Caligan Blue

@caliganblue

Web developer, writer, reader, keeper of cats, SF&F fan. caliganblue.com

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Caligan Blue@caliganblue· 29d

One of my friends who runs a reptile rescue has a Solomon Islands skink, one of the only reptiles that's intensely social within its family group. Not your average skink, they're the size of a large burrito (not counting the tail). He loves Tom Ellis. (Lucifer reruns especially.) (Wikipedia pic.)

Wikipedia image of the Solomon Islands skink. It's a large, fairly smooth lizard-like creature resting on branches, a greyish-jade color, with skin plates blending gently into each other and a small black eye.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Islands_skink

Caligan Blue@caliganblue· 29d

In case anyone else hits this, Bluesky automatically defaulted me back to only seeing English in posts. I had *explicitly* turned this off before, might want to recheck yours. Bluesky, stop opting me into *modified* content (and out of real content) by default. Show me what people really say!

Bluesky Languages settings page, showing the section at the bottom where if you have English checked you automatically get English translations instead of whatever people actually wrote.

Caligan Blue@caliganblue· Jul 14

Day 14: First lines of old favorites "The rift was thrust wide with a brilliant flash of light at the point of actual breakage." - Make Way for Dragons! by Thorarinn Gunnarsson Nevermind the goofy cover, this is a *fun* book, with a perfect ending. If you too love dragons, I suspect you'll agree.

Cover of Make Way for Dragons! by Thorarinn Gunnarsson (Author of Song of the Dwarves and Revenge of the Valkyrie). It shows a teenage-ish girl with big reddish-blond hair, a jean jacket, knotted shirt, and shorts, riding a skateboard with a colorful little dragon-like creature, while a panicked cat flees.

Caligan Blue@caliganblue· Jul 14

There was Holy Sheep gouda on sale. Of *course* I bought it. (I've never met a gouda I didn't like. The name was a bonus.)

A wedge of pale cheese, label reading "Murray's Cheese est. 1962: Artikaas Holy Sheep Gouda."

Caligan Blue@caliganblue· Jul 13

Day 13: First lines of old favorites "Everybody talks about the weather; it's one thing we have in common." - Fractals, by John Briggs A high school library find, and the source of my fractal fascination. Decades later I tracked down a copy.

$Cover of Fractals: The Patterns of Chaos, Discovering a New Aesthetic of Art, Science, and Nature. By John Briggs. Cover shows several complex geometric fractal designs.$

$Interior page demonstrating the evolution of a fractal pattern in 2D linear form.$

Interior page showing the "jewel box" version of the Mandelbrot Set, a lushly colored abstract pattern of numerous mostly-symmetrical curves and spirals.

Interior page showing the "Peitgen" variant of the Mandelbrot set, a circular void with many tiny attached other voids, and a wriggling, pale white-blue flamelike aura around the tentacular formations.

Caligan Blue@caliganblue· Jul 12

I don't like yellow, orange, or pink, and I prefer dark/rich jewel tones. Meh. The green's okay. I'd prefer yours!

Supposed "birth palette" showing astrologically associated colors, in this case a medium yellow, dusty green, medium pink, and medium orange.

Caligan Blue@caliganblue· Jul 12

Day 12: First lines of old favorites "What is space?" - Moon of Three Rings, by Andre Norton Norton was unquestionably my introduction to adult science fiction - my mother had everything she ever wrote. Daybreak 2250 AD, Breed to Come, and The Jargoon Pard also deeply influenced me.

Cover of an old copy of Andre Norton's Moon of Three Rings. A woman in an elaborate, skintight costume of unknown design (with a very broad belt at her waist and double chains hanging across her hips, multiple bracelets, and a crown or crownlike hat) stands with three alien animals nearby, and a naked man in the process of transforming into a creature like one of those animals, a snouted, point-eared, maned beast. Only his head and part of one foot have transformed. Behind them is a backdrop of high peaks and a huge moon.

Caligan Blue@caliganblue· Jul 11

"Ivanova is always right. I will listen to Ivanova. I will not ignore Ivanova's recommendations. Ivanova is God. And if this ever happens again, Ivanova will personally rip your lungs out."

Image shows the character Susan Ivanova in the black and silver post-Earth-war Babylon 5 uniform.

Text reads: FOLLOW THE RULES: "Ivanova is always right. I will listen to Ivanova. I will not ignore Ivanova's recommendations. Ivanova is God. And if this ever happens again, Ivanova will personally rip your lungs out...."

Caligan Blue@caliganblue· Jul 11

In the quiet of the endless Library, traumatic events are vanishingly rare, child death unknown, so the repercussions its residents suffer from a disaster are severe. But the survivor, Theo, is a strange stone in that pond, changed in a very different way. #WIPSnips #WriteSky #WritingCommunity

It was a memory like firelight, untrustworthy, shifting. He knew the conspiracists had attempted violence against a classmate of Theo's, one who had not gone on the trip into the Stacks. They had between them lost two sons and a daughter. They believed Becca's parents had known something was wrong when she didn't go on the expedition, that they had kept her home, kept her safe.

The medical printer report indicated relatively trivial injuries to the first attacker, and he was released into the Deans' custody later that evening, muddled but intact.

Allan remembered the chiaroscuro mottlings of the study nook in which the attack had taken place, lit only by the hearthfire. The insistence of the other three attackers that the gangly teenage boy had torn out the man's throat with his teeth. The uneasy impression in the irregular light of the amount of blood actually painted on the interior walls.

He'd gone back the next day, but the Library had reshelved and the niche reset. By the daylights, it seemed more likely his mind had exaggerated the splashed darkness.

References did tend to suggest blood could look like a lot more than it really was.

Caligan Blue@caliganblue· Jul 11

Finally picked myself a late birthday present just before Steam's summer sale ended. I would listen to Jonathan Sims read the phone book. (And the game is pretty great so far too. I love what they've done with the cursor.)

Title/menu screen of the game Slay the Princess: The Pristine Cut. The image shows a black and white sketch of a woman in a stone-floored basement, under an illuminated window, surrounded by shadows, and chained to the wall.

Caligan Blue@caliganblue· Jul 11

Day 11: First lines of old favorites "Captain's Log, Stardate 2950.3: The Enterprise continues in orbit around Eeiauo, on the outermost fringe of Federation space." - Uhura's Song, by Janet Kagan I love lots of Trek books, but as a cat-obsessed youngster, this is the one that hooked me.

Cover of a Star Trek novel (original series), Uhura's Song, by Janet Kagan. Depicts the Enterprise against a space and planet backdrop, with Uhura, Spock, and a felinoid alien in the foreground. At the top reads, "A mysterious music holds the clues to save an alien race!"

Caligan Blue@caliganblue· Jul 10

Day 10: First lines of old favorites "A boy was digging at the edge of the garden when he saw a big toe." - Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark Cultural zeitgeist - I bet most of my generation remembers these books and their deliciously disturbing illustrations.

The cover of a well-loved copy of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (collected from folklore and retold by Alvin Schwartz, drawings by Stephen Gammell). The illustration shows a rather cheerful but horrible-looking mostly skeletonized head poking out of the ground next to a rickety clapboard barn (and towering over it), while there are two gravestones off to the right. The head has a cheerful smile and is smoking a corncob pipe.

First page of the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark Table of Contents, including sections 1. "AAAAAAAAAAAH!", 2. HE HEARD FOOTSTEPS COMING UP THE CELLAR STAIRS..., and 3. THEY EAT YOUR EYES, THEY EAT YOUR NOSE.

Interior title and facing page for the story "ME TIE DOUGH-TY WALKER!". The illustration is an old man's head, rendered in a vague, foggy style, with upward-facing eyes and slightly open mouth under a heavy moustache.

Caligan Blue@caliganblue· Jul 10

A dilute tortoiseshell cat with four white-tipped paws snoozing in a ball with her head upside down, chin pillowing one of her curled forefeet.

Caligan Blue@caliganblue· Jul 9

Day 9: First lines of old favorites "Recently there have been many changes in our ways of thinking about the unknown." - From the introduction, by Andre Norton Another formative book. Every last story in here is delightfully creepy, and the illustrations (Rod Ruth) are *glorious*.

Cover of a hardback copy of the anthology Baleful Beasts and Eerie Creatures - introduction by Andre Norton. Several weird creatures are depicted among the twisted branches of a tree, including a cockatrice, a kind of snout-nosed echidna with hands, a patchwork monkey, and a bear-ape-like horned yamadan.

Table of contents - Introduction by Andre Norton, The Patchwork Monkey by Beverly Butler, The Yamadan by Lynne Gessner, Monster Blood by Charles Land, Tigger by A. M. Lightner, The Spell of Spirit Stones by Alice Wellman, The Night Creature by Richard R. Smith, To Face A Monster by Carl Henry Rathjen, You Are What You Eat by Wilma Bednarz, and Nightmare in a Box by Rita Ritchie.

A picture of the interior full-color illustration for The Spell of Spirit Stones, showing a woman in jeans and a red plaid shirt being dropped by a giant hawk into a nest full of horrific tentacled creatures with dark pits for eyes and red tongues, reaching for her falling body.

Interior full-color illustration for Monster Blood, showing a boy in dark glasses recoiling against a full-height mirror from a giant cockatrice (resembling a cross between a rooster and a snake).

Caligan Blue@caliganblue· Jul 9

I'd never heard of FIP before River was diagnosed with it in the emergency hospital. She still nearly died - a group of locals got me the injection version of the meds within a few hours, while it took days to get the pills. Great information here. It's not an automatic death sentence anymore.

A dilute tortoiseshell cat lounges belly-up on a bed, all four white-tipped paws up and her eyes on the camera.

Caligan Blue@caliganblue· Jul 9

I'm going to have to try this again, this perspective was a *tad* challenging for my rusty sketching skills. But what do we think, is this a coose or a gat? Terrifying goose image from justbirding.com/geese-teeth/

A somewhat terrifying rough sketch of a cross between a cat and a goose, with its extremely spiny tongue threateningly extended and its ears back.

Image of a goose looking like an eldritch horror, a semi-forward view of its head, beak open to display a tongue and jaw bristling with spiny tooth-like formations. Its blue eye is wide and mad with the knowledge of Things Birds Should Not Know and also It Hates You.

Caligan Blue@caliganblue· Jul 9

Nuttin' fancy-- kitchen sink soup. Homemade stock, loads of veggies. Homemade crusty bread. Potatoes, yellow squash, mushrooms, peas, carrots, corn, thyme, black pepper, garlic powder, Worcestershire, dash of fish sauce, chicken powder.

A small bowl full of vegetable soup on a plate, with a soup spoon sticking out of it. There are visible chunks of mushroom, potato, yellow squash, carrot, peas, and corn, with a sprinkle of sunflower seeds. Beside it on the plate is a chunk of crusty bread.

Caligan Blue@caliganblue· Jul 8

Day 8: First lines of old favorites "Far beyond tomorrow lies an emerald island, where all things magical and real live together in perfect harmony... an island where the sun and moon come together to paint the sky the most amazing colors and hues... an island of bright and beautiful tomorrows."

A stack of seven Serendipity books, arranged to display the titles (Flutterby Fly, Flutterby, Morgan and Yew, Morgan Morning, Squeakers, Kiyomi, Shimmeree), and the front covers of Morgan Morning (with a unicorn foal lying among flowers) and Shimmeree (showing two silver-grey horses and a blue-eyed lizard).

Caligan Blue@caliganblue· Jul 7

Day 7: First lines of old favorites "Once upon a time there were three bears who lived in a house in the forest."

Cover of an illustrated children's book, A Treasury of Bedtime Stories, Illustrated by Hilda Offen. Various characters depict stories from the inside, ranging from little fae to a small bear, a rabbit with scissors, Hansel & Gretel, and others.

Table of contents, listing all stories from the book. They are, by and large, extremely familiar Western classics.

Title page of the story Tim Rabbit and the Scissors. Illustration page shows a father, mother, and child rabbit in a room in a house, with the glasses-wearing father examining a large pair of sharp scissors while his family look on.

Caligan Blue@caliganblue· Jul 6

"I don't feel like cooking" is all well and good, but the defrosted chicken wasn't going to put up with waiting much longer. And so, I have finally gotten the ayam pongteh made. Very odd flavor profile, but not unappealing! www.singaporeanmalaysianrecipes.com/ayam-pongteh...

Top-down view of a bowl full of miscellaneous brown chunks, which if viewed closely might resolve into bits of mushroom, chunks of potato, and chicken thigh, all covered in a pureed and sauteed brown sauce.

Caligan Blue@caliganblue· Jul 6

Day 6: First lines of old favorites Today's a two-fer, because these are indelibly connected in my head. "It was always slow in Albuquerque on Tuesday nights, but tonight was worse than usual." - Glory Lane, by Alan Dean Foster "Something was wrong." - Quozl, by Alan Dean Foster

Covers of two battered Alan Dean Foster books, Glory Lane and Quozl.

Both covers are lushly illustrated, the former with a wild variety of aliens greeting a punk with a colorful mohawk, striped pants, and black leather jacket, a multi-eyed green alien in a cardigan and long-sleeved shirt, and two very preppy-looking humans, all emerging from a spaceship. A glowing ball floats above the green alien's hands.

On the other, two vaguely rabbit-like creatures stand in a bedroom in front of an old-fashioned TV, a mounted deer's head, and walls with pinups and sports flags, looking curious and confused.

Image of the interior of Quozl, with several pages partly visible, displaying a flip-style cartoon in the upper right corners.

Caligan Blue@caliganblue· Jul 5

The physical RPG book collection. (The digital one is totally out of hand.)

A long bookshelf's worth of RPG books, mostly White Wolf's World of Darkness, but also some D&D, GURPS, Shadowrun, Deadlands, Call of Cthulhu, Farscape, Babylon 5, and other miscellany.

Caligan Blue@caliganblue· Jul 5

Day 5: First lines of old favorites "Vampire: The Dark Ages is set at the close of the 12th century in medieval Europe - the darker, nastier Europe that existed in the past of the World of Darkness."

Front cover of the hardback original of the Vampire: The Dark Ages RPG book from White Wolf. A single red rose and some ivy leaves are displayed against a background of white-streaked black marble, with the title in a blocky capital font.

Interior Chapter One: Introduction title and facing page. The illustration shows a slightly smiling dark-haired woman with another woman licking blood off her arm.

Caligan Blue@caliganblue· Jul 5

Finally got around to trying this. Good stuff! I'm not much for spice so I swapped out the habaneros for jalapenos (kept the cayenne), but it's still got a nice bit of bite to it.

Top-down view of a bowl of red stew more-or-less halved with rice. Visible chunks of chicken rest in deep red sauce.

Caligan Blue@caliganblue· Jul 4

Day 4: First lines of old favorites Some of my collection had outsized impact because they introduced me to so many good authors at once. This was where I first met McCaffrey's dragonriders, Gael Baudino's work, and the deeply unnerving And Lo, The Bird! by Nelson Bond, among others.

Cover image of The Bank Street Book of Fantasy. Smaller text reads: Graphic story comics adapting the work of Anne McCaffrey and Nathaniel Hawthorne and other world-famous fantasy authors. The illustration is a fairly generic image of a medievalishly-dressed woman on horseback being menaced by a spiky green dragon.

Interior title page of The Smallest Dragonboy by Anne McCaffrey. Small text reads: Story Adapted by Terry Bisson. Illustrated by Valerie Jones, Ken Hooper, and Chris Shenck. A small circular illustration shows a man on a knobbly-headed dragon's saddled neck.

Two facing pages from And Lo, The Bird! by Nelson Bond. One side shows two young masculine scientists talking to each other with images of a giant celestial bird in the background. The other shows the bird itself perched on the Earth as though on an egg.

Interior title page of The Persistence of Memory by Gael Baudino. Smaller text reads Story Adapted by David M. Harris. Illustrated by Rurik Tyler.

Caligan Blue@caliganblue· Jul 3

One of the kids is home at the nest for napping this evening, but Fiona the Cheeky Flying Squirrel isn't letting that stop her from foraging for scraps.

Nighttime black and white photo of an eagle's nest. One juvenile bald eagle is vaguely visible in the back, napping with their head under a wing, while in the foreground a tiny flying squirrel roams around in the nest proper.

Caligan Blue@caliganblue· Jul 3

Day three: First lines of old favorites "expression is the need of my soul i was once a vers libre bard but i died and my soul went into the body of a cockroach it has given me a new outlook on life" - the lives and times of archy and mehitabel, by Don Marquis

A scruffy copy of a book, tilted to display both the spine and a sideways view of the cover. The title is "the lives & times of archy and mehitabel" with the author's name "don marquis" and publisher "doubleday". All printing is in lowercase. The image on the front cover is a cat in a small boat, apparently fishing with a pole.

A picture of the interior title page and facing illustration page. The illustration is of an alleycat in a garbage can drinking from a sardine can while a cockroach at a typewriter on the ground asks, "And then what did the duke say to you?" The title page says "don marquis - the lives and times of archy & mehitabel - with pictures by george herriman and an introduction by e. b. white - doubleday & company, inc. garden city, new york." It is also stamped "San Diego Public Library - Paradise Hills."

Caligan Blue@caliganblue· Jul 2

Love the old plots. "The windmill is broken because this one dude supposed to keep it working always falls asleep, buy an Alarm Flute from our shop, wake him up, and get him to give you the key to turn it on so you can open the way to the Special Magic Thing nobody else has tried to use."

Crystalis protagonist standing outside the now-functional windmill, though blocked off from the tunnel it has bafflingly opened by a skirt of rock, because obviously.

Caligan Blue@caliganblue· Jul 2

As much as I love Final Fantasy, I much prefer the active combat/open fight approach in Crystalis (and later SNES Terranigma, now *that* one I'm looking forward to replaying). No random encounters - you can scout and aim and take critters down before they get to you.

Crystalis protagonist preparing to fire their fully-charged sword at a bipedal tiger-like creature approaching across the pixelated plain.

Caligan Blue@caliganblue· Jul 2

The wilderness music in this one is awesome. Urgent, poppy, just enough fry to be interesting, not too repetitive. I remember immediately being delighted by the charging-your-sword mechanic - more than the usual impetus not to get hurt at all.