darnedchild

[darnedchild]

It's Halloween. Also known as the night my husband has to break out my anxiety meds just so I can hand out candy while he's out with the Demon Spawn without having a panic attack and curling up in my closet with sensory overload.

I love the IDEA of Halloween and costumes and candy and scary movies. But I dread the interacting with people and loud noises and talking and eye contact making part. But someone has to do it while my husband is supervising the Demon Spawn, and that someone is, apparently, me.

[darnedchild]

The Monster Squad (1987)

[darnedchild]

KXVO Pumpkin Dance (Original Taping, Unedited)

[darnedchild]

It’s that special time of year again! (Ps please unmute)

[darnedchild]

Has anyone else ever seen a series called "Blackpool" with David Tennant?

[darnedchild]

We literally only stopped wearing masks three weeks ago.

My son and I are the only people in our entire extended family who have not had COVID.

Even when my husband had it; we quarantined the hell out of our house and everyone made their own food and I slept on the sofa for two weeks so my husband could be in a room by himself. And I managed to keep my son and I from catching it.

My son only went to school for 10 days before coming home with a fever and cough and the news that the parent of one of the kids in class has COVID and I swear to the lord above and the little baby Jesus that if he has COVID while the three of us are trapped in this single hotel room together I am going to... probably stomp my feet like a toddler and regret all of my life decision ls that lead me to this point.

On the other hand, it could just be a cold and/or allergies (I am also currently experiencing allergy issues) and I could definitely be overreacting.

[darnedchild]

I have more of an opinion question for you. When fans of things hear about misconduct happening on sets/behind-the-scenes are they allowed to still enjoy the thing? Or should it be boycotted completely? Example: I’ve been a major fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer since I was a teenager and it was currently airing. I really nerded out on it and when I lost my Dad at age 16 “The Body” episode had me in such cathartic tears. Now we know about Joss Whedon. I haven’t rewatched a single episode since his behavior came to light. As a fan, do I respectfully have to just box that away? Is it disrespectful of the actors that went through it to knowingly keep watching?

I have been precisely where you are, right now. In fact, we were just talking about this a few days ago, as it relates to a guy who wrote a ton of music that was PROFOUND to me when I was a teenager. He wrote about being lonely and feeling unloved, and all the things I was feeling as a teenager.

He grew up to be a reprehensible bigot, and for years I couldn't listen to one of the most important bands in my life anymore.

But this week, someone pointed out that he was one member of a group that all worked together to make that thing that was so important to me. And the person he was when he wrote those lyrics is not the person he is today. And the person I was when I heard those lyrics doesn't deserve to be shoved into a box and put away, because that guy is a shit.

This is a long way of saying that Joss sure turned out to be garbage. Because of who I my friends are, I know stuff that isn't in the public, and it's pretty horrible. He's just not a good person, and apparently never was a good person.

BUT! Buffy is more than him. It's all the actors and crew who made it. It's all the writers who aren't Joss. Joss is part of it, sure, and some of the episodes he wrote are terrific.

At least one of the episodes he wrote was deeply meaningful to you at a moment in your life when you'd experienced a loss I can only imagine. The person you are now, and the 16 year-old you were who just lost their dad, are more important than the piece of shit Joss Whedon revealed himself to be.

His bad behavior is on him. He has to live with it, and the consequences of it.

16 year-old you, who just lost their dad, shouldn't have to think about what a shit Joss Whedon is for even a second. That kid, and you, deserve to have that place to revisit when you need to go there.

I can't speak for the other actors, even the ones I know. But I will tell you, as an abuse survivor myself who never wanted to be in front of the camera when he was a kid: it's really okay for you to enjoy the work. The work is good and meaningful, and if nobody is going to watch it because of what one piece of shit did two decades ago, what was it all for?

I'm not the pope of chilitown, so take this for what it's worth: I believe that when some piece of art is deeply meaningful to a person, for whatever reason, that art doesn't belong to the person who created it, if it ever did. It belongs to the person who found something meaningful in the art.

If it feels right to you to put it away and never look at it again, that's totally valid. But if it brings you comfort, or joy, or healing, or just warm familiarity to bring it out and spend some time with it, that's totally valid, too.

I've written a lot of words. I hope some of them make sense and are helpful to you.

[darnedchild]

I have been living in hotel rooms with my husband, son, and three cats for over a month now. I know the I'm one of the lucky ones in that we've got savings to live off for awhile as my husband looks for a full-time post-retirement from active duty job and it will only be a few more weeks before we'll be able to move into a rental house... but I am so burnt out.

I have no alone time, I'm with one or both of them nearly 24 hours a day. Our current hotel is gross, taps drip, possible mold in the bathroom, far too small for three people and three cats, it smells, and I feel so guilty complaining when I know at least I have a roof over our heads and beds to sleep in.

I just needed to vent because I'm currently sitting in a booth of a burrito place desperately trying not to cry for no reason other than I'm lost and I really just want to crawl to my parents and beg them to let me live in their basement just so I can say I have a home.

[darnedchild]

Tips for writing those gala scenes, from someone who goes to them occasionally:

Generally you unbutton and re-button a suit coat when you sit down and stand up.

You’re supposed to hold wine or champagne glasses by the stem to avoid warming up the liquid inside. A character out of their depth might hold the glass around the sides instead.

When rich/important people forget your name and they’re drunk, they usually just tell you that they don’t remember or completely skip over any opportunity to use your name so they don’t look silly.

A good way to indicate you don’t want to shake someone’s hand at an event is to hold a drink in your right hand (and if you’re a woman, a purse in the other so you definitely can’t shift the glass to another hand and then shake)

Americans who still kiss cheeks as a welcome generally don’t press lips to cheeks, it’s more of a touch of cheek to cheek or even a hover (these days, mostly to avoid smudging a woman’s makeup)

The distinctions between dress codes (black tie, cocktail, etc) are very intricate but obvious to those who know how to look. If you wear a short skirt to a black tie event for example, people would clock that instantly even if the dress itself was very formal. Same thing goes for certain articles of men’s clothing.

Open bars / cash bars at events usually carry limited options. They’re meant to serve lots of people very quickly, so nobody is getting a cosmo or a Manhattan etc.

Members of the press generally aren’t allowed to freely circulate at nicer galas/events without a very good reason. When they do, they need to identify themselves before talking with someone.

[darnedchild]

I just want to go home, and I don't even know where home is anymore.

[darnedchild]

Beauty and the Beast Modern AU poll

Best "Beast" option -

[darnedchild]

I aspire to be Lady Danbury when I grow up.

[darnedchild]

idk if people on tumblr know about this but a cybersecurity software called crowdstrike just did what is probably the single biggest fuck up in any sector in the past 10 years. it's monumentally bad. literally the most horror-inducing nightmare scenario for a tech company.

some info, crowdstrike is essentially an antivirus software for enterprises. which means normal laypeople cant really get it, they're for businesses and organisations and important stuff.

so, on a friday evening (it of course wasnt friday everywhere but it was friday evening in oceania which is where it first started causing damage due to europe and na being asleep), crowdstrike pushed out an update to their windows users that caused a bug.

before i get into what the bug is, know that friday evening is the worst possible time to do this because people are going home. the weekend is starting. offices dont have people in them. this is just one of many perfectly placed failures in the rube goldburg machine of crowdstrike. there's a reason friday is called 'dont push to live friday' or more to the point 'dont fuck it up friday'

so, at 3pm at friday, an update comes rolling into crowdstrike users which is automatically implemented. this update immediately causes the computer to blue screen of death. very very bad. but it's not simply a 'you need to restart' crash, because the computer then gets stuck into a boot loop.

this is the worst possible thing because, in a boot loop state, a computer is never really able to get to a point where it can do anything. like download a fix. so there is nothing crowdstrike can do to remedy this death update anymore. it is now left to the end users.

it was pretty quickly identified what the problem was. you had to boot it in safe mode, and a very small file needed to be deleted. or you could just rename crowdstrike to something else so windows never attempts to use it.

it's a fairly easy fix in the grand scheme of things, but the issue is that it is effecting enterprises. which can have a looooot of computers. in many different locations. so an IT person would need to manually fix hundreds of computers, sometimes in whole other cities and perhaps even other countries if theyre big enough.

another fuck up crowdstrike did was they did not stagger the update, so they could catch any mistakes before they wrecked havoc. (and also how how HOW do you not catch this before deploying it. this isn't a code oopsie this is a complete failure of quality ensurance that probably permeates the whole company to not realise their update was an instant kill). they rolled it out to everyone of their clients in the world at the same time.

and this seems pretty hilarious on the surface. i was havin a good chuckle as eftpos went down in the store i was working at, chaos was definitely ensuring lmao. im in aus, and banking was literally down nationwide.

but then you start hearing about the entire country's planes being grounded because the airport's computers are bricked. and hospitals having no computers anymore. emergency call centres crashing. and you realised that, wow. crowdstrike just killed people probably. this is literally the worst thing possible for a company like this to do.

crowdstrike was kinda on the come up too, they were starting to become a big name in the tech world as a new face. but that has definitely vanished now. to fuck up at this many places, is almost extremely impressive. its hard to even think of a comparable fuckup.

a friday evening simultaneous rollout boot loop is a phrase that haunts IT people in their darkest hours. it's the monster that drags people down into the swamp. it's the big bag in the horror movie. it's the end of the road. and for crowdstrike, that reaper of souls just knocked on their doorstep.

[darnedchild]

The neighbor lady whose name I did not know until thirty minutes ago brought two of her children over to my house (thirty minutes ago) and asked if i could watch them for three hours. She also only learned my name thirty minutes ago.

I have now been babysitting two children I have never seen before, for the last thirty minutes.

I'm supposed to hand them over to her husband in two and a half hours. I do not know his name and have also never seen him before in my entire life.

I am not sure how this has happened to me, but I would like it to not ever happen again.

It's called stranger danger for a reason. They are strangers and I feel like I'm in danger.

Oh good lord, they just asked if they could look under my bed because I mistakenly mentioned my cats were probably hiding there.

[darnedchild]

When you finally get a chance to binge watch three seasons of Bridgerton and your spouse pops in with his laptop to hang out with you for a bit and then five episodes in you realize he's not even trying to pretend he's playing WoW anymore and is fully invested in whether or not Daphne and Simon are able to get their heads out of their asses.

Then he spends the next day discussing whether or not season two Anthony had learned anything from how poorly he'd handled his relationship with Sierra in season one. (No. No he did not.)

And then, after you've finished watching everything, he gives you an in-depth analysis of why season three is the best one (totally agree), asks what you know about what happens to the characters in the books, and you both try to guess what characters will be featured in season four.

And also you both yell "tushy" every time you see someone's naked butt. Because you are both hella immature.

[darnedchild]

For those who wanted more Polin in the “Overheard In A Ballroom,” universe, this is the first of a few one shots I’m going to put up. Check it out and enjoy :-)