sovay: (Haruspex: Autumn War)
[personal profile] sovay
The snow has plastered our windows like blinds. This morning it scudded so thickly down our street that the air itself couldn't have been any clearer: it made walls instead of veils of the late streetlight. The yew trees look like calcified humps of stalagmite. It's still blowing around out there, bending the whippier evergreens of the neighbors' yard like a wind sock. I can hear a commuter train whistling dimly from over Route 16. I am informed we have broken the previous state record for snowfall in a day set by the 1997 April Fool's Day Blizzard which had itself surpassed the Blizzard of '78. Our porch is drifted ankle-deep.

Bundle of Holding: Mists of Akuma

Feb. 23rd, 2026 02:10 pm
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


A bundle for Mists of Akuma, the tabletop roleplaying campaign setting of Eastern fantasy noir steampunk from Storm Bunny Studios for Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition.

Bundle of Holding: Mists of Akuma

Music Monday

Feb. 23rd, 2026 09:56 am
muccamukk: Elyanna singing, surrounded by emanata and hearts. (Music: Elyanna Hearts)
[personal profile] muccamukk

The queen is back! Long live the queen!

Snow shows no sign of stopping

Feb. 23rd, 2026 11:45 am
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
And I am trapped at work!

I mean, the buses are running, but nobody else is coming in, and it’s not a job you can just shut down for the day.

2026.02.23

Feb. 23rd, 2026 09:33 am
lsanderson: (Default)
[personal profile] lsanderson
Killing of Mexican drug cartel boss ‘El Mencho’ triggers wave of violence
Schools close and flights suspended after military raid kills Jalisco New Generation Cartel leader Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes
Tom Phillips and Oliver Holmes
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/23/el-mencho-mexican-drug-cartel-boss-killing-violence

A rush of blood to the penis – and vaginal tenting: what happens to our bodies when we get turned on
Arousal may be spontaneous, or arise in response to sensory stimulation, memory, fantasy or emotional connection. Here’s how to understand the differences
Joel Snape
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/feb/23/what-happens-to-our-bodies-when-we-get-turned-on-vaginal-tenting Read more... )
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


You may be surprised to learn that "Canadian thriller" is not an oxymoron.

A Brief Survey of Canadian Political Thrillers

mountweazel

Feb. 23rd, 2026 07:44 am
prettygoodword: text: words are sexy (Default)
[personal profile] prettygoodword
mountweazel or Mountweazel (MOUNT-wee-zuhl) - n., a deliberately fictitious entry in an encyclopedia or academic work, generally identifiable as false, planted among the genuine entries to catch other publishers in the act of copying content.


A form of copyright trap. TIL the German word for this is a nihilartikel, now sometimes also used in English. Coined in 2005 by Henry Alford in The New Yorker from an fictitious entry in the 1975 edition of the New Columbia Encyclopedia for one Lillian Virginia Mountweazel, a supposed photographer who died on assignment while covering an explosion for the equally fictitious Combustibles magazine.

---L.
adore: (cathartic reads)
[personal profile] adore
I posted here about Amazon behaving oddly with my KDP account. I have since got wind of more information about Amazon and some recent choices it's been making.

Firstly, I subscribe to the I Heart SapphFic newsletter. They spotlight sapphic fiction and queer authors, and keep the lights on through user donations, author ads, but mostly Amazon Affiliate links. Well, turns out that Amazon has recently taken to removing queer books and books they guess are steamy from their Affiliate Program.

Amazon has also "suppressed their findability" as I found out via a newsletter from Lissette Marshall, a romantasy author. Lissette and several other romantasy authors made a charity anthology to fight book bans (the proceeds go to PEN America) in response to these changes at the Zon and other tech giants. The anthology, Romantasy Rebels, was banned twice by the Zon, and the second time, they terminated the KDP account of the author uploading it.

Not only was Romantasy Rebels unavailable a second time, but my good friend Vela Roth, who had volunteered to host the anthology on her account, lost her entire livelihood between one moment and the next.

Between you and me -- I don't think I've ever been so angry in my life.

The upside is that, as always, the bookish community stands up for each other! Thanks to friends with helpful connections, from Amazon reps to legal advice, we've managed to reverse the (unfounded) decision on their end and get Vela's books and our anthology back 🔥 (But my goodness, it was a long, long 24 hours that I hope to never experience again.)


Reading that and imagining myself in Vela's shoes, I feel indescribable. Anger, terror, and I don't know the words for what else. Vela Roth is in Kindle Unlimited, and she's a full-time romantasy author, which means her entire livelihood was on Amazon. And Amazon just deleted it all, just like that. I'm so relieved that the bookish community was able to help her and that her books and livelihood are reinstated now. Quoting Lissette again:

Amazon fuckery took down our charity anthology twice, and almost ended a wonderful author's career in the process. In addition to all else, the experience has been a frightening reminder of just how dependent indie authors are on a very small number of tech companies who don't particularly like spice, or marginalised people, or, you know, democracy.


So, yeah. That's what's going on. I feel better about having to unpublish Bloodhunt Academy now, because it was a queer book and Amazon is clearly not a home for it.

As for Romantasy Rebels, it's being sold wide (so it's on all the major ebook retailers, not just Amazon) and will be available until the end of the month. Proceeds will go to PEN America. There's also a charity auction organised by romantasy authors, called The Books They Can't Burn, and its proceeds will also go to PEN America. The charity auction has a variety of items that one can bid on, including ebook omnibuses, signed special editions, Zoom chats with authors, etc. I even saw a fight scene consult with a martial artist, how fun. It looks like several people are bidding on everything so I'm glad it's going well!

randomly

Feb. 22nd, 2026 06:34 pm
muccamukk: Blue sky with aeroplanes trailing red, orange, yellow, green and blue smoke. Text: "Not June. Still Queer." (Misc: Still Queer)
[personal profile] muccamukk
I just have such a strong reaction to the question: "Is it queerbaiting if straight actors play gay roles?"

My answer is neither "yes" nor "no."

It's "Not today, Satan!"
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
I didn’t guess that I’d be stuck with the roads closed until at least noon tomorrow.

Well, I’m getting paid every hour I’m here, at least.
kaffy_r: Bang Chan in paint (Channie paint)
[personal profile] kaffy_r
Job One: Remember that Computers Are Stupid

Job Two: bake Bob's favorite cookies to thank him for setting up my new laptop, and putting up with the occasional stupidity that's part of dealing with ones and zeroes.

We both knew it would take a couple of days, or even more than that, and I'm trying to be patient as he preps the new one (an Asus Vivo) so that we can download all my files from my slowly dying Lenovo, files that have been downloaded onto a delightful little red portable 2T hard drive.

That drive may will come in handy after the transfer, since I might need to keep it connected to my new laptop for a few weeks, or maybe months. My Lenovo has 1.82 T of storage, whilst my Asus only has 1T. We'll eventually see about getting a new, larger, drive in the Asus, but I don't foresee me using up the 1T of storage the Asus has. 

I've named the little hard drive Ada, and my new laptop is officially Alice-Alyx. It's the first time I've named a laptop, but it seemed the right thing to do with this one. I'm laughing a bit at myself, but hell, why not name some things that will help keep me happy for a good long time?

Now one of the remaining questions is whether Alice-Alyx will recognize my Samsung Galaxy ear buds. We tried to get them paired up yesterday, and the Asus laughed at us. Once again, I'm reminded that computers are stupid; they only do what we tell their ones and zeroes to do. 

In the non-computer part of the weekend, I was able to get in touch with a skiffy fannish acquaintance whose holiday card came back to me a bit ago. It turns out that he and his partner had indeed moved from the address I had for him, so I can send him something soon, and most definitely this coming holiday season. 

I also cleaned the bathroom, and sorted a small mountain of paperwork that had grown so high it was in danger of toppling over. I'm terrible at organizing and sorting, but I managed to do it today. I'm inordinately proud of myself. (I probably shouldn't be quite so loudly proud, because the universe will undoubtedly send something my way to punish me for such hubris. Heh.)

So that's my excitement for the weekend, and I am very happy that that's the most excitement I've had to deal with. Compared to this time last week, it's easy-peasy. 
sovay: (Mr Palfrey: a prissy bastard)
[personal profile] sovay
I spent much of yesterday running pre-blizzard errands, but the local state of the parking spots is the truest gauge of the meteorology about to go down.



I have not yet managed to get hold of her memoir, but I deeply appreciate being notified of the existence of E. M. Barraud, who identified herself with chalk-cut hill figures, candidly described her relationship status as "technically single, but 'married' in a permanent homosexual relationship with another woman," published under her assigned initials and was known in Little Eversden where she worked for the Women's Land Army as John. She gave her wartime responses for Mass-Observation as both a man and a woman: "People are people, not specifics of a gender." I had never even encountered her poetry.

Media Post

Feb. 22nd, 2026 02:16 pm
inchoatewords: Miss Piggy from the Muppets, dressed like a librarian with hair swept back, a long-sleeved white blouse, and a purple skirt. She is holding a book and is reaching up with her other hand to a case full of books. Above her head is the word book and a heart (books)
[personal profile] inchoatewords
Movies: None

Television/Streaming: a couple of episodes of Buffy and Farscape.
Buffy:
  • "Faith, Hope & Trick" - first appearance of Faith (she's an interesting foil to Buffy)
  • "Beauty and the Beasts" - Angel comes back. Oz might have mauled some kids out in the wood when he escaped his cage.
  • "Homecoming" - Both Cordelia and Buffy are annoying as fuck in this one, but I am watching this through adult eyes and that's probably coloring my attitude with some of these episodes. (Use your words)!
  • "Band Candy" - this one had some pretty funny bits; especially Giles being an absolute fool. And Principal Snyder!

    Farscape:
  • ". . . Different Destinations" - they end up going back in time at the memorial and change the path of history.
  • "Eat me" - they come upon a damaged Leviathan and find all the Peacekeepers turned feral and cannibalistic. Also some of the Moya crew get split into two. Crichton's double makes it back on board ship with him. That would be freaky! It will be interesting to see what happens with the two of them.

    Books: It has not been a great week for books! I had two books I stopped reading: T. Kingfisher's Hemlock and Silver and Ben Greenman's Emotional Rescue.

    The Kingfisher book was a book club read for January that I never got in time. It just recently became available as I was finishing The Reformatory. I got about twenty percent or so in and I was just kind of annoyed at the book, so I stopped reading.

    The Greenman book is essays on music. I thought it would be more like Rob Sheffield's Love is a Mix Tape or Talking to Girls About Duran Duran. No. Greenman's book was rather boring and also felt a bit misogynistic, so I had to quit reading that one, too.

    I'm now reading Pylon by William Faulkner. It's a bit different than the other fare of his I've read, but I'm interested to see where it goes. It's set in a fictionalized New Orleans during an air show, so lots of talk of planes and pilots.

    Listening to: only one Rolling Stone Top 500 album this week. Number 488 is The Stooges self-titled album from 1969. On the 2012 list, this album was at 185. Rolling Stone blurb:
    Fueled by “a little marijuana and a lotta alienation,” Michigan’s Stooges gave the lie to hippie idealism, playing with a savagery that unsettled even the most blasé clubgoers. Ex-Velvet Underground member John Cale produced a primitive debut wherein, amid Ron Asheton’s wah-wah blurts, Iggy Stooge (né James Osterberg) snarled seminal punk classics such as “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” “No Fun,” and “1969,” bedrock examples of the weaponized boredom that would become a de rigueur punk posture.


    This one is not really my cuppa, but I didn't outwardly hate it (like the Suicide album). It's a pretty short album, too. I can see the influences they had on other bands. Of the songs here, I like "I Wanna Be Your Dog," which I've also heard covered by several bands, as well.

    Playing: I finished Assemble With Care; this is by the same studio that did Alba: a wildlife adventure. It's a visual novel with puzzles; you are Maria, who repairs electronics and such, and you've come to a little town for their festival. Various folks want your help, so you take apart and reassemble game systems, tape decks, watches, and more as you learn about issues in these folks' lives. It's a short but sweet game. The controls were occasionally a little frustrating (you can use your mouse on PC, but sometimes if I clicked too quickly, I'd put the piece I was working on to the side and then would have to hover over and pick it up again).
  • umadoshi: (fancrone - china_shop)
    [personal profile] umadoshi
    Reading: Last week I finished Stephanie Burgis' Wooing the Witch Queen (fun!) and read Heated Rivalry. I opted to just skip straight to the actual HR novel rather than first reading the Scott/Kip novel, which worked out fine, since I also had that context from the show. I enjoyed it a fair bit, but now I'm in the awkward position of wanting to see the next chunk for Shane and Ilya but no more urgently than after I finished watching season 1 of the show. The choices now are a) read the entire series (presumably doubling back to actually read book 1), b) skip ahead and read The Long Game, or c) hold off entirely and wait for season 2 of the show.

    I also read a few more volumes each of Hikaru no Go and The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, but I'm still in rereading territory with both. (I think I've already read up to vol. 12 of Kurosagi, but for Hikaru, I think the odds are against me really realizing when I've hit new territory until I go to enter a volume in Goodreads and find it's not already on my Read list there.)

    Watching: [personal profile] scruloose and I are caught up on both The Pitt and Frieren, and we finished Midnight Mass last weekend (a very solid, intense ending).

    With my crunch time at work starting, it's not an ideal time for us to start a show that's a significant time commitment or that's going to leave me desperate to see a next episode when work is eating most or all of my evenings. It's possible this will result in me just showing [personal profile] scruloose Heated Rivalry, since it's apparently our key cultural export of the decade and all. *g* Only six episodes and I don't have to worry about being impatient to see what happens next or about being spoiled.

    (I still don't feel actively fannish about HR at all, but am enjoying being adjacent to it and seeing all the fannish excitement and meta and such. I have saved many fic recs to my read-later list on A03, but have yet to actually read a single one [and may never, given how slowly I go through fic--there's still a steady stream of Guardian fic I haven't read that also goes on that list].)

    Weathering/Working: We have what sounds like a significant nor'easter blizzard arriving at some point tomorrow, with heavy wet snow. Will this be where our luck fails for the season and we lose power for the first time? (I'm completely astonished that it hasn't happened yet. Probably it's not really because the generator and backup power are warding that off, like carrying an umbrella around...)

    And of course the spring crunch is set to start tomorrow in the late afternoon, right around when the storm is likely to be in full swing. Will the weather have much impact? (Mainly, I guess, in terms of Those Who Speak all being able to make it there safely; I kinda hope that there's some kind of backup power in their actual building, but I don't know for sure one way or the other.)

    2026.02.22

    Feb. 22nd, 2026 11:09 am
    lsanderson: (Default)
    [personal profile] lsanderson
    ICE

    Worst of the worst? Most US immigrants targeted for deportation in 2025 had no criminal charges, documents reveal
    A Guardian analysis finds the vast majority of people who entered deportation proceedings for the first time from January to August last year had no criminal convictions
    Will Craft
    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/22/us-immigration-trump-administration

    How daily routines in Minneapolis and St Paul have changed amid 3,000 federal immigration agents – in pictures
    Many people have been sheltering at home. Protests have become part of the daily rhythm. Community networks continue to patrol and document agents’ interactions
    Bridget Bennett in Minneapolis and St Paul
    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/feb/22/minneapolis-st-paul-daily-routines-immigration Read more... )

    (no subject)

    Feb. 18th, 2026 10:32 am
    conuly: (Default)
    [personal profile] conuly
    So, you got my opinion on Heated Rivalry, but I gotta say, I will never not read fanfics structured like ongoing internet sagas.

    Also, gotta love the one dude, BostonSportsBro69, who posts in both /r/relationship_advice and /r/hockey going around in /r/hockey saying "Uh, no, it's just normal sportsbro rival stuff, you're all reading way too much into this" when because he absolutely knows better. (I don't think he's supposed to be one of Ilya's teammates, just a fan.)

    ***************


    Links )
    Page generated Feb. 25th, 2026 09:59 am
    Powered by Dreamwidth Studios