denise posting in

It's been a while since we've done a full code push rather than just hotfixes for bugs, so we are well overdue! Depending on availability, we're aiming to do one sometime soon; we'll let you know specifics once we've worked out good timing for everyone who needs to be available.

However! The reason it's been so long is we kept trying to get some of the stuff that's pending to "really finished" instead of just "mostly finished", and then we once again looked around and went "oh no, this is a really big code push with a lot of changes". Those make us nervous, because while we do a lot of testing ourselves, y'all are really creative in how you use the site and we inevitably find a bunch of edge cases when we let you loose on new code with your real-world data!

So, if folks have some spare time in the next few days, it would be a huge help if you could spend half an hour or so using the site the same way you normally do but with the "Site-Wide Canary" beta features flag turned on. Canary mode is a sort of "live testing" mode: it's your real data, but running the most up-to-date code.

Canary mode always does have a few glitches -- there may be missing text strings or errors about missing database properties, which is a limitation of how we run it. We don't need to know about those, but anything else weird that you run into, leave a comment with what you were trying to do and the error message you got.

I'll repeat that the "here be dragons" caution that's on the beta features page: some things may be broken, so don't use it for when you're doing something important. But a few more eyeballs on it before the push will help the push go more smoothly for everyone.

For folks who want to concentrate on what's changing, we haven't finished the second code tour of what's going to be in this push, but the ffirst one has a good chunk of what's going to be going live. (We'll get the second half done ASAP!)

alobear

Last night, I went to see Stage Kiss at the Hampstead Theatre, which ended up being pleasingly meta. It follows two actors who were in a relationship in their late teens to early twenties, but have been apart for twenty years and are reunited when they are both cast in the same play.
Their roles in the play require them to kiss a lot, and the lines between acting and real life get blurred, with obvious consequences.
The first half was really funny, with a lot of deliberately bad acting, and lots of interesting layers.
The second half was amusing, in that the same actors played the husband and daughter from the play of the first half, as well as the husband and daughter in the 'real life' of the second half. But it got a bit too ridiculous in places, lost its way a bit, and the ending felt both abrupt and nebulous.
Still, it was a good night out and I enjoyed it overall.

alobear

I've picked up a few books by Barbara Erskine over the last year, but Sleeper's Castle is both the most recent acquisition and the first I've read.
It's a timeslip novel - we follow Catrin, trying to find her way as a poet and musician in her father's shadow in the 1400s, and Andy in the present day, caretaking a friend's house and cat for a year, after the death of her partner of ten years.
What links them together is the house - Sleeper's Castle - where they both live in their respective time periods. And the magic of the house allows them to move between times, see each other's lives and at certain points interact directly.
It's well written and engaging, at least at first. I got invested in both narratives, I liked both protagonists and also the peripheral characters in both time periods.
But it's too long. It gets very repetitive in the middle - I'm pretty sure you could cut about 200 pages out of the middle and still have a perfectly valid (and more compelling) story.
The antagonist of Andy's tale is also a caricature of motiveless evil, which jarred quite a bit. Plus, while there's a hint of potential romance, that aspect kind of fizzles out and doesn't get a particularly clear resolution. And I did gradually lose interest in Catrin's story, once the focus shifted mainly to battles.
I did want to find out what happened, though, so I persevered - and I'm glad I did because I mostly enjoyed the ending. It just lost me almost completely for quite a while along the way.

althea_valara

stolen from

senmut:

Comment with the name of a woman character (in any show, movie, book, comic, etc that you think I'm familiar with) and I'll tell you one thing I love about her. In return, you can do the same in your journal (if you like!).

some fandoms for you to choose from

video games

* Final Fantasy I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII (including Remake, Rebirth, Crisis Core, Advent Children), VIII, IX, X, a bit of X-2, XI, XII, XIII, XIII-2, XIV, XV, XVI
* Kingdom Hearts - whole series except for mobile games and that rhythm game they put out

TV series & Movies

* Star Trek: TNG, DS9, VOY... though it's been forever since I've seen them.
* Star Wars: episodes I through IX, and Rogue One, but I've only seen Rogue One once and)
* Battlestar Galatica, the rebooted series
* Doctor Who (2005 onwards to Peter Capaldi's reign, then I bounced off of it)
* Buffy the Vampire Slayer
* Angel
* FarScape (though it's been a long time)
* Highlander: the Series

Books & Comics

* Artemis Fowl
* Lord of the Rings
* Madeleine L'Engle's books, especially A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels, but also the Arm of the Starfish and A Ring of Endless Light
* Fray (comic series, based on Buffy)
* Fullmetal Alchemist
* Read or Die, both mangas and both the anime ROD:The TV and the OAV
* Fruits Basket

Do NOT ask about Harry Potter, I am no longer a fan and want nothing to do with the series.

There's probably more fandoms I'm forgetting, but those are the main ones.

lnr

Dear Pippa,

I'm writing to you as one of your constituents. I am a non-trans woman, who believes that trans women are also women. I'm sure you've had a lot of emails about this today. No doubt the LibDems are working on a reply which I would be happy to see, but I'd also appreciate your own thoughts.

Yesterday the government finally revealed the new updated EHRC Guidance to the Equality Act. There are updates to several areas, but the ones I want to talk about are those affecting trans people.

There is an attempt to say that gender reassignment is still a protected characteristic, but the vast majority of the changes are about how service providers and others are now not only able to, but *expected* to exclude trans people from the places which match their lived gender, or in some cases also from places which match their official sex at birth.

I know you have lovely trans colleagues who you were campaigning with in Cambridge recently. I know you don't think Yannifer should be expected to use the men's toilets. But according to this guidance we are all expected to treat her as a man from now on, and we are asked to believe that this has always been the legal reality of the Equality Act, and that previous guidance was merely mistaken in ever having said otherwise.

Trans people with GRCs have sworn an oath that they intend to live their lives going forward in their acquired gender, and if this guidance is accepted then they will no longer be able to do so.

The guidance itself even accepts that there is no way for any of us to adequately prove to someone who asks whether we are in fact trans or not. I could be refused service if someone *thinks* I am trans, and does not believe me when I say that I am not.

I am not surprised to see this guidance, because it has been clear for some time that this has been coming. I am still shocked and appalled that the government is just going ahead with it.

Please can I ask you to speak up. Speak up for trans people. Speak up for clubs and services which wish to remain trans inclusive. Speak up for other women, who will experience harassment because they are suspected of being trans, but even more so for trans people who will experience increased harassment and fear too. Speak up for those who are now excluded from taking part in sport, even if their clubs and leagues welcome them.

The government could legislate to change this, to change the Equality Act to mean when it had always been understood to mean. They choose not to. I hope you and the LibDems can choose better.

Yours sincerely,

Eleanor Blair
Great Shelford, Cambridge, CB22

alobear

Carl's Doomsday Scenario is the second book in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series by Matt Dinniman. I managed four whole days between finishing the first one and starting this one - but I think the highest peaks of my obsession with this series are (probably thankfully) over - at least for now...
This one has a bit of a slow start, with the whole of the first hour dedicated just to Carl and Doughnut choosing their race and class for the next dungeon level.
I wasn't wholly happy with some of the choices made about certain characters, I struggled a bit more with some of the stereotypes, especially regarding female characters, it definitely didn't make me laugh as much, and some of the humour and some of the violence tipped very close to my ick threshold.
So - diminishing returns already? Overly high expectations from the first book (which I likely enjoyed more because my expectations going into that one were low) not quite being met?
I also could have done without the evil clowns and the parasitic worms...
It was still largely fun, though - and still very clever, not just in the moment but also in terms of how many really complicated and fascinating things are set up for later books... Plus, we get more character and relationship developments, which are all good.
It definitely got me hooked again by the end, so I'm still keen to carry on, but I'm going to start taking longer breaks between volumes.

althea_valara

Bsky friends! Hey, just to let you know I'll be playing L in Death Note: The Musical this summer at the Barbican in London!

I'm honoured and extremely excited to take on this iconic role, with a legendary team. Can't wait for the world to see it!

playbill.com/article/coli...

[image or embed]
— Colin Ryan (colin-ryan) May 18, 2026 at 8:18 AM

I WISH I COULD GO!!! I adore Colin's work as Alphinaud in FFXIV, and I quite like the Death Note manga. TWO of my loves colliding into one glorious work? WHY CAN'T I HAVE MORE MONEY!

There is NO WAY I can do an overseas trip at this time, so I will just have to live vicariously through

rionaleonhart. BTW, Riona, if you want to get a sense of what Colin's like, he's doing a Twitch stream this Sunday to talk about what he's been up to, what he has coming up, etc. Sunday 24th May - 5pm UK / 12pm ET / 9am PT / 1am JT (Mon) at https://twitch.tv/iamalphinaud

Nobuo Uematsu con TIKI SHOW is heading to Los Angeles, Toronto, and Seattle!

Witness legendary composer Nobuo Uematsu and his ensemble performance of original narrated material and new arrangements of FINAL FANTASY music.

Tickets go on sale on Friday May 15 at 10AM PT/1pm ET. awrmusic.com/contiki

[image or embed]
— AWR Music / AWR Music Productions (awrmusicchicago) May 12, 2026 at 12:03 PM

AAAAAAAHHHHH x2!! Okay, WHY is this one such a desire for me? It's totally because Final Fantasy, to me, was love at first sound and that's all thanks to Uematsu-san's excellent composing. Also, I have previously been to Seattle on a business trip, and I really adored it there. I WANT TO GO!

This one would likely be more doable if I hadn't just made a major purchase (for me) in a new gaming chair. I did start looking at flights/trains/etc. But it'd probably take all my remaining savings to go, so reluctantly, I will have to pass and hope it comes to Chicago sometime.

Current Mood: frustrated

althea_valara

In about two hours, to be exact!

If you're unfamiliar with it: RPG LB is a charity event where people speedrun RPG video games while raising money for NAMI. Being mentally ill and neurodivergent myself, this is a cause near and dear to my heart, so I try to support them by at least watching some of the runs. This year, I'm financially stable enough to finally be able to make a small donation myself.

The list of games being run is here: https://tracker.rpglimitbreak.com/runs/rpglb2026

I will be watching as many Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts runs as I can! Not Tactics though, since I am currently playing that myself.

I used to go to monthly NAMI meetups, and it was a help at a time when I was severely depressed, so I appreciate the good work they do.

Current Mood: thankful

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A game for one to thirteen billion players

Testing needed in advance of code push!

Stage Kiss

Sleeper's Castle

why not? meme

video games

TV series & Movies

Books & Comics

Letter to Pippa Heylings, LibDem MP for South Cambs

Carl's Doomsday Scenario

aaaaah I wish I had more money x2

RPG Limit Break starts today!

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