Remember the 1920s when nobody was left-handed

it's crazy that 500 years ago, you would see the ruler of your country maybe once in your life and hear whispers that they're the Sun God, but now with social media, you get to see on a daily basis that they're the most unhinged, idiotic, and unhappy person you know

Two years without Hank. 😊

welcome to the Second Annual Bluesky Christmas Eve Snowball Fight! please drop a take in the replies and I or someone else will be along to belligerently interpret whatever you said in the worst possible light

The survey is open to non-members (I am not one) and to readers (who here is not &c.) so I encourage you to share your feelings on the matter. Don't assume that everyone already understands that AI is bad or why! I mean, people *should*, but you could say that about a lot of things.

The coopting of the Grinch as a Christmas icon proves that Christmas has the ability to subsume all critiques into itself.

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH

I'll probably post something with roughly this sentiment every few days or so in the coming weeks. It's just how it is over here in my milieu and inside my head. Will try to intermix these with fun stuff nonetheless. Or try to make the personal hellposting fun.

What an absolute hell grind of a year this has been

The 2025 Headline of the Year Nominees 🧵

My first thought was this is how Israel treats Palestinians in their dungeons, if I’m perfectly honest. Only they also bulldoze their house and kill their family on the outside for good measure. Something, something imperial boomerang.

Lol. Lmao, even. (crucial context in the quoted skeet)

Also

Jesus fucking Christ. No, LLM won’t help you learn more. Why? Because when you read a summary (EVEN IF it’s correct, which is not a given) you are missing out on the process which is arguably more important than the result 🧵

Pen and papering shall continue until LLMs are removed.

We'll be reading stories for ✨ What Elegant Stars: Queer Tales of Impossible Style ✨ from January 15th to April 15th. Give us stories of satellites and sewists, terminals and tailors, dandies and dying stars. <6k words. 8¢/word. simsub ☑️. multiple submissions 🚫. www.neonhemlock.com/submissions

Pleased to say that just earlier this week, I sent a final* draft to an editor saying that yes, we've had a good number of solutions to writer's block (including giving yourself a damn break!) since long before 2022.

I’m going to try some of these planing techniques to pre write this novella. In particular, I want to try the backwards approach for breaking it down by quarters. I think a rough draft of the novella in a year is low enough bar to meet. youtu.be/4Zix6F_zS0Q?...

The name "Popular Science" doesn't mean we shift our coverage depending on public opinion. It means we cover relevant subjects that are rigorously researched, reliable, and grounded in reality. And trans lives are grounded in reality. We see y'all. No matter what. www.popsci.com/science/tran...

love the unexplained duck

Article 22 is a jewelry company that repurposes Vietnam War shrapnel and battlefield debris. A portion of their profits goes to the Mine Advisory Group, which works to remove landmines still left in Laos (they've removed more than 300k mines!). I like the company's "Shard" necklace collection.

Some buildings cast a haunted shadow. In their umbra a remberance of fear. For every castle ruin the tourist board tries to sell as romantic ruin there stands a tower which was terror warden. We live in a landscape ghosted by old violence, a landscape of psychic bruises. – #CJosiffe

solidarity with trans people and death to fascism

As Seize the Press’s resident book opinions haver, this also means you should send me your most depressing, unnerving, dislocating, horrible books for review

Being pissed off at the news always makes me more in-your-face trans and you know what? HERE: A trans sex worker goes on a cursed treasure hunt: newedgeswordandsorcery.com/product/new-... A wizard's apprentice gets accidentally genderflipped and... likes it? wyngraf.itch.io/wyngraf-roma...

I have some sad news to share, folks 😔 inner-worlds.ghost.io/issue-10-wil...

OMG! This is absolutely criminal. Anyone making this type of decision has no actual understanding of what translation involves. I want to scream!

Haha holy shit this is like "Between Two Ferns" but inside both ferns is a Viet Cong ambush.

Not on Kobo, but otherwise! Plus you get a whole second book on the other side... 👉 newedgeswordandsorcery.com/product-tag/... 👈

🐴Jirel of Joiry rides again...if these dang skeletons will let her! @mollytanzer.bsky.social brings us a new official tale with no less than four illustrations by @lizardbrain-art.bsky.social💀 Check it out, and more, in issue 5 of New Edge Sword & Sorcery: newedgeswordandsorcery.com/product-cate...

Did you know the public domain exists? That there are thousands or maybe millions of brilliant, forgotten public domain art pieces that you could use for your cover, and though that wouldn't entail paying an artist at least your cover wouldn't be infuriating trash? Just curious.

Clay letters from ancient Mesopotamia are alive with idiom, sayings, and everyday language that I love. Here are just a few random ones so you can enjoy them too.

"And Tiny Tim, who did not die" = heartwarming, Christmassy. "And Tiny Tim, who would not die" = sinister, alarming.

an incredible piece of writing. i'm working on taking a sentence and running with it until i get a paragraph where people feel something. this hits it out of the park

We're reopening to submissions on January 1st. Writers, ready your most depressing, unnerving, dislocating, horrible stories.

I'm seeing various posters and associates here try to describe 2025 with emojis and such Which, I'll be quite honest, is a bit quaint seeing as Bruegel had it down 450+ years in advance

A little uncomfortable for me to be reading this on the bus, but:

Hi. If you're catching up on 2025 reading, I had a collection come out in September (feel free to DM for review e-copy!), a novelette "Uncertain Sons" (in aforementioned collection), and some stories. Thanks in advance if you check any of them out!

I think I know how I want to celebrate the end of the year this year. This is highly aspirational, given my capacity for event planning is already stretched to its limit. But I think I want to build an effigy representing 2025 and take a burning machete to it.

and everyone is obsessed with sharing screenshots of this shit too. oh my god Scrumblo Meyer wrote a new article about wokeness in The UnCancelled, a magazine that cumulatively 400 people a year read. let's all click on it and argue

I’m delighted to open submissions for my anthology, "Passing Strange: Queer Weird Arthurian Tales"! We're wanting Arthurian stories with LGBTQ+ protags and spec-fic elements. Check out the Submissions page on my website! Link in comments. #arthuriana #callforsubmissions #lgbtqbooks #queerbooks

youtube’s unregulated algorithm is frankly dangerous. three hours on there will have you convinced you could get into camping

I'm usually the last one to say this, but I don't need to read this article to answer the rhetorical question. The real idea shortage is in the creative and tech industries, which have prioritized profits over ideas. Exhibit A: endless film sequels.

This drove me insane. A parent tried to responsibly trust his kids to ride the public bus to school unsupervised, and some busybody phoned the government to complain about him. He eventually won in court, but I can’t imagine the happening when I was a kid (gen x). vancouversun.com/news/local-n...

OR if you like limited editions, there's the hardcover consisting of all 27 essays from 2025! (24 from the online journal, three bonuses - inc. the Lee Murray piece from the July book). It's AUD70, which includes shipping... and it's quite large... www.speculativeinsight.com/buy-collections

I have it on good authority that there are at least four fine essays in this issue on how various SFF works have addressed imperialism and colonialism. (Tthis alongside other topics like Discworld dads and the hero's journey critically considered.)