Thursday Quotables
Apr. 23rd, 2026 10:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snowynight― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
Erin Reads: Pet Shop of Horrors, Collector’s Edition (volume 3, chapters 16-17)
Apr. 22nd, 2026 05:50 pmerinptahRereading the middle of Volume 3 (Seven Seas edition), which brings us to the end of Volume 4 (TokyoPop edition). This one has vampires in it! Good times.
As usual, I’m posting the individual reactions on Mastodon and Bluesky, then rounding them up in the blog. Previous roundups in my PSOH fandom tag. You can pick up the books with my affiliate links here.
Still haven’t figured out who “Madam C” is. Keeping an eye out…
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Search maintenance
Apr. 22nd, 2026 09:19 am![[staff profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png){kind=small}
mark posting in ![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png){kind=small}
dw_maintenanceHappy Wednesday!
I'm taking search offline sometime today to upgrade the server to a new instance type. It should be down for a day or so -- sorry for the inconvenience. If you're curious, the existing search machine is over 10 years old and was starting to accumulate a decade of cruft...!
Also, apparently these older machines cost more than twice what the newer ones cost, on top of being slower. Trying to save a bit of maintenance and cost, and hopefully a Wednesday is okay!
Edited: The other cool thing is that this also means that the search index will be effectively realtime afterwards... no more waiting a few minutes for the indexer to catch new content.
SGA: The Spare by Rachael Sabotini (wickedwords)
Apr. 22nd, 2026 06:38 pmmific posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
fancakeCharacters/Pairings: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, Elizabeth Weir, Teyla Emmagan, Radek Zelenka
Rating: Mature
Length: 13,319
Content Notes: no AO3 warnings apply
Creator Links: Rachael Sabotini on AO3
Themes: Arranged marriage, AU - royalty, Diplomatic marriage, Politics, Mutual pining
Summary: "It is your duty to the empire to marry Rodney McKay."
Reccer's Notes: This is an interesting romantic romp set in a somewhat steampunk AU where John is married off by his cousin the empress Elizabeth, to Rodney, a leader in the neighbouring nation. John is part of treaty agreements to negotiate peace. Consummating his marriage proves difficult due to Rodney being a workaholic, anxious about never having had sex with a man before, and, that common marriage of convenience trope, as John can end the marriage after a year and a day if he chooses. There are obstacles and pining and inadequate communication, but eventually John makes a place for himself in Rodney's labs, proves his loyalty, and we get the happy ending. A fun read!
Fanwork Links: The Spare
Leif & Thorn news tidbits
Apr. 18th, 2026 09:19 pmerinptahLeif & Thorn Volume 8 reward packages are arriving for backers. (If you’re one of them, sharing photos like this and tagging me is encouraged.)
I’m also doing another backlist shipping special for Volumes 1-8, to get them in the mail before the latest Trump-induced price hike. If you’re outside the US and want these books but couldn’t afford the postage costs, grab them quick.
I’m almost out of Volume 3, and running low on Volume 4. So my next crowdfunding campaign might have to be a double reprint.
Or maybe I’ll pay for the reprints upfront, and offer them along with all my other existing books/merch at the next BackerKit Holiday Market. They haven’t announced another one yet, so no promises…but the November 2025 one was a huge success, they’ve gotta be planning a reprise for 2026.
Links: Different Ways We See the World
Apr. 21st, 2026 08:02 amsnowynightAphantasia: Why I cannot picture my children in my mind: Most people can picture images in their heads - the look of an apple, the appearance of their kitchen or the smile of their best friend - but not everyone can.
Living with hyperphantasia: ‘I remember the clothes people wore the day we met, the things they said word-for-word’ It’s hard to know what people can see in their own mind’s eye. But for Maddie Thomas there was no doubt: she had especially vivid mental imagery
A Brief 200-Year History of Synesthesia: Richard Cytowic, a pioneering researcher who returned synesthesia to mainstream science, traces the historical evolution of our understanding of the phenomenon.
Speaking of Psychology: What is it like to be face blind? With Joe DeGutis, PhD, and Sadie Dingfelder
Why Did We Think We Dreamed in Black and White?: In the 1950's, dream researchers commonly thought that dreams were predominantly a black and white phenomenon, although both earlier and later treatments of dreaming presume or assert that dreams have color. The first half of the twentieth century saw the rise of black and white film media, and it is likely that the emergence of the view that dreams are black and white was connected with this change in media technology. If our opinions about basic features of our dreams can change with changes in technology, it seems to follow that our knowledge of the phenomenology of our own dreams is much less secure than we might at first have thought it to be.
Neural networks underlying visual illusions: An activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis
The weird way language affects our sense of time and space: The languages we speak can have a surprising impact on the way we think about the world and even how we move through it.