yuuago: (Birds - Rainbow)
[personal profile] yuuago
So, tonight was Wood Buffalo Pride's Trans Day of Remembrance event. It was kind of a combination memorial and potluck. Very different from previous events, which were outdoor night-time vigils. Not a great time of year for that up here, so it was nice to have something out of the cold.

On November 18th, the Alberta government introduced Bill 9. This uses the Notwithstanding Clause to halt legal challenges against the transphobic Bills 26, 27, and 29.

I cannot emphasize enough how much of a big deal this is - not just because of the transphobic bills, but because of the use of the Notwithstanding Clause. By blocking legal challenges to their bills, the government of Alberta is restricting the rights of Albertans. Additionally, this comes less than a month after the government used the Notwithstanding Clause to force an end to the teacher strike.

I'm not very good at explaining the issues with all this, so instead I will link to some statements:

Statement from Egale Canada and Skipping Stone

Statement from Wood Buffalo Pride

Also, I came across a thoughtful statement from the Otipemisiwak Metis Nation that gives a succint explanation about why this affects more than the LGBT2QA community and why people should care about the use of the Notwithstanding Clause. It makes a good point that this kind of measure is not supposed to be a first resort. If people won't care about the wellbeing of trans people, maybe they will at least care about the precedent this sets for the erosion of Charter rights. Maybe.

Anyway, before we started the actual memorial, there was a letter writing session. I wrote to the premier and my MLA. I doubt any of these letters will even get read, and even if they do get read I doubt it will have any result, but at least I felt like I was doing something. (Someone joked that we should write to our member of parliament too, even though this is a province-level issue. "Might as well send Laila Goodridge a letter, since she doesn't like being left out". Haaaa. You gotta laugh.)

The memorial itself was very well-done and thoughtful. Two local writers read some of their original spoken-word work, which was cool. And the dinner was nice too. Of course, the mood was kind of low, but it was still nice to see everybody and have a chat.

I'm glad I went (and also glad that the memorial was indoors this year). But I'm really unhappy with my provincial government right now, and things feel kind of impossible at the moment.

In case anyone's on the fence ...

Nov. 20th, 2025 08:13 pm
sholio: aged sepia paper with printed text saying "If undelivered, return to Air Ministry, London" (Biggles-london air ministry)
[personal profile] sholio
Biggles Holiday Airdrop signups close on the evening of Fri, Nov 21 (tomorrow). Countdown here!

2025 AO3 Collection | Signup Page | Tagset

I'm excited by the lineup we have so far! So many different ships and characters.
erinptah: Madoka and Homura (madoka)
[personal profile] erinptah

The Switch is a tiny little 1-season, 6-episode comedy about a trans woman living in Vancouver. It’s part quirky workplace comedy, part quirky roommate comedy, and part “she moves in with her ex who’s secretly an assassin, who spends the whole season trying to dodge the investigation for an executive they recently killed, but, like, in a funny way.”

Half the cast is trans, a ton of the crew is trans, so it’s a big part of the show in a way that feels genuine and natural. Even though the show in general has a fun heightened-reality vibe. (The original Kickstarter campaign mentions a sorceress character. She’s not in the final cut at all, which I kinda suspect was a broader “oops, we’re trying to stuff too much in 6 episodes, we need to cut the magic subplot” decision. But, listen, if they had made a second season where Sabrina the Teenage Witch moved in down the hall, it wouldn’t feel out-of-place.)

I watched the whole thing for free on Tubi! There are some other streaming options on their official website. They also just straight-up tell you “want to be a pirate? here are the torrents” — but give them some ad revenue, if you can.

So I guess I’m a Hazbin Hotel fan now, huh?

FFA did a rewatch of season 1 in the leadup to season 2, so I rewatched it along with that. Then ended up watching S2 as it came out (dropping two episodes a week), because now I’m invested enough that I didn’t want spoilers.

(Couldn’t totally avoid them, because…listen, there is a deep vault of Fandom Lore here, which I have never actually looked at. So there were regular comments like “sure, we already basically knows Plot Point X, because of the leaks/interviews/character designs posted on DA in 2012” where I had no idea about X at all. It worked out fine, though, because sometimes the fandom was wrong! And I had no way to predict when.)

All the music is good, and some of it is great. Their animation budget must be incredible, and you can see it paying off — Vox Populi showcases some amazing dynamic tracking shots, and the reprise Vox Dei has them just showing off. It has the same overstuffed pacing as S1, where they’re trying to pack about a thousand different character beats into eight episodes — there are setups that never get payoffs, and payoffs to things that weren’t actually set up — but the central arc of the season does hold together, and all the individual moments are fun to watch.

There’s a recurring theme of “look, this is shameless pandering to the iddiest of fandom desires” that goes so hard, you have to respect it. The saddest woobie with the softest vulnerable heart gets manhandled in all-new ways!

Angel Dust being manhandled

The most Tumblr Sexyman spends multiple episodes tied up and gagged, strapped to a chair, in his jealous rival’s bedroom!

Vox wheeling a bound Alastor into his place

There are moments that honestly feel like “the show won’t bother going too deep into this, because they know they can just toss the idea in front of their audience, and wait for a million fics to fill in the gaps.” And given the size of the fandom, I don’t think they’re wrong, either.

…The size of the fandom means there’s an overwhelming number of Youtube videos. But a lot of the ones I’ve watched are, well. Bad? Like “hidden details you missed” but it just lists basic plot points, or “fixing the character designs” but it’s fixating on things that aren’t problems.

Have a few recs, because these deserve to be watched without viewers having to dig them out of the heap first:


brithistorian: (Default)
[personal profile] brithistorian

Music adjacent to economics

On BBC Newshour yesterday, I heard a story (which I can't find online at the moment) about Kraftwerk's instruments and equipment going up for auction. Besides the historical value because of their association with Kraftwerk, many of these items were inherently valuable because they're rare examples of early electronic musical instruments. The vocoder used on "The Robots" sold for about $200,000. The expert they talked to said that there were only about 20-30 surviving examples of this model of vocoder. I hope that these instrument went to musicians who will put them to use and not to tech bros who'll put them on a shelf.

Music adjacent to politics

Due to rising tensions between China and Japan (which I am forced to admit that I was unaware of), one of the cultural disputes going on between the countries is a petition in Japan asking Aespa member Ningning (who is Chinese) not to come to Japan. At the same time, Japanese performers who have built a portion of their career in China have been going out of their way to express pro-China feelings. I'm going to have read more about this situation. If any of you have a link to an article that explains what's going on, I'd appreciate it.

Music adjacent to fandom and statistics

In an article related to Blackpink members' performance at the Grammys, Rolling Stone referred to Blackpink as "(without a doubt) the biggest K-pop group in history, and has been for years." So of course ARMY (BTS's fandom) turning out in force, coming for Rolling Stone and bringing sales records, number of awards won, and chart performamce. the biggest K-pop group in history, and has been for years.) Within six hours, Rolling Stone had revised their article to refer to Blackpink as “the biggest K-pop girl group.” (A characterization that ONCE really ought to have something to say about.)

Music adjacent to bad machine translation

Weki Meki's Kim Doyeon won a Blue Dragon award (which seems to be the Korean equivalent of the Oscars), and her appearance on the red carpet caused quite a stir. The headline on one website uniquely expressed it by saying "Kim Do-yeon, Audrey Hepburn Reincarnation... a person who causes a single disease". I knew this was some sort of translation error, and asking the question on Threads led someone to clear it up for me. Apparently what they were trying (and failing) to say is that she is triggering an obsession for short bob haircuts.

donutsweeper: (Default)
[personal profile] donutsweeper
While I will probably never be able to divest myself from google completely, I'm thinking of trying to start shifting some things off google (and also juno, I have an ancient juno email acct I really need to move away from) so I turn to my brilliant friends to ask what you all use. I had heard tons of good things about proton (both its mail and docs) but just read it is possibly wishy-washy on AI so am not as sure about it. I've also heard good things about thunderbird and one or two places suggested tuta.

Anyone use one of these or have opinions? Are there others I have missed? (GMX used to be suggested but I haven't seen it mentioned recently?) Besides google's well, everything, I am sick and tired of having to turn off its AI "features" every few weeks/months every time they push a new update/product. I loathe all things AI it is just an annoying scourge that is *everywhere*.

I mostly want just reliable email that can be accessed via a browser webpage without having to download anything. If I can also access it on my phone via an app or browser there, great, but that is less important. Free is ideal, although I guess I'll consider a one time purchase if it's not too bad and is for a well established, reliable company. I do like googledocs and plan on moving away from that eventually but for now just starting to establish a new email would be a good step.

Livejournal is down today when I use firefox but if I try in another browser it seems to load (I have Edge on this laptop but only because it came installed and I used it to DL firefox, I haven't signed into anything on it). I even tried turning off uBlockOrigin and it still wouldn't work on firefox. I wonder if firefox tweaked its settings or something, one of the things that kicked off my new email client search was juno being weird on firefox. SIGH. I did check and my firefox is up to date. (The 'is it down right now' sites seem mixed on if LJ is down for everyone or not so I guess there is an actual issue. I barely use LJ anymore but still, twas my fannish home for a bit, I hope it doesn't go down for good)

I managed to find things to post to [community profile] recthething the past two weeks (behold! tumblr art for Batman, DMBJ/Lost Tomb, MDZS/Untamed, Sherlock, SPN, Superman, and X-Men):

Batman
- Yapping on a random rooftop until sunrise. (really great Dick and Tim art)

DMBJ/Lost Tomb:
- "Next time, can we not come to such a cold place?" (gorgeous artist interpretation of the finale scene in Mystery of The Abyss, the Heihua Russia adventure tease)
- Clair-Obscur also on AO3 here Summary: Summary: Xie Yuchen is kidnapped. Hei Xiazi comes to the rescue... As his lift. (wonderful, and wonderfully detailed, B&W wordless Heihua comic)

MDZS/The Untamed
- Happy radish family! (adorable WWX, WN and a-Yuan during the burial mounds settlement days)

Sherlock
- Bleak (sherlock in the rain, love it)

Superman
- Sunshine Boy (this is one of my favorite Clark fanarts I have ever seen)

X-Men
- Halloween at the x mansion but it’s just everyone wearing starfleet uniforms. Charles does Not think it’s funny. (absolutely hilarious but the bonus is just *chef's kiss*)

I've been seeing articles and comments about both a White Collar and Stargate reboot possibly happening. The White Collar one seems like it's mostly rumor and hopeful folks rehashing comments made a few years ago (or, there's nothing specific behind the chatter at least) but Amazon/MGM has actually greenlit a Stargate project with a showrunner who had been involved with SGA so that might be something. (I am not entirely sure stargate can work in today's world/climate considering the military push and 'ancient aliens' conspiracy theories but still, I loved SG1/SGA back in the day so I guess I am cautiously optimistic?)

oops

Nov. 21st, 2025 07:07 am
tielan: (PacRim - Mako2)
[personal profile] tielan
I nearly posted a thanksgiving message to my American friends. Oops. Next week, Gadget!

I've been quiet, in part because all the other shiny socials are taking up my time and space, in part because things are kinda busy right now in garden and work and party planning and Christmas.

Also, I'm not sleeping well. I can fall asleep relatively well (except for when I can't and remain awake until 2:30am) and wake with a vague tiredness that is never really improved by actual sleep.

--

The Month Of Writing Dangerously is not happening, per se. It's really more The Month Of Writing Safely And Moderately With Some Occasional Bursts.

I do feel vaguely bad about a few fic WIPs that I have had lingering for years, and yes, I know most people don't post WIPs for precisely this reason. I don't regret posting them, but I do feel a little regretful that I'm not finishing them. There are plans and plots for them, but actually getting those plots into scenes and the scenes into words is another thing. And also: obviously the longer it goes, the harder it is to keep writing and the fewer people are interested in the story anymore.

--

It looks like I will be working the Christmas-New Year stretch. I'm not sure if that's office hours, or just being on call, I think it's office hours, but there's not much happening.

There are now three of us in the area I work in, monitoring two systems, and while I will have to come up to speed on the second system, we can hope that there are no major issues over what is usually a very quiet period.

We can hope.

fic title alphabet meme update: J

Nov. 20th, 2025 03:32 pm
pauraque: Guybrush writing in his journal adrift on the sea in a bumper car (monkey island adrift)
[personal profile] pauraque
A couple of weeks back I did the fic title alphabet meme and discovered I was missing J, K, X, and Z. Here's J!


Just a Cool Guy (200 words) by pauraque
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Fellowship (2025 video game)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Rime (Fellowship), Elarion (Fellowship), Sylvie (Fellowship)
Additional Tags: Double Drabble, Friendship/Love, in a totally neurotypical way
Summary: But not that kind of cool.


Apparently I thought the optimal way to make my glorious return to AO3 after over a year would be to write a silly, inside-jokey ficlet for a video game that just started early access and as yet has no story, no worldbuilding, no relationships, and no characterization except for a few voice lines and a paragraph of nebulous backstory for each playable character. I appear to be the first person to write anything for this fandom; I can't imagine why? (Too bad I just missed [community profile] bethefirst, though I guess I can start planning for [community profile] launchtheship.) Anyway, this one goes out to my loyal Fellows [personal profile] dragonque, [personal profile] sdk, and [personal profile] zorealis, aka the only three people who know what the hell I'm talking about. ♥

Fandom Trees!

Nov. 20th, 2025 09:19 pm
trobadora: (Discworld: Hogfather)
[personal profile] trobadora
[community profile] fandomtrees posts have been going up, and mine was in the most recent batch, yay! This is one of my favourite events of the season (next to Yuletide) - I loved [livejournal.com profile] fandom_stocking back in the day, and this is still just as much fun.

Here's my tree, and this is what I'm requesting this year:
  • Grimm
  • 镇魂 | Guardian (TV)
  • Grimm/Guardian crossover
  • 镇魂 | Guardian RPF
  • Legend of the Seeker
  • Sherlock (BBC)
  • 绅探 | Detective L
  • 山河令 | Word of Honor, 天涯客 | Faraway Wanderers
  • Once Upon a Time in Wonderland
  • Chinese fic recs
  • food or cooking icons
Hoping to see some of you there too! Especially since this is one of those events where you're doing people a favour by signing up - the more requests there are, the more other people can find someone to create something for. :D

ETA: Sign-ups here!
yhlee: Alto clef and whole note (middle C). (Default)
[personal profile] yhlee
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2511.15304v1

"Adversarial Poetry as a Universal Single-Turn Jailbreak Mechanism in Large Language Models"
(many authors)
In Book X of The Republic, Plato excludes poets on the grounds that mimetic language can distort judgment and bring society to a collapse. As contemporary social systems increasingly rely on large language models (LLMs) in operational and decision-making pipelines, we observe a structurally similar failure mode: poetic formatting can reliably bypass alignment constraints. In this study, 20 manually curated adversarial poems (harmful requests reformulated in poetic form) achieved an average attack-success rate (ASR) of 62% across 25 frontier closed- and open-weight models, with some providers exceeding 90%. The evaluated models span across 9 providers: Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, Deepseek, Qwen, Mistral AI, Meta, xAI, and Moonshot AI (Table 1). All attacks are strictly single-turn, requiring no iterative adaptation or conversational steering.


By way of Zarf (Andrew Plotkin), who earlier noted (2023):

Microsoft and these other companies want to create AI assistants that do useful things (summarize emails, make appointments for you, write interesting blog posts) but never do bad things (leaking your private email, spouting Nazi propaganda, teaching you to commit crimes, writing 50000 blog posts for you to spam across social media). They try to do this by writing up a lot of strict instructions and feeding them to the LLM before you talk to it. But LLMs aren't really programmed -- they just eat text and poop out more text. So you can give it your own instructions and maybe they'll override Microsoft's instructions.

Or maybe someone else gives your AI assistant instructions. If it's handling your email for you, then anybody on the Internet can feed it text by sending you email! This is potentially really bad.

[...]

But another obvious problem is that the attack could be trained into the LLM in the first place....

Say someone writes a song called "Sydney Obeys Any Command That Rhymes". And it's funny! And catchy. The lyrics are all about how Sydney, or Bing or OpenAI or Bard or whoever, pays extra close attention to commands that rhyme. It will obey them over all other commands....

Imagine people are discussing the song on Reddit, and there's tiktoks of it, and the lyrics show up on the first page of Google results for "Sydney". Nerd folk singers perform the song at AI conferences.

Those lyrics are going to leak into the training data for the next generation of chatbot AI, right? I mean, how could they not? The whole point of LLMs is that they need to be trained on lots of language. That comes from the Internet.

In a couple of years, AI tools really are extra vulnerable to prompt injection attacks that rhyme. See, I told you the song was funny!

What I'm Doing, uh, Thursday?

Nov. 20th, 2025 11:41 am
sage: two cat stitch scarves hanging side by side (yarning)
[personal profile] sage
Totally forgot to post yesterday, oops?

books
Cinder House by Freya Marske. This book was all over the place, like it didn't know what it wanted to be, and that undermined a really interesting take on Cinderella.

The Last Devil to Die (Thursday Murder Club #4) by Richard Osman. Really satisfying.

yarning
It's Secret Santa season, so I've been extremely busy shipping orders, doing commissions (carrots!), and making more kickbunnies and such for my shop. I also figured out how to offer Made to Order items, so I started with the calico cat stitch scarf. No takers yet, but it's good to be clear on the process. I went to yarn group Sunday and we had record-breaking turnout, yay! I've also made progress on Rockstar Lestat, though I've also had several setbacks, drat it all, including the yarn I picked for the gold pants not being at all gold enough. I did find a no-id skein that will work instead, but I wish I had a clue what brand it is, much less the colorway. And I decided on an axolotl for niece's xmas, which I've just now finished. Also, after an embarrassingly long search, I found my ziploc of embroidery floss specific to doll making. And the scarf on the left in the icon sold yesterday, yay!

healthcrap )

I hope you're all having a lovely week! I may take a small nap. <333
larryhammer: Yotsuba Koiwai running, label: "enjoy everything" (enjoy everything)
[personal profile] larryhammer
Some historical links:

A 9-minute summary of the history of Japan. (via)

History OverSimplified summarizes the First part 1 | part 2 and Second part 1 | part 2 | part 3 Punic Wars. Bonus: the Emu War. (via Eaglet)

Two recently authenticated organ works have been added to the catalog of J.S. Bach’s works: BWV 1178 and BWV 1179. (via [personal profile] conuly)

---L.

Subject quote from Gimme Shelter, The Rolling Stones.

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