Quote posting to add alt text.

Okay and its finished!

OTHERSIDE has been open for 20 minutes and we’re already reading submissions! Thank you to everyone who decided to ring in the new year by sending us your work—we can’t wait to read it all! othersidespec.com/guidelines/

Poem with a subliminal message.

And here's yet another reason why it's a bad idea to let AI do your work for you. Even just part of it. publichealthpolicyjournal.com/mit-study-fi...

Bigger bonsai craft set, here we goooo

any discussion of city transit improvement online ever

THIS. Did you know sickle cell is curable, now? FULLY curable. If you're feeling down or despairing about what FEELS like technology/advancement/science "standing still" or being fully malicious, I have great news: You're not paying attention to actual science. Just tech industry marketing.

We've come to the end of our look back at the year. Translunar Travelers Lounge published two issues with a total of twenty eight stories. If any of these have stayed with you then please consider them for awards, reading lists, or perhaps you might write a review.

3d puzzle night! Not livetweeting it but I did takes some pics during. its made of very thin cuts of plywood. no glue, all kept together by tabs in slots

It is fascinating to me that people think that folks who mask need to explain it to... Anyone. Like, do you want people to give you the murder board explanation of our chronic illness? Talk about our parent or kid with cancer? It couldn't be less of your business.

Meanwhile this is *machine learning* and what it is *good at*. Not generative AI bullshit, actual useful predictive statistical models. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Also I heard "that thing you do" song the other day and could not stop wondering what "that thing you do" actually is. FRIENDS, WHAT DO YOU THINK "THAT THING YOU DO" REFERS TO. My best guess is: sick yoyo tricks.

Dune That Thing You Do

DUNESTRUCK

Next time someone says they don’t have to apologize for being white anymore, ask them to tell about the most recent time they were forced to apologize for being white and who made them do it.

If you are saying using AI is okay you’re saying feeding data into AI is okay

You really gonna tell me you have trouble with pronouns when you’ve been eating her/she chocolate all your life?

In celebration of deleting Twitter here's a collection of some of my popularest tweets, now only available here.

And Tiny Tim, who did knot dye

This offer is still open, happy to lend an ear if you need one

The innkeeper isn't the bad guy in the story, he's a *good guy* in the story. He *doesn't have room in his inn* and then *finds a spot for Mary anyway*. And this act of kindness is why Jesus is born in a manger -- warm, dry, safe, surrounded by people that love him -- instead of out in the desert

If you are an innkeeper and all of the rooms in your inn are full and then a pregnant lady shows up and says "hey can I get a room?" What are you gonna say? You don't have any rooms left! You're gonna say, "sorry, I don't have any rooms left!" That's not *bad*, that's just *true*.

"Cnow is falling with a capital 'C'" -Kelly Clarkson, Underneath the Tree

ONLY YULE

The news about Harlequin translators getting fired en masse? You should care about that. They're doing it there because they think nobody gives a shit about romance and so it's fine to experiment with it first.

It’s not “losing money” any more than air traffic controllers or public highways or street lights or fire departments are “losing money.” It is a government service. It’s not SUPPOSED to make money. It’s supposed to reliably deliver to anywhere in the US, even the unprofitable places.

“_Donita's Infernos_ was very influential to me. It got me interested in space travel and physics. I wanted to be an astronaut.” “Did you become an astronaut?” “Nah.” --- Loved editing @priyajsridhar.bsky.social 's story for @diabolicalplots.com : www.diabolicalplots.com/dp-fiction-1...

love that software developers are advertising AI functionality in every single app now and it's up to you to try to figure out if they mean "this has spellcheck" or "everything you create in this app will sync in real-time to sam altman's personal laptop" or something in between

Most Americans aren't donating to charities for the same reason Black Friday saw record low sales: we don't have money. The economy is in the toilet for everybody except the rich. If you can help, please do. But if you can't, I understand.

one of the stories i haven't been able to NOT think about this year is "Will He Speak with Gentle Words?" by A.J. LaRocca in @diabolicalplots.com the twists and turns of language of this one are lovely, along with the song and the fun of it. can't stop thinking of it.

Parisot (the Director) tells a story about how Tim Allen just started crying after a scene one day "I don't like these feelings i'm having." Says Tim. "I'm going back to my trailor" and walks off. There's silence for a second. "Oh my god." Says Rickman. "I think Tim just experienced acting."

Oh sorry, one more I would not ever take the output of any software translation as accurate. Even excluding hallucinations (and that's a big exclude), what you're not getting from it is context dependent meanings (like homophones, idioms, slang, etc). Fastest way to accidentally insult someone

Deep breath Ok I'm going to try and stay calm But I'll point out that AI translation is literally causing translators to be fired (see the whole Harlequin line in France) (1/?)

Using stolen material. Stolen from writers and artists.

This is amazing!

Tis the Season #Christmas #HappyHolidays

Men feeling sorry for men who make selfish decisions that hurt the women in their lives are just as untrustworthy and raggedy as the men who did the shit. I can’t stand any of yall. Babying grown ass men and saying they need support. What about the women they hurt along the way?

Why should she stay and be miserable, wasting years she could be happy

my name is cow and wen its nite and when a star is shiyning brite and three wise men give me the nod i walk up close I lik the God

for me it's not about if AI art is good enough, or useful. I don't have the skills to recognize all the ways it sucks. what matters is 1) they stole the art of artists to create that and it is not okay. 2) people are now trying to put those artists out of work using it, and THAT IS NOT OKAY.

This is a totally fair point. I do hope that writers love to write at least some of the time, but if you are doing it for a living thrn deadlines and expectations and trying to make ends meet, not always gonna be fun.

Now, using an LLM to get past the point where you feel like you’re chiseling the words out of stone tablets located inside your ribcage is still a terrible idea, don’t get me wrong. I just worry that in the haste to condemn LLMs, we’re over-romanticizing the human creative process.

blergh, I HATE having to ask coz I know it’s super hard for everyone especially around this time of year… but I’m also about to hit negative balances and I don’t get paid til next Friday :/ been a real f’ing hard eight months tbh and I’m sorry everything is so awful ko-fi.com/mercwolfmoor

My friends, I say this with all the love in my heart: Right now might not be the moment for “But we should be TOLERANT and NUANCED about the plagiarism machines!” Your tolerance and “nuance” will be weaponised by the grifters and their apologists. Please respect yourselves more.

Going into 2026, a reminder for everyone who's fallen off the creative wagon, game dev, writing, art, music, whatever, no matter how long:

The most charitable way I can interpret the LLM announcement here is: utterly baffling. The least charitable way would turn the air blue with profanity.

I'm so disappointed in @sfwa.org for this. I understand that by requiring disclosure of partial LLM-created works, as their announcement states, means SFWA's letting "nominators and the voters" make the final decision. BUT YOU'RE STILL ALLOWING SUCH WORKS ON THE NEBULA AWARDS FINAL BALLOT! 1/