AO3 Tag Wranglers continue to test processes for wrangling canonical additional tags (tags that appear in the auto-complete) which don’t belong to any particular fandom (also known as “No Fandom” tags). This post will provide an overview of some of these upcoming changes.
In this round of updates, we continued a method which streamlines creation of new canonical tags, prioritizing more straightforward updates which would have less discussion compared to renaming current canonical tags or creating new canonical tags which touch on more complex topics. This method also reviews new tags on a regular basis, so check back on AO3 News for periodic “No Fandom” tag announcements.
None of these updates change the tags users have added to works. If a user-created tag is considered to have the same meaning as a new canonical, it will be made a synonym of one of these newly created canonical tags, and works with that user-created tag will appear when the canonical tag is selected.
In short, these changes only affect which tags appear in AO3’s auto-complete and filters. You can and should continue to tag your works however you prefer.
New Canonicals
The following concepts have been made new canonical tags:
While all these new tags have already been made canonical, we are still working on implementing changes and connecting relevant tags, so it’ll be some time before these updates are complete. We thank you in advance for your patience!
While we won’t be announcing every change we make to No Fandom canonical tags, you can expect similar updates in the future on the tags we believe will most affect users. If you’re interested in the changes we’ll be making, you can continue to check AO3 News or follow us on Bluesky @wranglers.archiveofourown.org or Tumblr @ao3org for future announcements.
You can also read previous updates on “No Fandom” tags as well as other wrangling updates, linked below:
For more information about AO3’s tag system, check out our Tags FAQ.
In addition to providing technical help, AO3 Support also handles requests related to how tags are sorted and connected. If you have questions about specific tags, which were first used over a month ago and are unrelated to any of the new canonical tags listed above, please contact Support instead of leaving a comment on this post.
Lastly, as mentioned above, we’re still working on connecting relevant user-created tags to these new canonicals. If you have questions about specific tags which should be connected to these new canonicals, please refrain from contacting Support about them until at least two months from now.
1) I got a bridge job working at the Friendly Local Game Store 2) I continue with 1099 work 3) Some promising leads, but nothing solid. I think if by January I don't have a new patent agent job, it might be time to consider a career change.
Keeping track of what you weigh is important (although there are reasonable arguments against keeping track of it too much). I am really into tracking all of all my health-related data and organizing it on my phone so I can monitor trends and changes, so weighing myself consistently is just part of that larger mission. For me, that involves using a smart scale, which syncs with all my other health apps and creates a full picture of how I'm doing, fitness-wise—but if you don't want to get that tech-y with it, you have other options, too. Here are the best smart and dumb scales.
The best bathroom scales with cool features
These have additional or cool features like body fat measurement—though you should probably take those figures with a grain of salt—that go beyond just telling you your weight.
I have this iHealth Nexus Smart Scale ($35) and love it so much I bought another one for my boyfriend. We've been using them for about two years with no problems. I weigh myself every other morning or so and the batteries lasted about 18 months before needing to be replaced. The price is accessible, but it still comes with a ton of features. It connects to your phone via Bluetooth, then it assesses your weight, BMI, and even makes some estimates of things like muscle mass and bone mass, importing all of that information to your device, making it downloadable, and creating graphs of changes over time. Because it syncs so easily with your phone's native health app, it also, technically, syncs with any other apps that are also tied in there. For instance, I use a nutrient-tracking app called Lifesum. My weight is automatically updated and inputted there when I weigh myself on the iHealth Nexus and Lifesum adjusts my calorie and nutrient suggestions for the day to keep me on track with my goals.
I'm an Apple Watch girl, so I'm a fan of my scale for its easy integration with Apple Health. Generally, if you're using a specific product or suite of products, I think you should stay in the same family as much as you can. The easier tracking is, the more likely you are to do it and stick with it. If you're a Fitbit user, grab the Fitbit Aria Air ($50), which syncs directly with your Fitbit dashboard, not Apple Health. It's relatively simple, only showing your weight and BMI, but really, that might be all you need. It's lightweight, "sleek," and "minimalist," according to reviewers, so it's not a bulky addition to the bathroom, either.
The Shapa scale ($120) is an innovative smart scale that shows you colors, not numbers, so you don't get too caught up monitoring your exact weight. I have a friend who is a big fan of this approach and this device. The colors refer to your average weight over time and if you see blue on your app, you're losing weight. Teal means you're starting to lose weight, green means you're maintaining it, light gray means you're starting to gain, and dark gray means you are gaining weight. That's it. It's popular on Reddit, too, where users praise it for helping them get over scale anxiety. It's not helpful to use a device if it's going to stress you out or, worse, demoralize you to the point that you stop using it. This simple, color-based approach helps you ignore numbers (which fluctuate over the course of an average day) and think more long-term.
This Renpho smart scale ($43) is cool because it lights up, either to remind you periodically to weigh yourself or to serve as a nightlight, depending on your preferences and needs. It's a versatile option that's great for small bathrooms. For its low price, it also packs quite a few punches: It syncs with Google Fit, Samsung Health, Fitbit, and MyFitnessPal, estimates metrics like body fat percentage and muscle mass, and even has baby- and pet-weighing modes, plus specialized modes for athletes.
The best cheap scales
Don't need the bells and whistles? That's fine. You can pick up an inexpensive one that just shows you your weight, easy peasy. You might still want to track this somewhere, like an Excel spreadsheet, so you can do half the work the smart scales do on your own, but if you're someone who gets a little too into weighing yourself or number-crunching, you can also just use these on their own for periodic check-ins.
The basic scale I use when I'm not using my iNexus isn't available on Amazon anymore, but this HomeBuds digital scale ($13) is very similar: There's an easy-to-read, bright LED display and the machine turns on automatically when you step on it. There isn't much else to say—and for a lot of people, that's the point!
This GE digital scale ($30) displays your body weight and BMI. I'll be real with you: This one has gone up in price (while the rest of the ones have gone down) over the past year, so now that it's inching into the $30+ range, it might be worth considering spending an extra $10 on a smart scale, or at least doing so down the line. You can use this as a bridge between the classic way and the more modern way, as it comes from a trusted brand and displays more measurements than the standard scale without diving into phone-connected territory.
In Bath for my birthday, which was a whole two weeks ago now, nineveh_uk and I went to see As You Like It with Harriet Walter in it. Harriet Walter was playing Jacques. I was pleased to find there was more of Jacques than I remembered. I just remembered him coming on lugubriously every now and then and eventually glumly producing the Seven Ages of Man speech. This is very probably because the only other time I have seen a performance of As You Like It, Jacques was played by Alan Rickman. In 1986.
I did As You Like It for A-level (and Hamlet) and I loved it. It's fun. They all go off to the forest and find out stuff and it all ends happily and people disguise themselves as a boy like in Twelfth Night except they aren't all ganging up on Malvolio. At 18 I mostly read it as the story of the devoted loyalty (definitely loyalty yup) of Celia for Rosalind, going into exile with her and everything. In later life I realised that a lot of this came from having seen it with Celia played by Fiona Shaw. Here are some photographs from the 1985 Adrian Noble production. I feel third along top row does nothing to dispel my teenage view whatsoever. It was just a pity that when they got into the Forest of Arden, Juliet Stevenson as Rosalind had to wear white trousers and braces and at times a bowler hat that made her look like a mime artist. I had also totally not realised until now that Phebe was played by Lesley Manville as an 80's punk shepherdess.
This Forest of Arden was conveyed by projections of actual trees on curtains. I liked the trees being real and not metaphorical. It also picked up on the "sweet lovers love the spring" bit at the end and everyone being cold when they arrive by making it clear that at the start of the play it is winter and the Duke's exiled court all had chunky outdoor-wear jackets, scarves and hats and carried rucksacks, which they sat on and handily carried off with them again.
Gloria Obianyo and Amber James had great chemistry as Rosalind and Celia but less so with Orlando and Oliver respectively. This is partly the play's fault, especially for Celia and Oliver who only have about 5 seconds to fall in love after Oliver's had a personality change after encountering a lion, but there could have been more sizzlingness between Rosalind-as-Ganymede and Orlando in the wooing-practice-while-dressed-as-a-boy bits. They had it at court but there was a missing layer of "shit I really really fancy this boy what the fuck is going on" from Orlando in the forest and Rosalind revealing herself as being Rosalind at the end just by wearing different trousers didn't help the suspension of disbelief that no-one had recognised her before.
The Guardian reviewer thinks Dylan Moran as Touchstone was a weak link but honestly so much of Touchstone is just not funny that I think having Touchstone played like he's still Bernard Black in Black Books was a plus. He made it funny. Well done Dylan Moran.
Everyone was good, especially Harriet Walter, obviously, who managed to do All the World's A Stage while eating an apple, but I want to mention Imogen Elliott as a perky, modern Phebe in her first role I think, because she was great and if she turns into Lesley Manville, I want to remember I saw her here first.
I nearly forgot the music. I liked it all being turned into folk songs and Rosalind getting to play a guitar.
The Samsung HW-Q800F soundbar is down to $597.99 on Woot right now, which is a good chunk less than its $797.99 Amazon price tag, and even lower than the lowest price it’s ever gone for before ($697.99), according to price-trackers. This offer is valid for the next two weeks or until it sells out, with free shipping for Prime members and a $6 fee for others. Plus, it comes with a 90-day Woot limited warranty, but the real appeal here is the performance: It’s a 5.1.2-channel system with Dolby Atmos support, meaning you get immersive audio, even without extra satellite speakers.
When it comes to performance, the Q800F feels most at home with TV and movies. The subwoofer has plenty of rumble for action-heavy scenes, while the dedicated center channel makes dialogue stand out even when everything else gets loud. That’s something a lot of cheaper soundbars miss, and it makes a big difference if you don’t want to ride the volume button during every show. Additionally, it plays nice with just about any device you throw at it—HDMI passthrough for 4K at 60Hz with HDR and Dolby Vision, plus Bluetooth, wifi, AirPlay, and Spotify Connect. If you’ve got a recent Samsung TV, you can even skip the HDMI cable altogether and stream Atmos wirelessly. Voice control is built in through Alexa; however, reportedly, connecting it to Google Assistant requires a little extra effort using Samsung’s app.
There are some trade-offs, though. The Q800F doesn’t offer HDMI 2.1 support or features like VRR, which limits its appeal if you’re chasing cutting-edge gaming specs. And Atmos performance, while present, doesn’t match that of the more expensive Q990F with dedicated satellites (the surround effect feels wider than a basic stereo bar, but not always fully convincing). Also, the bass can skew a little boomy, and there’s a dip in the mids that can thin out certain dialogue. Still, for a clean setup with powerful sound and strong format support, the Q800F offers a lot of the premium experience at mid-range price.
On her last visit, my aunt brought my mother a CD player and a stack of discs in the full knowledge that operating the thing would probably be impossible for her—she can't tell what she's looking at half the time when she's seen it a hundred times before, so finding tiny black-on-black buttons on an unfamiliar machine, forget about it. But no worries, the place where she lives is full of staff who are always happy to (and whose job includes) assist with that sort of thing.
Yesterday I picked her up for dinner and she said she'd asked someone to help with the CD player one morning this week when they came in to help her get dressed, and they'd said oh, sorry, they didn't actually know anything about how to do that—
—and suddenly in that moment I realized oh my god, it's—what it is, is—the Kids Today, all their music is digital, they just stream it on their phones, asking them to put any type of album in any type of player and press any type of button is completely unknown to them. This would have been the equivalent of someone asking me in the late 1990s to help their elderly mother with her 8-track player. I might as well have used the word phonograph, or victrola. Another staffer came in with a delivery as we were leaving the apartment, and I confirmed that she does know how to work a CD player so she's going to help my mom with it when she can. She's in her 40s and agrees that the young people can't do it for online digital reasons. "Hey, you printed the 'save' icon," I said. "They can't read analog clocks, either," she said. And on the drive to my house my mom and I were talking about how there didn't used to be any such thing as an analog clock or an acoustic guitar or a landline phone, because those were just called clocks and guitars and telephones, but now here we are—a biker is a person who rides a motorcycle, so a person who rides a bicycle has to be called a cyclist.
I remember when I was in high school my parents were pretty bothered that the fall of Saigon was being taught in history class, but now there are people who are grown adults with college degrees and almost old enough to run for federal office who were bornafter September 11, 2001. Which can't be right because that just happened. Himself pointed out that his date of birth was closer to the Armistice (1919) than to today. It's all very upsetting.
Back in your day, slang made sense, trends were harmless, and young people didn’t go around painting their faces green and peeing on stuff. But those days are dead (and they never existed in the first place). Today’s kids and teens have a language, a culture, and a set of rituals that makes no sense, but only to you and I, because we’re old and washed-up. This column won’t bring back your youth, but it might help you be less offended if someone tells you to “start digging in your butt, twin.”
What do “sendy” and “let’s get sendy" mean?
The hottest piece of generation alpha slang this week is “sendy.” It’s an adjective that describes a person who does bold and/or exciting things. The phrase "let’s get sendy” means something like “let’s do something big/crazy.”
Or it doesn’t mean anything. Gen Alpha slang is brain-rot, so saying "let’s get sendy” especially when said in a sing-songy way, could be just a way to make your friends laugh/annoy everyone over 15.
“Sendy” originally came from the phrase “send it,” slang that (probably) originated in the rock climbing community of the 1980s or 1990s, as a shortening of “ascend it.” When faced with a particularly difficult section, one climber might yell, “send it!” to encourage their bro/broettes to go for it, or you might say “send it” to announce that you are about to do something sketchy yourself. “Send it” went on to be used in the same way in other action sports like mountain biking, skateboarding, and snowboarding.
“Sendy” as an adjective seems to have originated with The Nelk Boys, who have been posting mainly prank videos on their YouTube channel for over a decade. The Nelk Boys said/say “send it” a lot, and in this videos from 2023, one of them said, “let’s get sendy”:
This probably isn’t the first time anyone ever said “sendy” (it seems fairly obvious if you say “send it” a lot) but it might be the first time anyone ever said, “let’s get sendy.” If it is, it’s documented proof of the exact moment a piece of slang came into being—catnip for etymologists. Anyway, it took a couple years for “let’s get sendy” to make it from a podcast into every middle school in the country/world, but here we are in 2025, getting sendy.
What does SDIYBT ("start digging in your butt, twin") mean
This acronym and phrase is growing very popular among the kids in Generation Alpha. SDIYBT stands for “start digging in your butt, twin.”
What “start digging in your butt, twin” actually means is debatable. Some have suggested it means something like “dig deep,” or focus and access your inner strength, but it’s more likely that the phrase doesn’t mean anything, because words meaning things is becoming passé.
The origin of SDIYBT as a slang phrase is a meme someone made of SpongeBob Squarepants saying “start digging in yo butt, twin.” (SpongeBob doesn’t say SDIYBT in the original cartoon; that was added by the memer):
Before long, people started lip-syncing the video:
Let us leave the world of annoyingly vague Generation Alpha slang to take a look at Generation Z, many of whom who have outgrown brain-rot and are trying to become better people. “The great lock-in” or “The September lock-in" is a collective, online self-improvement initiative where young people are vowing to devote September through December to achieving one’s personal goals, like eating healthily, exercising regularly, and otherwise building better habits. Think of it as a post-summer reset for bad habits.
It can't be a thing online (particularly a thing that mainly women are doing) without people getting judgy, of course. Some are concerned that the trend could be an unhealthy part of a “major reversal of body positivity,” or evidence of a collapsing society, but I don’t see it. Having spent some time poking around popular videos in the great lock-in hashtag, all I’ve seen are people listing their own goals, offering tips on how to successfully stick to a plan, or just generally trying to motivate. None are focused on, say, starving yourself. As for this being evidence of society collapsing, I'm not seeing that either. Self-improvement/self-help trends in America date back to at least the 1800s, and there are a lot clearer indications that society is collapsing than this.
Hottest college trend: public urination
Gen Z isn’t only about wholesome self-improvement. There are also college students peeing on things in public. College students have always peed on things in public of course, but social media is making it into a trend. TikTok accounts like @brockport.pisser, @thesunycantonpisser, and @buff_state_pisser are getting thousands of views on videos of them letting loose near various landmarks at the schools they presumably attend. A pee-boy at The University of West Florida marked the UWF Welcome sign, and that sign reportedly cost the school over $2 million. Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, and the University of Maine have all been victims of anonymous urinators, and there’s even been an arrest. Nicholls State University cops recently busted a dude who goes by “Nicholls Pisser” for violating an unnamed state law and city ordinance. Given how these videos are shot—a stream of liquid emanating from a source off camera—it seems like a tough case to prove. These videos could easily have been made with a water bottle, a fact that at least one “pisser” points out.
Viral video of the week: TikToker paints face green
It’s a pretty safe assumption that all of the peeing-on-stuff accounts above are operated by dudes. Dudes are cool and all, but they can be a bit much. That’s the story behind today’s viral video.
Whatever demon is in charge of TikTok’s recommend algorithm decided to spread the video, and nearly a million people watched it—but they were the wrong people. According to Bailey, that one video changed the demographics of her viewerships from primarily female to primarily male, and the change was not good. “Now my inbox and comments are littered with disgusting messages,” Bailey reports. But she came up with a unique solution for getting rid of all those creeps/men, as you can see in the below video:
Did Bailey painting her face green work? Sure seems like it. Her comment section is packed with women reporting in, and Bailey’s taken the idea further with a cool red face job too:
It's normal to want the latest and greatest device, especially when Apple is behind it. But if you're like me, you really don't need a new iPhone. To be honest, had it not meant an accidental untimely end, I'd still be rocking with my pacific blue iPhone 12 Pro Max (RIP). My 15 Pro Max is alive and well, however, though it is looking a bit vintage against Apple's fresh slate of devices.
Rather than shell out a significant amount of money on an iPhone 17 and unnecessarily retire a perfectly working device, I suggest many of us try to breathe some life back into our aging iPhones.
Replace the battery
If your phone is a few years old, you’re likely not getting the same power-on time as you did when you first bought it. A new battery usually costs a fraction the price of even a mid-range phone, but it can do more than just extend your time away from the charger.
Some phones—especially iPhones—slow themselves down automatically when the battery gets too old. (Apple got in some hot water years ago for not disclosing this practice.) The operating system system does this to prevent your phone from shutting down unexpectedly, and while you can turn this feature off, you probably won’t see nearly the same performance you would with a new battery. Even if it did, you run the risk of your iPhone crashing at a moment's notice. A fresh battery can change all that.
To see whether your battery might be due for an upgrade, open Settings > Battery > Battery Health. Here, check your "Maximum Capacity," which is the amount of charge the battery can hold relative to when it was new. When this number reaches 80% or below, it's likely a good idea to replace the battery. Take note of any warnings that your battery has degraded. These are also excellent clues that you probably need a replacement.
Clear up some storage space
Storage management isn’t fun, but it’s essential no matter your device. If you have apps, photos, videos, and more filling your phone to the brim, it’s going to cause problems. That’s because all computers need some extra storage space to function properly. If your phone keeps screaming at you that’s it’s nearly full, believe it.
The good news is, if it's time to clear some storage, you don’t need to clear a whole lot—just at least 5–10% of your total memory. These days, iOS makes it easy to see what’s taking up the most storage on your device. Head to Settings > General > iPhone Storage. Here, iOS will offer tips for deleting large files to free up room. For example, when I head to this page, I see suggestions to "Review Large Attachments" in Messages, which would save me up to 40.55 GB, apparently; and "Offload Unused Apps," which would clear out 16.31 GB. Whittle things down until you see that you have at least a small chunk of free space available.
Clean out your charging port
If you find that charging your phone is impossible, or that it charges slowly or inconsistently, you don’t necessarily need to buy a whole new device. Instead, try cleaning out the charging port. You wouldn’t believe how clogged these things get; lint and debris from your pockets can get trapped and packed down into the port, blocking the charger’s ability to properly connect.
To clean it, use a thin piece of wire (like a SIM tool or an untwisted paperclip) to carefully scoop any obstructions out of the port. The key word here is carefully; this port is fragile, and if you scrape the connections too hard, you could damage them irrevocably.
If your port still won't charge after a good cleaning, all hope isn't lost. If your iPhone supports wireless charging, consider using one of these chargers instead of a wired connection. Even better, use MagSafe, if your iPhone supports it, so you can hold your iPhone while its charging.
Swap out your wallpaper
Every time you look at your phone, you’re probably looking at the same Lock Screen wallpaper. If you’ve gotten bored of it, that sameness could be influencing your desire to upgrade.
It’s a small change, but see if you feel different after replacing the wallpaper, preferably to something totally different from what you had before. Pick something with an opposite color scheme, subject, art style, etc. If you haven't changed your wallpaper in a while, you might be surprised by the amount of customization Apple allows for now. You can choose to match your Home Screen's wallpaper to your Lock Screen, or have a different option altogether.
Change up your app and widget arrangements
Your Home Screen layout is likely getting stale as well. As with the new wallpaper options, Apple has made some significant changes to the way you can customize your Home Screen in recent years. Try adding new widgets that you haven’t used before and mix up the order of the apps you use on a daily basis. You can even put them anywhere you want now, a la Android.
Get a new case
Part of the appeal of a new phone is the new look; instead of buying a new device just for a new color or because your old one is dinged up, trying slapping a new case on your existing phone instead. You’d be surprised how transformative this can be. A leather case can make your device feel a bit more premium, while a colorful silicone one can brighten up its appearance. You can even find one that will replace your wallet.
Or, if you're feeling daring, try going caseless for a bit. You'll put your iPhone at risk of damage, sure, but it's nice to be reminded of how these devices really look and feel from time to time.
Replace your screen or screen protector
Stop living with that beat-up screen protector. A good one can be a bit pricey, but a cracked and scratched piece of plastic or glass is likely taking its toll on your perception of your phone. Similarly, if your phone’s display has taken a beating, think about getting it fixed, too. Depending on the phone, that can get really expensive (for newer devices, Apple charges up to $379 for the favor), but if it’s between that or a $1,000 iPhone 17 Pro, there’s a clear winner for your wallet. (It’s also worth noting that you typically can’t trade in a phone with a broken screen.)
Upgrade to iOS 26
iOS 26 is just about to drop, and it marks arguably the biggest design change for iPhones since iOS 7. That's in large part due to the new Liquid Glass design, and while it may not be for everyone, I think a lot of people are going to find it refreshing. You can even choose to see your apps and widgets in clear mode, going back to Home Screen customization.
The thing about iOS 26 is, it doesn't require a new iPhone to run. In fact, it works with iPhones as old as the iPhone 11, which dropped back in 2019. While you need an iPhone 15 Pro or newer to run Apple Intelligence features, I'd wager most of us don't need these. Instead, the visual refresh of iOS 26, coupled with the new features that everyone gets, should make even an iPhone 11 feel a bit newer.
I took the liberty of finding you the first 26 Garfield comics with no text in them (barring bookkeeping text like dates and signatures ofc) so you don't have to worry about recursively putting Garfield comics inside Garfield comics in order to make them parseable.
I thought this was both amazing AND PRACTICAL, and so with permission I now share this list here with you!!
1978 (Strip #68): The tail ratchet.
1978 (Strip #78): Preparing for the bath.
1978 (Strip #79): The dandelion drying.
1980 (Strip #4): The pin-up posters.
1980 (Strip #48): The tail adjustment. (Sunday)
1980 (Strip #172): Odie ties himself in a knot.
1980 (Strip #180): The door/window prank. (Sunday)
1980 (Strip #198): Sucking the teddy bear's paw.
1980 (Strip #332): Teeth grow into the table.
1981 (Strip #125): The instant rainstorm.
1981 (Strip #147): Fur blown back in the car.
1981 (Strip #175): Paws stuck in the collar.
1981 (Strip #308): Stretching Odie's ear.
1981 (Strip #313): Stuck in the kitty sweater.
1981 (Strip #328): Neck stretches in the window shade.
1982 (Strip #32): Juggling apple cores.
1982 (Strip #39): Slingshot stuck on face.
1982 (Strip #62): Ambushing the hat ornament.
1982 (Strip #64): Devouring the popcorn.
1982 (Strip #73): Swing breaks on head.
1982 (Strip #150): Fishing hook snags tail.
1982 (Strip #151): Garfield becomes Odie's tail.
1982 (Strip #152): Sandwich fillings squish out.
1982 (Strip #167): Cat door hits him in the rear.
1982 (Strip #197): Scale arrow peaks + Garfield's reaction.
1982 (Strip #244): Napkin cape leaves him dangling.
Altos reports that active single-family inventory was up 1.6% week-over-week. Inventory usually starts to decline in the fall and then declines sharply during the holiday season.
Inventory is now up 37.8% from the seasonal bottom in January. Usually, inventory is up about 20.5% from the seasonal low by this week in the year. So, 2025 saw a larger than normal increase in inventory.
The first graph shows the seasonal pattern for active single-family inventory since 2015.
Click on graph for larger image.
The red line is for 2025. The black line is for 2019.
Inventory was up 20.5% compared to the same week in 2024 (last week it was up 20.4%), and down 9.8% compared to the same week in 2019 (last week it was down 10.6%).
Inventory started 2025 down 22% compared to 2019. Inventory has closed some of that gap, but it appears inventory will still be below 2019 levels at the end of 2025.
This second inventory graph is courtesy of Altos Research.
As of September 12th, inventory was at 860 thousand (7-day average), compared to 847 thousand the prior week.
Well, it happened. I stumbled headlong into a new fandom, as I am wont to do. I don't know how long it will last, but for right now, my new hyperfixation is The Pitt.
I am not into medical dramas as a rule, but I was very intrigued by the fact that this one is shot virtually in real time--each episode is an hour in a shift in an emergency room at a hospital in Pittsburgh. I am an absolute sucker for real-time media, and I had heard nothing but good things about the show, so I decided to watch it. I watched the first half a couple weeks back and it was ridiculously good, but it's also incredibly realistic both about how much the healthcare "system" in teh US sucks but also just about how bad things are in the US in general, so I had to take a break from it because I was overwhelmed by life.
But then after shul on Friday night, I watched all the rest, and then I was like, "I wonder if any of my favorite authors have written fic for this," and then I got sucked in and spent the whole weekend reading fic, except for yesterday afternoon and evening, when I spent the whole time writing fic, and now I have 10k words of fic and so many feels.
It kind of blows my mind, how good this show is. Occasionally it goes a little heavy-handed with things, and it's trying to address, like every aspect of American culture right now (gun violence, drug abuse, incels, political polarization around things like masks, the WebMD-ification of life, etc.), but strangely it mostly pulls it off? Probably because an ER is the perfect place to do this, actually, because it's one of the few places in the country where a genuine cross-section of the population converges and people end up spending time with people from different demographics while being very vulnerable. The sheer Muchness of everything that's going on in the show is really realistic, and I hear that the medical stuff is too.
The cast is fanfreakingtastic and the writing is so good and the direction is so good and wow! It's so good!
Anyway, if any of y'all have watched it and made posts about it, link me! I want to know your thoughts!
And now, even though nobody asked, my top ten favorite characters!
1. Mel - nothingcompares2u.mp3. My baby my darling my sweetheart my best girl. I would die on a battlefield for her and I want her to have every good thing in the whole entire world. 2. Mohan - The most beautiful, kind, and empathetic woman in the world is also a workaholic with no life and no friends. Incredible. No notes. I would watch an entire show about her crying in the bathroom. Or marry her. Y'know, whichever. 3. Dana - We all know a woman like that, right? Way too competent, way too underpaid. Everyone adores her but she’s still somehow underappreciated. I am so glad she’s coming back next season but also NO ONE HAS EVER DESERVED TO RETIRE MORE THAN SHE DOES. The world does not deserve her. 4. Cassie - Imagine her life. And she just keeps going. She’s a superhero. No wonder her ex is still obsessed with her even though he's The Worst. 5. Perlah and Princess - The Statler and Waldorf of this show. What would we do without their snark and gossip and facial reactions to everything? 10/10. 6. Garcia - Every time she comes into the room I want to burst with happiness. I love what a bitch she is. I am so glad I don’t know her in real life because she would both terrify me and piss me off. Lesbian ice queen, I’m calling it. 7. Whitaker - I bet you were wondering when a dude would show up on this list. Well there’s only one, but no surprise that it is the poor bedraggled puppy dog who got left outside in the rain. I am rooting for him. You're a good man, Dennis Whitaker. 8. Collins - The second most beautiful woman in the world. She breaks my heart. LET HER HAVE WHAT SHE WANTS DAMMIT. 9. Santos, actually - I still don’t actually like her, but what a fanfreakingtastic character. Top tier writing. 10. Javadi - She’s at the bottom of the list because she triggers my second-hand embarrassment too much. But you’re doing great, bb girl.
I actually love everyone, but but the LADIES!!! THE LADIES!!!!
And now a word about shipping:
So I watched the show without any particular shippy feelings. I of course had favorite dynamics because I am me, but I was just letting the whole thing wash over me and loving all the individual characters.
But then after I finished the show, I made the mistake of thinking, "I wonder if any of my favorite fanfic writers have written for this?" and it turned out that several had, including one who has written, like, hundreds of thousands of words of fic, and it all just happens to be Mel/Langdon, and fastforward to now and I...um...might have a new ship? Not in the sense that I want them to be together in canon--I don't think that's necessary and in fact I loooove their platonic dynamic on the show--but in the, "yes, I absolutely will read every halfway decent fic about these two that I can find."
Mostly I think the appeal is that I love Mel so damn much and I want someone to love and adore her as much as she deserves it, and thankfully said fanfic writer decided to write Langdon as being really unhinged with how much he loves and wants Mel, and I am a sucker for that. I am mostly a person who wants all the foundations of a relationship laid out in canon--y'know, your Mulder/Scully, Spock/Kirk, Buffy/Spike, Wangxian kinds of dynamics where they're clearly so ridiculously important to each other and we've seen it in front of our own two eyes. But very occasionally, a really great fandom can fill in the blanks for me, and wow, I guess that's what happened with this.
I so so so so so do not want to get into ship wars about this, which I have heard of from afar. Apparently they've got the biggest No Romo contingent since MSR, but I want to stay far far away from it. I 1000% respect anyone who doesn't ship it but I don't want to hear about it elseweb. I trust my friends here to be like, "Yeah, not for me," but live and let ship, but in other places on the internet? No way.
And also...I wrote a whole entire fic about them yesterday and am now already planning on a second. ¯\_(ツ)_/
I can frequently be found talking to my coworkers about how much I enjoy the Libby and hoopla apps (thanks, local library!!!), and last week one of my coworkers said that they'd tried Libby, but found that a lot of things had long wait times. And I was like 'yes, that's true,' but I wasn't able to gather my thoughts coherently enough in the moment to explain why that doesn't bother me.
But now I've had time to think about it, and I can say with some confidence that it's because I like that part! I put a book on hold and Libby tells me 'there are ten people ahead of you in line' and I'm like 'my people!' I return a book and Libby says 'there are five people waiting' and I'm like 'my gift to you, next person in line, here you go!'
Holds and wait time make Libby feel like a community space to me. And it's often the perfect amount of community for me (aka tiny) -- like, there's a sense that many people are existing in the same space and doing similar things, but I don't actually have to interact with them. When I walk in the woods, I love seeing other people's footprints on the trail, even though I don't particularly want to see the people themselves. That's Libby, for me. I know people are there, and they like books too, and that's great.
This unusual game depends on a unique movement mechanic that's a little hard to describe, but I'll try. You play as a creature that can only survive on the surface of a bubble. There are little helper creatures that you can direct to create new bubbles that you can grab onto when they intersect with yours. If you mess up the timing and get stranded without a bubble, you die and go back to the last checkpoint.
Though it sounds weird when you try to put it into words, it's actually easy to intuit how it works when you're doing it, and it quickly felt natural and fun to do. There's no text in the game in part because you don't need it. The best fit genre is probably puzzle platformer, as you're leveraging the environment and your abilities to navigate past obstacles.
The game is visually stunning, with fractal-inspired kaleidoscopic imagery that is suggestive of coral reefs and cosmic nebulae. It's a matter of interpretation what the setting actually is and what the characters are. Are you a jellyfish? An alien? A bacterium? A fundamental particle? I have no idea!
In general I was okay with the abstract nature of the game, but at times it can make your goals unclear. Since you don't really know what you're doing or why, it's hard to gauge where you are in the story arc or if you're near the end. I did enjoy it, though, even if I couldn't really give you a synopsis what happened in it. It took me 3.5 hours to finish the game without going back for achievements.
Accessibility note: The blurb calls it a "sound-surfing platformer" which implies sound is part of the gameplay, but that's not the case. The music is nice but it's only aesthetic, and the game can be played perfectly well without hearing.
Onde is on Steam and GOG for $13.99 USD. I got it on sale for two bucks and was satisfied with my purchase. Steam also has a free demo that should make it clear whether it's for you.
On the plus side, plumbers are here digging up the yard to fix the drain to the sewer.
On the minus side, the plumber asked me if Wax was my mom. 😂😭But on the plus (?) side that was probably more embarrassing for him than for us? (I have gray in my hair! But apparently not visibly, at a glance.) (Wax also looks young for her age, but I guess her hair looks much grayer now.)
The tenant side drains will be cut off from tomorrow, so we have to clean the bathrooms tonight so they can use our bathrooms. And the giant pit that's being dug has eliminated the direct route from their door to ours, so they'll have to go the long way around the house to reach us. And we'll have to climb over the railings and jump down the side of the stairs to our door for a little while.
But obviously it's all worth it! Because ultimately it means working drains instead of open septic tanks with a pump in them.
I managed both my flu and my COVID shots yesterday. I feel much better about the flight for the con now. No troubles doing flu but they wanted a prescription for the COVID and I had it scheduled before I knew of this change. As a result I ended up going to CVS to get my COVID shot instead. They were not asking for a prescription and getting one would have taken until at least tomorrow.
Thanks so much Mr. Kennedy. NOT.
My husband has lost 70 pounds over the last 3 years. He has only one condition and it isn't on the "approved" list for the COVID shot. We've got nearly 90 year old people we are becoming increasingly concerned about so looks like we are going to have to pay out of pocket for him to get a shot (assuming we can find one soon). If we have trouble on that front will likely post to let everyone know.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds finished its third season, and you may have deduced from the fact I didn't review the remaining episodes that for me, it did not take a turn for the better. The Ortegas episode was probably the most, in lack of a better term, Trekian, not to mention the long awaited one with a focus on Ortegas beyond "I fly the ship", but it shares with far too many ST: SNW episodes the way it is just incredibly derivative, of both other franchises and earlier ST. And the series finale chose to pick my least favourite DS9 plotline and scenario, sigh. To complete my turn to an old grouch, the feeling of this season as Star Trek: The Rom Com didn't help, either. Anyway. I'll always have Discovery and Prodigy in terms of new ST that manages to unite both affection for the past AND originality and the courage to try out new paths and characters. *****
Given the daily horror show that is the news, it's all the more important to find joy in fannish things, so I was delighted to discover this new Sense 8 vid. Now there was a show celebrating joy and diversity:
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This second inventory graph is courtesy of Altos Research.
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