To Walk The Night by William Sloane
Jun. 29th, 2025 09:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
james_davis_nicoll
Jerry's romance with the brilliant, beautiful, eccentric Selena is book-ended with death: first, Selena's husband's, then Jerry's.
To Walk The Night by William Sloane
james_davis_nicollJerry's romance with the brilliant, beautiful, eccentric Selena is book-ended with death: first, Selena's husband's, then Jerry's.
To Walk The Night by William Sloane
The OTC's commercial promotion post
Jun. 29th, 2025 12:11 ammerryghoulSo I read this post from the OTC. I totally understand why OTC needs a non-commercialization policy. On a petty level I've been annoyed at, for instance, someone writing fics in a kink meme and then linking to a site like Ko-fi at the end. And for copyright reasons I get not monetizing works. But part of me feels like their rules are a wee bit draconian.
I've been linking to the summaries of books I use as summaries for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
unconventionalcourtship to prove that they're real books since the goal is to alter a romance novel summary for a fic. I'm not advocating people to actually buy the book. I don't even know these authors. I haven't read their books. 🤐 I guess in the future I may just leave the links to the comm announcement posts and on DW but I'm a bit annoyed I'm being lumped in with people who actually are "please go to my Patreon for more!" when I thought I was doing a good deed.
Also: The OTC mentions Twitch but I want to clarify that getting a Twitch account is free. I would assume under their TOS that asking people to get Twitch subscriptions (with or without Amazon Prime) is against their TOS. There is no such thing as "Twitch Prime." And technically I think X actually can't be allowed to since you can subscribe to individual creators on X.
IDK, I think this policy needs a little bit of hammering out because to be fair it's thorny to enforce their commercial promotion policy as is.
I've been linking to the summaries of books I use as summaries for
unconventionalcourtship to prove that they're real books since the goal is to alter a romance novel summary for a fic. I'm not advocating people to actually buy the book. I don't even know these authors. I haven't read their books. 🤐 I guess in the future I may just leave the links to the comm announcement posts and on DW but I'm a bit annoyed I'm being lumped in with people who actually are "please go to my Patreon for more!" when I thought I was doing a good deed.Also: The OTC mentions Twitch but I want to clarify that getting a Twitch account is free. I would assume under their TOS that asking people to get Twitch subscriptions (with or without Amazon Prime) is against their TOS. There is no such thing as "Twitch Prime." And technically I think X actually can't be allowed to since you can subscribe to individual creators on X.
IDK, I think this policy needs a little bit of hammering out because to be fair it's thorny to enforce their commercial promotion policy as is.
Purrcy in the morning
Jun. 28th, 2025 11:21 pmmecurtinDuring the heat wave this past week there was no Purrcy on the bed, but I woke up to him at my feet again yesterday and this morning. Lookit that face! Lookit how I touch that paw with a single finger!
I haven't been Purrcy-posting regularly for a while, because I've been tired and distracted and didn't have time -- because of the fascism, but also because of sitting outside in the spring and listening to birds. I'm trying to get back into it now, as you can see, but it's hard to keep in focus.
Also, my sciatica has been acting up, which means a lot of time just lying in bed, dozing or reading. I'm going to the doctor on Monday, hopefully I'll get a steroid injection or something similar & things will be better for a while. I'll try to write more tomorrow.
I haven't been Purrcy-posting regularly for a while, because I've been tired and distracted and didn't have time -- because of the fascism, but also because of sitting outside in the spring and listening to birds. I'm trying to get back into it now, as you can see, but it's hard to keep in focus.
Also, my sciatica has been acting up, which means a lot of time just lying in bed, dozing or reading. I'm going to the doctor on Monday, hopefully I'll get a steroid injection or something similar & things will be better for a while. I'll try to write more tomorrow.
Purrcy and the snake
Jun. 28th, 2025 01:34 pmmecurtinThe other day I heard Purrcy scrabbling in the corner between our bedroom & the laundry room, and then hissing. When I went over to see what was up his tail was all puffed up, as he confronted a new experience:
a milk snake!
( cut for snake pic )
Purrcy was very excited, but wary--he clearly has a "snake instinct" that says this isn't normal prey, but something possibly dangerous. We weren't able to catch the snake, but we're pretty sure it went out the way it came in, it was pretty scared of us (& Purrcy).
Purrcy spent the next half week sniffing & searching for it everywhere, & also being v suspicious of all the cords & any long or snakelike toys. It's like his "snake instinct" was dormant & had to be activated.
The bad part about Our Inside Snek Adventure is that I mentioned it to the housecleaner ... who turns out to be *horribly* snake-phobic. So much that just knowing there'd been a snake in the house, she was too scared to come this week. We're blocking up the Snake Holes, hoping that helps, & she'll try to come back next week.
I'm not going to tell her that this is the 3rd *species* of snake we've seen close to the house, which is made of stone, 100 yrs old, on a stony NJ hillside (others are garter & black racer). Mr Dr Science & I love it! He in the Atlanta suburbs, I in Champaign, IL, we were the kids who caught snakes & brought them in for show & tell in elementary school.
Gloria, our housecleaner, grew up in Jamaica, but she's a city girl through and through. She's prob. too old for snake therapy, I hope this works.
a milk snake!
( cut for snake pic )
Purrcy was very excited, but wary--he clearly has a "snake instinct" that says this isn't normal prey, but something possibly dangerous. We weren't able to catch the snake, but we're pretty sure it went out the way it came in, it was pretty scared of us (& Purrcy).
Purrcy spent the next half week sniffing & searching for it everywhere, & also being v suspicious of all the cords & any long or snakelike toys. It's like his "snake instinct" was dormant & had to be activated.
The bad part about Our Inside Snek Adventure is that I mentioned it to the housecleaner ... who turns out to be *horribly* snake-phobic. So much that just knowing there'd been a snake in the house, she was too scared to come this week. We're blocking up the Snake Holes, hoping that helps, & she'll try to come back next week.
I'm not going to tell her that this is the 3rd *species* of snake we've seen close to the house, which is made of stone, 100 yrs old, on a stony NJ hillside (others are garter & black racer). Mr Dr Science & I love it! He in the Atlanta suburbs, I in Champaign, IL, we were the kids who caught snakes & brought them in for show & tell in elementary school.
Gloria, our housecleaner, grew up in Jamaica, but she's a city girl through and through. She's prob. too old for snake therapy, I hope this works.
Books Received, June 21 — June 27
Jun. 28th, 2025 10:14 amjames_davis_nicoll
Three books new to me, all fantasy (Although the Stross is an edge case), and only one is clearly part of a series.
Books Received, June 21 — June 27
Poll #33298 Books Received, June 21 — June 27
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 42
Which of these look interesting?
View Answers
Until the Clock Strikes Midnight by Alechia Dow (February 2026)
11 (26.2%)
The Regicide Report by Charles Stross (January 2026)
23 (54.8%)
The Beasts We Raise by D. L. Taylor (March 2026)
3 (7.1%)
Some other option (see comments)
0 (0.0%)
Cats!
27 (64.3%)
Vanya and the Wild Hunt (Vanya, volume 1) by Sangu Mandanna
Jun. 27th, 2025 10:11 amjames_davis_nicoll
A schoolgirl abandons the UK's post-Brexit educational system for the comparative safety and comfort of a magical school designed to turn out magical soldiers in the war on eldritch horrors.
Vanya and the Wild Hunt (Vanya, volume 1) by Sangu Mandanna
Things
Jun. 27th, 2025 09:42 pmvassBooks
Still reading A Power Unbound.
Comics
Caught up on Order of the Stick (I was at about #1319, and the most recent one was #1328.) Welp, that was a thing that happened.
Things are also Happening in Dumbing of Age. I am looking at the title text in June 24's strip and glowering distrustfully at Willis after what happened last big finale.
Games
Playing a lot of Simon Tatham's Puzzle Games on my phone.
Slay the Spire: have now unlocked Ascension 4 on all four characters. Surprisingly (to me?) the hardest run on Ascension 3 was with the Defect.
Links
Cats
Ash is down an incisor and a canine as of last Tuesday. He was good and brave at the vet and, after he got home, patient with Dorian's mistaking him for a stranger because he smelled Wrong.
Phenology
No new kangaroo visits. It's been very cold out.
Still reading A Power Unbound.
Comics
Caught up on Order of the Stick (I was at about #1319, and the most recent one was #1328.) Welp, that was a thing that happened.
Things are also Happening in Dumbing of Age. I am looking at the title text in June 24's strip and glowering distrustfully at Willis after what happened last big finale.
Games
Playing a lot of Simon Tatham's Puzzle Games on my phone.
Slay the Spire: have now unlocked Ascension 4 on all four characters. Surprisingly (to me?) the hardest run on Ascension 3 was with the Defect.
Links
- The Bedbound Activity Masterlist: Part 1 (Also good for insomnia or for when it's too cold to be anywhere but under the covers, even if you're not bedbound.)
- A New Ballet by Underrepresented Artists: "The Little Mermaid reimagined as a disabled, queer and brown coming-of-age story for 7 dancers." The link is to a fundraiser, but even if you're not up for donating there's a video there from rehearsals that might be of interest. (Disclaimer: I can't be objective about this show, one of my best friends is dancing in it.)
- Crowdfunders for the UK's Trans+ Solidarity Alliance: Support Trans+ Solidarity Alliance and Maybe I'm Trans? (with badges). (hattip: rydra_wong)
- Internet users advised to change passwords after 16bn logins exposed. As usual, HaveIBeenPwned, you know the drill.
Cats
Ash is down an incisor and a canine as of last Tuesday. He was good and brave at the vet and, after he got home, patient with Dorian's mistaking him for a stranger because he smelled Wrong.
Phenology
No new kangaroo visits. It's been very cold out.
Five SFF Stories About Making Amends
Jun. 26th, 2025 10:20 amjames_davis_nicoll
People adopt very different strategies when it comes to making up for mistakes.
Five SFF Stories About Making Amends
Golem100 by Alfred Bester
Jun. 26th, 2025 08:50 amjames_davis_nicoll
What could possibly go wrong with a little harmless Satanism between friends?
Golem100 by Alfred Bester
aha!
Jun. 26th, 2025 01:30 amtwistedchickI have been watching 'Elementary' the past week or so, especially during the heat dome of the last few days, and throughout the first three seasons Holmes' father is mentioned a few times but never shows up.
He finally does show up early in season 4, and from the first moment I saw him I kept thinking, 'where do I know this actor from'? His face, older and lined, was like many other actors, but that voice was singular.
So I looked him up.
He played Denethor in LOTR, the bad father who tried to burn his younger son to death and immolate himself on the fire as well -- the worst of the fathers in LOTR.
Tone down the madness, make him a high-level businessman with a finger in every government, and you have Sherlock's father. Pretty good casting.
He finally does show up early in season 4, and from the first moment I saw him I kept thinking, 'where do I know this actor from'? His face, older and lined, was like many other actors, but that voice was singular.
So I looked him up.
He played Denethor in LOTR, the bad father who tried to burn his younger son to death and immolate himself on the fire as well -- the worst of the fathers in LOTR.
Tone down the madness, make him a high-level businessman with a finger in every government, and you have Sherlock's father. Pretty good casting.
An update
Jun. 26th, 2025 02:54 pmmificI turned back on the AI functions for my iPad again so as to write a fic with minimal impediments (I have enough inbuilt impediments these days not to want more). So that's autocapitalisation, autocorrect, and predictive text. And JFC, but it's bossy! Constantly changing words from the way I wanted to write them to some AI bullshit of its own. I had to be super-vigilant with the betaing. Have since turned predictive text off again to see if that's better. I hate the AI aspect but it's such a tiresome slog correcting my own (numerous) typos with it all turned off.
Bum music, a bit of YT whimsy. In Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights panel there's a guy, face down, bum up, with sheet music stacked on his ass. So Amelia Hamrick transcribed it, James Spalink arranged it, and played it using period-type instruments. It's actually not bad.
I managed a short fic for into-a-bar. I've been using the challenge to add to my Losers in Pegasus series but was hoist with my own petard this time by being allocated an SGA character I'd killed off in the last fic! Finally figured out a solution (enter the clones!) but was unable to finish the longer fic (that gets Pooch to Atlantis) by the deadline, so that one will come later.
Still mostly doing art, and podficcing. And the podfics mean cover art so that's always fun. I now tend to beta-listen while working on the cover, although that makes it tricky to note down bits that I've flubbed.
My Mexican sunflower still has some flowers, which the bees will be grateful for. Pretty amazing, now we're past the shortest day of winter, but it's slowly winding up its flowering season. 10/10, will see how many years it can manage encores.
I have a few recs, but will do a separate post for those. Summer sounds a bit brutal up north (for many reasons). Hope you're all OK.
Bum music, a bit of YT whimsy. In Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights panel there's a guy, face down, bum up, with sheet music stacked on his ass. So Amelia Hamrick transcribed it, James Spalink arranged it, and played it using period-type instruments. It's actually not bad.
I managed a short fic for into-a-bar. I've been using the challenge to add to my Losers in Pegasus series but was hoist with my own petard this time by being allocated an SGA character I'd killed off in the last fic! Finally figured out a solution (enter the clones!) but was unable to finish the longer fic (that gets Pooch to Atlantis) by the deadline, so that one will come later.
Still mostly doing art, and podficcing. And the podfics mean cover art so that's always fun. I now tend to beta-listen while working on the cover, although that makes it tricky to note down bits that I've flubbed.
My Mexican sunflower still has some flowers, which the bees will be grateful for. Pretty amazing, now we're past the shortest day of winter, but it's slowly winding up its flowering season. 10/10, will see how many years it can manage encores.
I have a few recs, but will do a separate post for those. Summer sounds a bit brutal up north (for many reasons). Hope you're all OK.