Since I posted this, the family situation I mentioned came to the end we were hoping to avoid. I'm sad of course and the family is shocked and devastated as we didn't see it coming. But I'm also thinking about how lucky I am I to have family, and you. Thank you all for your support & kind words.

Russia will remain a threat to its neighbors as long as it is not properly defeated

Russians whining, “War is terrifying, I’m literally shaking,” is honestly chef’s kiss – because the war has finally come back to where it started.

There was one but it wasn’t popular enough to continue. That could be used to decide the US entry in the pan-American contest, though.

Kijów obrywa dronami i rakietami już piąty rok i miasto działa, ludzie siedza w kawiarniach w trakcie alarmów. Ciekawe po ilu *dniach* w Moskwie będą mieli dość 🙃 wiadomosci.wp.pl/mieszkancy-m...

Rafineria Moskiewska, Kapotnia (południowo-wschodnia część miasta) Jedne z najlepiej chronionych obiektów w obwodzie moskiewskim 🤌

Sapkowski’s dwarves are also intentionally Jewish-coded and Geralt dies trying to protect them from a pogrom

For a really faithful adaptation, Peter Jackson should try to film The Silmarillion in various iterations until he dies, for a son of his to then cut that footage into a movie

and then release a 12-volume "making of"

It is sheer Yank hubris when they think their pale, pathetic imitations like Alex Jones and Tucker Carlson can match what is happening in Old World thought. Cope, seethe, etc.

A Slovak friend’s teacher was a member of the Universe People ( Vesmírní lidé sil světla aka Anioły Nieba in Polish) UFO cult

For a really faithful adaptation, Peter Jackson should try to film The Silmarillion in various iterations until he dies, for a son of his to then cut that footage into a movie

It began with the forging of the Great Genders. Three were given to the Elves, immortal, wisest, fairest of all beings. Seven to the Dwarf lords. And nine genders were gifted to the race of men who above all else desire power. But they were all of them deceived, for another gender was made. In the f

Favorite new thing learning French was encountering the phrase "un peu trop hexagonale" meaning "a bit too hexagonal" to mean "a bit too French" because France is roughly the shape of hexagon. I'd encountered "l'Hexagone" plenty of times, but didn't know one could be hexagonale.

I've seen that list of 100 best novels and (though I've not counted) a *lot* of them are from English-language writers. It's a very English-language centric list. Any such list is going to be debatable, but at least they could make an effort to realise that other literary traditions exist.

And for that matter Star Wars is actually somewhat more subtle about it than “Brits are a handy shorthand for evil”; Brits are a handy shorthand for “well-off/ well-educated people from the Imperial Core”, which is why Ben Kenobi and Mon Mothma are also British, tho I admit it doesn’t explain Leia.

Captain Picard says what

Any idea what script/language this might be? Asking for a friend #linguistics #langsky 🐦🐦

A fan's memory of Ian Watson; a worthy tribute. For authors at conventions, this is the way 😊

Tremendous obituary for Ian Watson from Lisa Tuttle. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/m...

Indicative, Imperative, Conjunctive, Optative, Benedictive, and Frustrative (Yes, they all exist, in different languages).

first of all, the ancient Greeks would have objected to Helen being played by a female actress instead of a dude in a mask

> Indo-European racial purity is such a funny pseudoacademic phrase if I've ever seen one.

Is Gulsora (Tajik name apparently) the first non-Russian Soviet character on For All Mankind so far (or am I forgetting someone)? #ForAllMankind

I forget who it was who first said that Bluesky was a retirement home for Millennial posters but they were right and I remain fine with that

I had hundreds of thousands of accounts blocked on Twitter and that made it somewhat useable but then after Elon's takeover 1) mass blocking tools stopped working 2) half of my blocklist disappeared

I'm not particularly famous and I'm still having more fun here than I was at Twitter by the time I left it, with more meaningful engagement than I had there (and at least fewer trolls to block)

Thread. I've found Bluesky engaging, fun and *alive* since the first day I got here, in part because I went out of my way to engage with it, not just expect some algorithm to platform what I do. Also because, fundamentally, I'm here to be social, not just to market, and that has a long-term effect.

The book's ending hits harder with this part of the story. If you're reading Children of Strife, this is really worth reading when you're about 75 per cent of the way through the novel.

Also despite his reputation the most distinctive thing about Machiavelli's /own/ political career is his unerring talent for ending up on the losing side of civil wars

I’m sad they didn’t do Númenor correctly because it should actually be steampunkish; HoME talks about Numenorean metal ships without sails, artillery and even airships

Whatever else you say about Ar-Phârazon, at least he made the trains run on time

It is an endless embarrassment that Schröder is still an SPD member. The man is a literal Russian agent and board member of Gazprom.

Your last saved meme is your moral philosophy.

i bet a million dollars that you won't guess which article this is from

The press only activates on corruption if you are doing something to curb it in any way, thereby admitting it exists. If Zelensky acted like a proper authoritarian (which the people wouldn't allow) and lock down all access and anti-corruption agencies, you wouldn't hear about corruption ever again.

Recently read my first Zelazny, which was Roadmarks. Great book, so happy to recommend this by association.

just gotta mute the words "Starmer" and "Streeting" at this point to use this website, just like I had muted top American politicians' names before

tbh Ada Palmer's Inventing the Renaissance being nominated to Best Related Work Hugo is a bit of a stretch, since it's a pop-history book without much of a connection to SFF beyond the author herself. But then again, it's a great read so I'm not gonna complain about it being in the voter packet.

Pęknięta czaszka Artema i milczenie polityków. Więcej: wyborcza.pl/7,75968,3279...

Lem only ever liked one movie adaptation of his works – the short film "Przekładaniec" ("Layer Cake") directed by Andrzej Wajda, and that's because Lem wrote the script himself www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3tM...

It is notable that one of the most pronounced differences between Ukraine and the USA is that while both have corruption problems, the Ukr are investigating theirs up to the highest levels of govt, while the US govt is openly fostering more corruption.

Rodzice wysyłają niepełnosprawne dziecko z kraju ogarnietego krwawą wojną domową do bezpiecznej i praworządnej zdawałoby się Europy a tu polscy strażnicy graniczni na przejściu granicznym chwytają to dziecko i wyjebują do lasu na Białoruś. Tusk i Kierwiński chwalą się 99% szczelnością zapory.

Lewica, kurde. Poseł Szejna ma w głowie taką samą sieczkę jak Mentzen.

it's so weird that people get worked up when Ukrainians on here mention the collective guilt of russians. They are not actually punishing russians as a whole! Ukraine could hit russian schools and hospitals as retribution, but they do not. Angry internet comments are not punishment.

Or if he just had a Totenkopf tattoo and pretended he didn’t know what it means

In other words

it's a fake quote, though (even if she would have likely shared the general sentiment if she were alive)

This is silly, backwards framing at best, and deliberate undermining of Ukraine, at worst. The fact that Ukraine's anticorruption bodies are powerful and independent enough to charge none other but the former chief of staff of the president actually bolsters Zelensky's EU push!