gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 29/09/2026My mother, much like an avid Pokemon player, has been cataloging bumblebees. “I don’t have all the different morphs,” she apologises, “But here’s the 2 dozen species from this region, including male and female variants, labeled by rarity & in which terrain type they can be found.” 161
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 29/09/2026That’s not a speculative claim. Nana C was out there sculpting this in the 80s. 260
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 29/09/2026You know what I love about modern EMR platforms (he said, uttering a phrase never before spoken in the English language)? They let you just download your own imagery any time you want. 100% ethical source of high-quality medical reference images. And you get to see your BONES. 050
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 29/09/2026One of the most fun things I did last week was go to every used book store in the city (and an extensive dive through my own library) to build a cover art mood board. Could I have done this via Google search? I mean… I guess? But it would not have satisfied the needs of my soul. 181
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 27/09/2026Taking the eyeball art into a new medium today: glass! First time trying this, no idea at all what it’s gonna look like after it goes through the kiln. But I’m excited. You can never have too much weird eyeball art around the home. 140
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 27/09/2026My mother shared with me a book about local mushrooms from her last naturalist conference. Most of them WON’T kill you, but there are a few with that devious combination of “looks like something tasty” and “will liquify your liver”. This probably isn’t one of them. All the same, don’t eat it. 030
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 26/09/2026Came away from a day at a writing convention having met many cool people, added almost 2” to the knitting project, and snagged this very intriguing novel featuring a nun/noir detective who I’m gonna guess gets into a lot of trouble with dames she absolutely shouldn’t sleep with but does anyway. 130
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 25/09/2026everything I read about marketing a book makes me want to die. Mailing lists? Ad campaigns? Generating ‘buzz’? Man, the only kind of buzz I care about is the 1000 bumblebees all over my goldenrod. And also this buckeye butterfly. Read my shit because I’m a nerd, not b/c the Amazon algorithm said to. 150
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 25/09/2026the weather’s finally cooling and we got some decent rain, and now garden-posting segues into mushroom-posting 020
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 18/09/2026tonight in my WIPs, we’re letting our nonbinary friend explore their feelings about feminine titles (positive, as it turns out) 131
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 17/09/2026would you look at this little dork just straight up taking a bath with me 2141
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 16/09/2026I just witnessed this little idiot consume the huge spiderweb that had accumulated on my wicker chair because I guess she got tired of me refusing to clean it and felt she had to take matters into her own hands 150
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 13/09/2026Did I give up on trying to figure out how to change the color of the button and just change the background color instead? MAYBE. 130
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 13/09/2026Ok, so (ignoring the fact I haven't figured out how to change the color on that one tags widget) how do we feel about this color scheme? Keeps the cleanliness of the original theme, but brings it down to something more appropriate for horror/smut. 220
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 12/09/2026I suppose this theme looks much more dignified or whatever but still the primary colors call to my heart 220
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 12/09/2026would you feel weird reading smut from a website that looks like this 270
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 05/09/2026What would you call a “headset” if you didn’t wear it on your head because you’re a spider from outer space and your auditory organs are in your legs 120
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 04/09/2026boy I wish bsky was actually a functioning web site 210
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 04/09/2026recipe for success: 1. plant peppers 2. forget about peppers 3. weeds grow so high you figure peppers are gone forever 4. wait 2 months 5. part weeds to discover SO MANY PEPPERS 170
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 03/09/2026I get up for 2 seconds and she has STOLEN my SEAT 150
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 03/09/2026Hey wanna see something cool? I stepped out into the humidity, and the condensation made an image of my eyeball on my glasses. 3130
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 03/09/2026the light fog on my camera lens gives today’s garden pic a very romantic vibe 090
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 30/08/2026“Oh it’s just a short story, 3k max” “Whoops, maybe I’ll just submit it as a novelette, no problem” “Ok, ok, we’re into ‘novella’ territory, that’s fine, 30-35k max, seems reasonable” “…well at this point it’s so close to ‘novel’ I might as well just keep going…” 150
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 30/08/2026I just can’t get enough of this high-summer color, cannot believe how much that goldenrod is thriving 060
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 30/08/2026there’s a mad genius somewhere back in the kitchen here 270
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 25/08/2026The core propositions of this novella are 1) what if the Alien fell in love with a space miner instead of trying to kill him, and 2) also the Alien is a bit of a dumbass 050
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 23/08/2026Back yard is really shaping up into a PRIMO late-summer garden 261
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 09/08/2026First year trying corn yielded a couple of decorative ears that I am very proud of 030
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 06/08/2026Entire parsley plant devastated overnight by two little gluttons 250
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 06/08/2026I’m genuinely within spitting distance of finishing this first draft and I’m kinda scared 170
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 05/08/2026Spent the afternoon researching family cemeteries and local ghost stories and stalking my in-laws’ ancestors’ graves, as you do 120
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 05/08/2026“I’ll just pop in to the book store for a minute,” I said to myself. “I don’t need to buy anything, I’ll just look around.” 130
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 03/08/2026Bad news: I did NOT wash the dishes. I did the very opposite in fact. But good news: I have banana bread. 240
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 30/07/2026I go outside for a little break and suddenly it’s all “hello there, is it tickle time? rhetorical question, of course it’s tickle time.” 170
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 30/07/2026The other thing I spend way too much time on for a work that’s ostensibly a monsterfucking romance is the cruelty of extractive industries and the commoditization & abuse of workers in pursuit of profit, but you’ll have to rip this theme out of my cold dead hands before I agree to edit it out 030
gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 30/07/2026I probably overthink a lot of stuff more than necessary for writing smut (starship propulsion, orbital mechanics, petroleum engineering in low-g environments) but “what is the spaceman’s cultural relationship to gender identity and the phallus” is at least topically relevant. 140