hmm

Happy Diwali. The world needs the light.

One of the the weirds things for me is that there seem to be a splinter group of Catholics who are ignoring what I think of as the core beliefs of Catholicism, and have more in common with the gospel of prosperity than the Bible gospels (I'm talking about the reply person obv, not the pope).

Epic journey to Brighton will take place soon. Epic means expensive. 😅 ko-fi.com/jolantru/shop

for the morning crowd - if you're at @worldfantasy2025.bsky.social you should get to the @wtpress.bsky.social launch at 3pm on the Saturday if you can. Juliet will be there launching this (plus a bunch of other books from WT, who are a fantastic and innovative indy press).

Archita is a regular SH reviewer. Let's do this, people --- help our SFF folk out!

Congratulations to Cat O'H and Iman H for winning the 2 Enchanting the Fae Queen ARCs in my newsletter giveaway! I've emailed you both now - do check your inboxes. And for everyone else, you can preorder your own copies now: stephanieburgis.com/books/enchanting-the-fae-queen #romancelandia

And speaking of side characters - or the other aspects of the worldbuilding... Ever wondered about the priestesses of the Sword Goddess? books2read.com/u/3LOxMM

For folks in Taipei, I will be doing an event at NCCU tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon. Please share with folks may be interested. I will have a small number of my books on sale.

If you’re in a creative field and you don’t lift up the work of your peers, you can’t expect people to care about your stuff

There's something bleakly funny about the fact this weekend's right-wing influence op is still only about 1/100th the size of the regularly recurring romance scammers, pig butchers, fake Keanus Reeve and Elons Musk, crypto/forex trading scams, lottery winner scams, and fake charity scams

@rinwrites.bsky.social I feel you'd get a kick out of this!

Failure to return the shopping cart to one of the cart returns if you are able is a sign of someone who does not value the social contract.

man i know you're pushing back against right-wing propaganda, but it's still weird to be THAT proud of how peaceful/lawful/patriotic your protest was, bc that's not something *you* get to decide to be, unilaterally! that's something the state decides you get to be (until it doesn't)!

Hate this has to be a thing, but love the sign on a nearby booth at Baltimore Comic Con.

Akatsuki no Yona Chapter 273 shorturl.at/NYsHm

My fountain pen hoarding dragon stickers are officially on back order! I have more supplies to make more coming in on Monday so shipping might be slightly delayed. But they're still available on my website rusapenarts.com

A big lesson of the civil rights movement was that everyone has their own activism and we support each other. If you're a radical activist, you can draw fire away from peaceful protestors. If you're a pacifist and you see radicals fucking shit up, no you didn't. You didn't see a damn thing.

Look, I'm all for anonymity at ANY protest but I'm also very much for not militarising a protest against authoritarianism and also not giving protest tips when you don't even live in the same country as the protesters.

Today I learnt there's a Mazu blind box series. share.google/xCnsGWobSeIL... For Catholics, she's often conflated with Mary, Star of the Sea (they used to do this to increase conversion rates, I believe implying different forms of various Saints were Chinese deities)

Powerful letter from a non-verbal autistic person. Give it two minutes of your night and feel your heart expand.

I cannot recommend you enough to install the Wikipedia app on your devices and use it like you would any search engine. Nowadays they even have tabs so you can open many articles at once. And, if you can, please donate to the foundation. It has survived the internet enshittification that way.

if you're in Alberta and you want your flu and covid shot in 2026 - yes you read that correctly - you have to preorder them right now. So here's the link. go do that. Just in case none of those people get removed from power by then. please repost this, as the province seems bent on killing us.

all these people protesting today in groups of a few dozen on the main streets of small towns in deep red Trump country - where they will absolutely take shit from their neighbors about it at church tomorrow or at work on Monday or next time they go to the grocery store - are braver than the Marines

re: Claire's last post -- I've seen that sentiment more than usual today and I deeply appreciate it, because I do think it recognizes something that is often ignored: that folks down here are risking more to show up (and fighting harder just to vote, and a dozen other things) and it's real.

FATED STATES PHONEBANKERS: you can join the Sister District phonebanks to help send a blue wave through Virginia for the statewide elections there on November 4. State legislatures are the first and foremost line of defense against authoritarianism. Sign up to phonebank (with training!).

I’m still learning. Lots of people who have been doing various forms of activism & community care work for a long time know much & I am grateful to them. & I can’t put it better than Diane Di Prima did: “NO ONE WAY WORKS, it will take all of us shoving at the thing from all sides to bring it down”

The Apex Kickstarter is at $11345!! 🎉🎉🎉 They need $20k by October 31! If you were holding out on other goodies before kicking in, check this out!

#Booksky When you get back from marching/showing solidarity today, we’ve got tales ranging from tales of resistance to cosy comfort reads! And on Monday, gay vampires with a twist! queenofswordspress.com

If I want to talk to someone I will meet up with or call them. I use my computer to get work done and make my own art. It is a tool, not a thing I talk to. Saying you want a PC to be a partner is like saying you want to have a drink with a washing machine or go on a romantic date with a toaster.

The Diwali festival starts today,! Time to celebrate the the festival of lights and the triumph of light over darkness. This week's column is about the food side, including the savoury, spicy, salty, sweet, crunchy and yielding snacks.. #Food #WaterlooRegion #Diwali www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Wikipedia is the best single thing the Internet has ever given us and it's not even close

The Blossoming 🎆 #TempleOfDreams #OcArt #ArtSky

I haven't had the capacity to keep up with moderation lists for a bit, but this one is really obvious, so I'm stealing some energy from Future Me: a list for the extremely obvious wave of inauthentic accounts following today's newly-created US gov accounts bsky.app/profile/did:...

Just a brief reminder that the traditional list of banned books are important to read but so are books being published today by authors who are alive and have things like rent to pay, kids to feed, a fascist country to escape because they are trans/not white. 1/2

Buying a bunch of copies of 1984 is all fine and dandy but it benefits absolutely no one. So ya know save some money for some authors who are actually alive.

The other people I'm constantly mad at is the MEF because they lobbied against min wage for so long, and now that min wage is implemented they're lobbying to keep it low because "SMEs can't afford it" (which is just an excuse to protect the big corps that they run that definitely can)

these are not grifts, they are luxury goods. luxury goods usually sound silly, and usually have much cheaper, similar replacements, but that doesn’t mean luxury goods are a scam. nobody buying a fancy little walnut box and a $125 pen is being “grifted.” they are indulging themselves.

Oh hi. strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...

Via @automaton-media.com, composer Uematsu: “I’ve never used AI & probably never will. I think it still feels more rewarding to go through the hardships of creating something myself. When you listen to music, the fun is also in discovering the background of the person who created it, right?" More:

Ideal conditions for starting your passion project will never come. You will never feel skilled enough to make it. There will never be a moment where you stop being scared to start. Do it anyway. Do it badly. Do it scared. Just make that thing that’s clawing at the door of your soul; It wants out.

It's actually remarkably easy to not ever use ChatGPT.

i cannot stress that last point enough paypal can take your money as compensation if they think you break tos is it shitty? yes. but they are NOT banks and are NOT regulated or insured like banks are. do not treat them as a bank.. it is a middleman for money.

Opus Dei was what allowed Spanish Fascist Generalissimo Francisco Franco to rework himself as being an ally against the Soviets. They legitimized a man who took over Spain via a coup and waged a bloody war on his own people, only won from direct Nazi support.

Opus Dei was ordered by Pope Francis to go through a whole reform process which they postponed after he died (because of "mourning." sure Jan) and have clearly been hoping that he'd get replaced by someone they could sway. I am guessing Francis saw that coming and corrected for it in his successor

heartbroken to learn the pope sympathizes with the poor. how can i continue to believe in god

Every time I'm able to access a subsidised or free service (usually health-related) because I have access to and know how to navigate my way around the internet and live in the capital, I feel relieved but also angry because healthcare is a right and it really shouldn't be that hard.

I'm also angry because a report came out saying that fresh grads here, if starter salaries had scaled along with inflation, should be getting 7-8k. Most get 2k (473USD/405EUR) or less. 5k/household is the poverty line. A lot of my peers don't even make 7-8k after 1-2 decades of work.

Baek Sehee, the author of I WANT TO DIE BUT I WANT TO EAT TTEOKBOKKI has passed away. She was 35. The Korean organ donation authority reports that Sehee saved five lives through her donation of her heart, lungs, liver, and both kidneys.

Let them shout into the void. They hate being ignored, because they literally can only have fun when they're harassing us.