a video game, and at least there's some queer representation here?
  • Got back to Farscape Season 3, and watched both parts of "Self Inflicted Wounds," which is when Moya crashes into the research vessel and only one ship can survive. I will miss Zhaan; sometimes she was a little too self-righteous but overall, I liked that she was a complicated character (like the rest of them).
  • Also got back to Buffy Season 3, and watched "Anne" and "Dead Man's Party." "Anne" is the season opener, following Buffy after her mom told her at the end of the previous season not to bother to come back if she left. I was NOT liking Joyce very much at that time, and her attitude has not improved here, either.

    On the one hand, I do appreciate that Joyce is a complicated character, at least thinking she is doing the best by her daughter (but also failing in that, which is human); also, not always taking responsibility for her own actions does feel quite real to me. However, that doesn't mean I like it! Her blaming Giles in this episode is very obnoxious.

    Overall, though, I thought the premise of the episode was interesting, taking the idea of kids on the streets having to "grow up/old fast" literally.

    "Dead Man's Party" has the zombie motif, but also once again, taking the idea of "what's buried doesn't always stay buried," or shouldn't, I guess. Joyce continues to be Asshat Mother of the Year; how about talking to your kid, Joyce? Giles seems to be the only parental figure Buffy has, and I think on some level Joyce knows is and is kind of chafing at it, but doing all the wrong things to fix it. Willow and Xander are kind of shit in this episode, too; I give them a little more grace as they are also teenagers and big feelings like your friend abandoning you while you're going through stuff, too, are not always easy to navigate.
  • Also watched Bridgerton, Season 4, part one. Also known as the Cinderella rip-off, haha. This season is okay, but I'm honestly more interested in everyone else than our main characters here.
  • Taskmaster, New Zealand; I missed a few seasons on this one but this crew seems fun. Jeremy is still not as great a Taskmaster as Greg (but who can be?) but Paul is awesome; we love Paul.

    Books: Finished The Reformatory by Tananarive Due. This is a tough book, but I think she covered the subject matter well. The Reformatory is a fictional story, based on a real-life boys' reform school in Florida called the Dozier School. Both Black and white children were sent there, but overwhelmingly more Black children. I recall reading about this school after it was finally closed in 2011 (the St. Petersburg Times did a report on it which has been archived here. Be forewarned; it is a harrowing read). Over a hundred years of torture, children buried without markers, runaways shot on sight . . . I'm sure those grounds are haunted. This latter is what Due brings into the story, and Robert, the newest inmate, can see them.

    Listening to: Two more of the Rolling Stone Top 500 Albums List.

    Number 490 is Linda Ronstadt's Heart Like a Wheel. This album was not on the previous (2012) iteration of the list. Rolling Stone blurb:
    Linda Ronstadt completed her transition from California hippie-folk darling to soft-rock queen on her chart-topping fifth album, covering Hank Williams, Buddy Holly, Little Feat, and Kate and Anna McGariggle on the gorgeous title track. Her version of the Betty Everett oldie “You’re No Good” hits a perfect mix of desire and paranoia. Along with being a showcase for Ronstadt’s peerless versatility, Heart Like a Wheel is Seventies pop-rock craft at its sweetest and sturdiest.


    I liked this one. It's very country-influenced, but I don't say that as a criticism. "You're No Good " and "When Will I be Loved" are the two songs I kept coming back to overall.

    Number 489 is Back to Mono (1958-1969); it was at number 65 on the 2012 list. This is a box set of a bunch of Phil Spector-produced songs, especially during the Wall of Sound Era. Rolling Stone blurb:
    When the Righteous Brothers’ Bobby Hatfield first heard “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’,” with partner Bill Medley’s extended solo, he asked, “But what do I do while he’s singing the whole first verse?” Producer Phil Spector replied, “You can go directly to the bank!” Spector built his Wall of Sound out of hand claps, massive overdubs, and orchestras of percussion. This box has hits such as the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” and the Crystals’ “Da Doo Ron Ron,” which Spector called “little symphonies for the kids.”


    It's about 73 songs, with the 4th disc being an entire Christmas album. Like the blurb says, the Ronettes, The Crystals, The Righteous Brothers, and also solo acts like Darlene Love make up most of the set. A lot of this is very nostalgic for me as this was the music, along with the Beatles and such, that my mom would play. The radio station CBS-FM was the "oldies" station, so I heard a lot of this growing up, and when I was a kid and teenager, I said I hated it because I wanted to maintain what little street cred I had at that time. Ha!

    Playing: Alba: a wildlife adventure. It's a cozy game with a little bit of save-the-local-environment. You play Alba, a young girl who has come to spent the week with her grandparents on the vaguely-Latine island where they live. There's a nature park, which has fallen into disrepair and now the mayor has a deal to build a giant hotel there. You're trying to stop this, while also cataloging animals, as it's something you've always done with your abuelo. The mechanics are a little wonky for photography, so it can be frustrating to navigate, but overall, it's cute.
  • Feb. 12th, 2026

    setsuntamew: fanart of Yami Malik in black and white staring straight ahead (Yami Malik → dark staring)
    setsuntamew: fanart of Yami Malik in black and white staring straight ahead (Yami Malik → dark staring)

    Movie Night~

    setsuntamew: fanart of Yami Malik in black and white staring straight ahead (Yami Malik → dark staring)
    MOVIE NIGHT!!!! Liz, Pat, and I went to see Iron Lung, since Pat expressed interest and I love any excuse to get out of the house to do stuff. We had a great dinner of Costco Hot Dogs™ before going to my favorite movie theater of all time: the Ancient Egypt themed one~

    Image
    and of course I brought Double Face along!!! I needed them to meet Anubis (clearly)

    Image Image
    also Madara's kigu has a big enough tail that I could pose him standing up on the sphinx and I love that for him~

    The movie itself was really good! It's not the type of horror that I usually go for - I dislike post-apocalyptic settings, space, and "trapped in a ship" horror - but since I didn't read up on it at all that's on me XD Plus, I'm always down to go to a thing a friend wants to do. And I'm glad I saw it despite it not being a thing I would have sought out, if that makes sense? The cinematography was fucking gorgeous; I kept getting lost in how incredible the lighting was.

    ALSO THE BLOOD WAS SO RED IT WAS GREAT!!!!! I don't wanna spoil anything for anyone interested in seeing it, but it was just *mwah* The special effects were honestly stellar and I really like a lot of the choices made (like having some of the blood coagulate into things that looked like barnacles growing into the ship).

    Downside is that it's the kind of horror that made me stressed for like 2 hours and then...I'm still lowkey stressed D: It didn't give me the release horror usually does, but it did for Pat so I think it's a personal preference. He absolutely loved it and is gonna be chewing on it for awhile.

    Anyway, I also had to grab a few shots of the nuis in the mini arcade in the theater lobby. I got these kigus off aliexpress because labubu clothes (mostly) fit on the pattythree enstars nuis, and I got them like right before it got super icy cold out. So obviously I have to fix that~

    Image Image
    aren't they precious???? I'm extra jazzed about getting them with claw machines because of Kohaku's card from Spring Night and the current top-up theming in globalstars *w*

    Also, Liz managed to dig the car most of the way out!!! We have suuuuuch a long driveway that it's taken quite awhile, but now that it's been slightly warmer for a couple days, it's finally doable. And I apparently have a doctor's appointment on Friday, so I need to be able to get there.

    I'M DONE WITH SNOW. It was nice for awhile but oh my god. I'm over it!!!!!!!!

    Feb. 11th, 2026

    setsuntamew: art of Madara from the Butou-kai 100 steps art, cropped to just his face with red and gold light textures to the right (Madara → glowing gold)
    setsuntamew: art of Madara from the Butou-kai 100 steps art, cropped to just his face with red and gold light textures to the right (Madara → glowing gold)

    Madara Mikejima Robbed Me Blind

    setsuntamew: art of Madara from the Butou-kai 100 steps art, cropped to just his face with red and gold light textures to the right (Madara → glowing gold)
    So, after nearly two years, I've finally changed my profile in engstars...

    Image
    Image
    BECAUSE I GOT MADARA'S GLOBAL EXCLUSIVE CARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    I'm so excited; he looks so good and I love him and I do not want to talk about how much I spent to max this card XD Very glad to have a supportive wife (who also maxed a global gacha card last year, so we're in it together lmao).

    Also, I wanna change the card layout to include Kohaku at some point but I'm not feeling creative enough XD So right now it's just Mr. Ice Cream Thief as a testament to my spending problem devotion ♥

    sobs I love them ;w;

    I wanna make some new icons with his new outfit but I have to figure out what MV(s) to record him in...it's such a specific look that I feel like I don't quite know where I wanna put him :T

    also I have icon challenges I wanna do but my brain is just MAMAMAMAMAMAMAAA soooooo

    Feb. 10th, 2026

    setsuntamew: (Nagisa &amp; Ibara → what I&#39;ve made)
    setsuntamew: (Nagisa &amp; Ibara → what I&#39;ve made)

    HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY WIFE ♥

    setsuntamew: (Nagisa &amp; Ibara → what I&#39;ve made)
    Image

    I made them a beautiful cake in honor of Absolute starting this weekend, aka the Eden climax, aka one of the best enstars events~ Liz asked for chocolate cake and gave no other specifics, so this is what I came up with: dense chocolate cake with raspberry filling and cream cheese icing. It's incredibly rich, so we all nearly passed out after eating just a little bit XD

    Oops?

    Anyway, I'm actually super pleased with how it came out!!! I had a vision and actually managed to bring it to life- with some help from Pat. He made the stencil for the lotus flower and helped place a the beads for the lower border. I think I leveled up making large smooth sections of color (for the bits I wrote on) and just...wrangling this cake in general.....I love this cake but I do not love how delicate and crumbly it is. Even with a crumb coat, I was afraid it would still be a mess. And it WAS hard to work with, but not impossible.

    Image
    I'm also really happy with both the gradient and these tassels~

    My wife loved it, and honestly that's what matters the most!!!!

    We also had szechuan delivered from one of Liz's favorite places, since they're not feeling great and didn't wanna go out ;w; Hopefully they'll be feeling better soon, since it's very unfair that they felt crummy on their birthday.

    Also, Katsucon is this weekend XD So I'm sure they wanna feel better for that!!
    denise: Image: Me, facing away from camera, on top of the Castel Sant&#39;Angelo in Rome (Default)
    [staff profile] denise
    [site community profile] dw_news
    denise: Image: Me, facing away from camera, on top of the Castel Sant&#39;Angelo in Rome (Default)
    [staff profile] denise
    [site community profile] dw_news

    Update on legal cases: one new victory! :) One new restriction :(

    denise: Image: Me, facing away from camera, on top of the Castel Sant&#39;Angelo in Rome (Default)
    [staff profile] denise
    [site community profile] dw_news
    Back in August of 2025, we announced a temporary block on account creation for users under the age of 18 from the state of Tennessee, due to the court in Netchoice's challenge to the law (which we're a part of!) refusing to prevent the law from being enforced while the lawsuit plays out. Today, I am sad to announce that we've had to add South Carolina to that list. When creating an account, you will now be asked if you're a resident of Tennessee or South Carolina. If you are, and your birthdate shows you're under 18, you won't be able to create an account.

    We're very sorry to have to do this, and especially on such short notice. The reason for it: on Friday, South Carolina governor Henry McMaster signed the South Carolina Age-Appropriate Design Code Act into law, with an effective date of immediately. The law is so incredibly poorly written it took us several days to even figure out what the hell South Carolina wants us to do and whether or not we're covered by it. We're still not entirely 100% sure about the former, but in regards to the latter, we're pretty sure the fact we use Google Analytics on some site pages (for OS/platform/browser capability analysis) means we will be covered by the law. Thankfully, the law does not mandate a specific form of age verification, unlike many of the other state laws we're fighting, so we're likewise pretty sure that just stopping people under 18 from creating an account will be enough to comply without performing intrusive and privacy-invasive third-party age verification. We think. Maybe. (It's a really, really badly written law. I don't know whether they intended to write it in a way that means officers of the company can potentially be sentenced to jail time for violating it, but that's certainly one possible way to read it.)

    Netchoice filed their lawsuit against SC over the law as I was working on making this change and writing this news post -- so recently it's not even showing up in RECAP yet for me to link y'all to! -- but here's the complaint as filed in the lawsuit, Netchoice v Wilson. Please note that I didn't even have to write the declaration yet (although I will be): we are cited in the complaint itself with a link to our August news post as evidence of why these laws burden small websites and create legal uncertainty that causes a chilling effect on speech. \o/

    In fact, that's the victory: in December, the judge ruled in favor of Netchoice in Netchoice v Murrill, the lawsuit over Louisiana's age-verification law Act 456, finding (once again) that requiring age verification to access social media is unconstitutional. Judge deGravelles' ruling was not simply a preliminary injunction: this was a final, dispositive ruling stating clearly and unambiguously "Louisiana Revised Statutes §§51:1751–1754 violate the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, as incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution", as well as awarding Netchoice their costs and attorney's fees for bringing the lawsuit. We didn't provide a declaration in that one, because Act 456, may it rot in hell, had a total registered user threshold we don't meet. That didn't stop Netchoice's lawyers from pointing out that we were forced to block service to Mississippi and restrict registration in Tennessee (pointing, again, to that news post), and Judge deGravelles found our example so compelling that we are cited twice in his ruling, thus marking the first time we've helped to get one of these laws enjoined or overturned just by existing. I think that's a new career high point for me.

    I need to find an afternoon to sit down and write an update for [site community profile] dw_advocacy highlighting everything that's going on (and what stage the lawsuits are in), because folks who know there's Some Shenanigans afoot in their state keep asking us whether we're going to have to put any restrictions on their states. I'll repeat my promise to you all: we will fight every state attempt to impose mandatory age verification and deanonymization on our users as hard as we possibly can, and we will keep actions like this to the clear cases where there's no doubt that we have to take action in order to prevent liability.

    In cases like SC, where the law takes immediate effect, or like TN and MS, where the district court declines to issue a temporary injunction or the district court issues a temporary injunction and the appellate court overturns it, we may need to take some steps to limit our potential liability: when that happens, we'll tell you what we're doing as fast as we possibly can. (Sometimes it takes a little while for us to figure out the exact implications of a newly passed law or run the risk assessment on a law that the courts declined to enjoin. Netchoice's lawyers are excellent, but they're Netchoice's lawyers, not ours: we have to figure out our obligations ourselves. I am so very thankful that even though we are poor in money, we are very rich in friends, and we have a wide range of people we can go to for help.)

    In cases where Netchoice filed the lawsuit before the law's effective date, there's a pending motion for a preliminary injunction, the court hasn't ruled on the motion yet, and we're specifically named in the motion for preliminary injunction as a Netchoice member the law would apply to, we generally evaluate that the risk is low enough we can wait and see what the judge decides. (Right now, for instance, that's Netchoice v Jones, formerly Netchoice v Miyares, mentioned in our December news post: the judge has not yet ruled on the motion for preliminary injunction.) If the judge grants the injunction, we won't need to do anything, because the state will be prevented from enforcing the law. If the judge doesn't grant the injunction, we'll figure out what we need to do then, and we'll let you know as soon as we know.

    I know it's frustrating for people to not know what's going to happen! Believe me, it's just as frustrating for us: you would not believe how much of my time is taken up by tracking all of this. I keep trying to find time to update [site community profile] dw_advocacy so people know the status of all the various lawsuits (and what actions we've taken in response), but every time I think I might have a second, something else happens like this SC law and I have to scramble to figure out what we need to do. We will continue to update [site community profile] dw_news whenever we do have to take an action that restricts any of our users, though, as soon as something happens that may make us have to take an action, and we will give you as much warning as we possibly can. It is absolutely ridiculous that we still have to have this fight, but we're going to keep fighting it for as long as we have to and as hard as we need to.

    I look forward to the day we can lift the restrictions on Mississippi, Tennessee, and now South Carolina, and I apologize again to our users (and to the people who temporarily aren't able to become our users) from those states.
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