Come for the acid-spitting centipedes, stay for the calm of the forest - and for many more fabulous stories in this bundle.

My friend @herlizardness.bsky.social has been working on a very cool (and VERY CUTE) new project - check out what she's doing at sealsignal.org and give The Seal Signal a follow? (spoilers: delightful seal stickers designed by human artists)

I made a thing. Not my usual thing, but using similar skills - gathering information, structuring it, thinking up a good way to present it. Enter: The Seal Signal @sealsignal.bsky.social - a global guide to seal rescue and conservation.

Not relevant in the big slop heap, but can AI comments/emails fuck off? It used to be easy to recognize spam comments. Now I get messages that look like someone read my posts or stories, and I’m like: oooh, exciting, let’s re… wait, why does this sound like biting into old socks on stale toast?

"In the Sea of Binary Stars" by @herlizardness.bsky.social free to read online! "We are both shadows of each other, but we are also ebb and flow, binary stars forever circling, both shining just as bright." plotthoundmag.com/in-the-sea-o...

If you understand German oder French, one of the best cultural history things around at the moment is on Arte: Est-il vrai/Stimmt es, dass …? Often not what you expect and food for thought and interesting perspectives in every episode.

Want to explore the ocean beyond with me? "In the Sea of Binary Stars" is out now in Plott Hound Magazine issue 2, bringing you along for a speedy, but contemplative dive to the deepest depths! Chomp and tenderness, all in one blubbery package. plotthoundmag.com/issues/

Want to explore the ocean beyond with me? "In the Sea of Binary Stars" is out now in Plott Hound Magazine issue 2, bringing you along for a speedy, but contemplative dive to the deepest depths! Chomp and tenderness, all in one blubbery package. plotthoundmag.com/issues/

It's here! It's here! Check out Issue 2 of Plott Hound Magazine now! plotthoundmag.com/issues/

Working class monsters (and very nice animation): Nobody

A wonderful piece of art for all you museum & fox lovers out there!

👀 🌊✨

Drop some Bones

ﾋｨ…ﾋｨ……

Nooooo This app is integrated in Kobo readers and they’ve been my dream reading team for everything forever :( :( :(

My impression is that there are currently competing views on the truth of digital images - one still looking for objective evidence, the other seeing them more as symbolic representations of a subjective reality. And both views can even be held by the same people, depending on context 5/

im so intensely proud of this story. we wanted to tell a story where-- like many of my fave godzilla movies-- it was about the people living in the literal shadow of godzilla hustlers still hustle, criminals still commit crimes...and sometimes godzilla destroys the city during all of that

Today is Sprint for the Seals day! I’ll very much galumph for the seals because my body decided it’s time for a flare-up. No time to rest though - the residents and rehab patients of the Cornish Seal Sanctuary need a new pool. Me and the seals would be chuffed if you could help #sealsky

Lookee! It‘s got a crocodile in it, so it must be good 😁 🐊

Today is Sprint for the Seals day! I’ll very much galumph for the seals because my body decided it’s time for a flare-up. No time to rest though - the residents and rehab patients of the Cornish Seal Sanctuary need a new pool. Me and the seals would be chuffed if you could help #sealsky

never surrender

ofc 2025 is also the year to say goodbye to Murder by Death (pic from their box set). But there is one last album and one last tour at least. Another smidgen of spooky gothic-western indie, you know you want it!

Happy election day in Germany! Let’s make it so we can have another one and another one and another one. The work never ends! Did I expect I’d ever have to say something like this in my life? Nope, yet here we are. Things fall apart at breakneck speed. Time to be a Bremsklotz.

New translation just dropped, and I had a blast with this one. Survival from the point of view of a Dragonkin, need I say more? Very funny (with a few compromises to fit lengthy German words) and pretty. (Available in English as „How Not to Get Eaten by Owlbears“ by @amely.bsky.social )

This is an interesting take on right's love of generative AI, but I think it's ultimately misleading. The main problem is that it compares AI slop to the work of artists. But the use of generative AI has little to do with art, and much more with stock photos and other already generic imagery 1/

Sure sign that everybody and their dog is sick in Germany: every (!) herbal tea brand in the supermarket is sold out of chamomile.

I won’t give my vote to a small party, but when the day of Wahlomat (comparison of positions between you and all parties) comes, I’m always astounded how rock solid “Tierschutzpartei” (an animal rights party) seems to be. Too small & special interest to save us, but I respect them.

This has been happening since COVID. Or since 2016. Or since forever.

I have no words anymore. Cruelty reigns, it’s just getting hook after hook in, everywhere, everyday. I didn’t quite believe we were so far gone here in Germany, but we’re barrelling down that hill, mit Karacho, as the saying goes. Just over three weeks until elections. Where to?

I get all these emails, subject line „seals“, these days, and a happy smile crosses my face until I realise it’s job-related and should be SEALs (this is a whole genre full of USAmericanisms which makes translation challenging, among other things)

For all you funghi lovers & appreciators of interesting narrative situations, this story is for you!

Let's try something :) #birbfest2025

Daily nostalgic palaeoart tweets will resume shortly, a little bit of sci-art joy to add some much needed levity to your feed. Wayne Barlowe’s Stegosaurus is pure wonder captured in a single image. It’s a personal, even relatable moment from an entirely different world. Palaeoart at its best!

Good stuff about translating into a wide-spread but diverse language such as Spanish. Plus interesting facts about translating into a gendered language (same problems and resistance everywhere I guess, but also solutions). And the part about translating for popular IPs and/or for kids is on spot!

I'm really excited for this zine!! Can we help push it over the finish line?? It's going to be SUCH fun. :D

It can’t be good when a 15 minutes dentist appointment evolves into a 2.5 hours dentist appointment. All participants were highly displeased.

At least The Expanse exists in physical media form. There are so many others that are streaming only, and I’m afraid they will just vanish.

So much devastating truth in this. Germany has a teeny-tiny band-aid in the form of Künstlersozialkasse (subsidised health & pension insurance for artists) for this whole issue. It makes all the difference in keeping me financially afloat. Long may it last!

Happy New Year　2025

In "Ninety-Five Percent of the Ocean" @jenniferhudak.bsky.social 's young protagonist tries to fit in. But from the water's edge a different life beckons... inner-worlds.ghost.io/inner-worlds... #SFF #Fantasy #SpeculativeFiction #ShortStory

This year has seen me unexpectedly evacuated from my home for 10 days (river flood), I lost so much time to pain, and I feel I accomplished nothing. But I got to meet Moe. He's a harbor seal at a science facility, and I participated in his training. Very good boy, 15/10 - my favorite memory of 2024!

Hey fellow rootless, late year surprise! My ode to trees and communication across vast boundaries is up on Escape Pod, and you can listen to it (or read it) there.

Hey fellow rootless, late year surprise! My ode to trees and communication across vast boundaries is up on Escape Pod, and you can listen to it (or read it) there.

This. If you're an aspiring translator don't use MT or AI translation. You'll never learn how to understand or convey the nuances of the original text if you cheat. It's hard but if you don't learn how to do the hard stuff then you'll never get better.

My latest translation for all my TTRPG people: 🇩🇪 Kostenloses Kurzabenteuer mit Krustentieren von Roll and Play Press. Das ist auch Pilotprojekt für Übersetzungen im Hause R&PP. You know what to do, falls ihr mehr One-Shots und Materialien für Spielleitende auf Deutsch sehen möchtet.

Nice surprise at movie night with „Mars Express“, a French animated cyberpunkish noir sf movie. Owes a lot to its predecessors, but finds its own stride, with an interesting story and amazing attention to detail.

Hi everyone! I have a story out in this wonderful anthology, about a little mermaid larva‘s journey to adulthood! www.amazon.com/dp/B0DNJYQQM...

Okay, who said chat gpt writes better poems than humans? I’m going to whack you on the head with my truckload of words, and I bet the crime scene will still be better poetry than machine-generated rhymes. www.theguardian.com/books/2024/n...

ICYMI: My short fic recs for Aug-Sept are up! With short stories from @strangehorizons.bsky.social @reactorsff.bsky.social @clarkesworldmagazine.com @bcsmagazine.bsky.social @apexmag.bsky.social itsajumble.blogspot.com/2024/10/shor...

When you learn a language, it's absolutely vital to dive deep into your special interests and treat yourself with unreasonable words along with useful vocabulary. Anyway, here are me new Japanese stickers.