yes. they pay more based on income in taxes for the thing that is then “free” for everyone. this is how public services work

Anyway I am going to a science fiction convention all this weekend and am therefore of course both looking forward to it immensely and absolutely dreading the noise, the crowds, the imposter syndrome, the rejection sensitivity, and the not being in my own bed

Ah yes

I also drew this tortoise

I drew this, a while agoe. It is a tortoise

yes you fucking morons free preschool for everyone or it becomes just "free preschool for the poors" and then you call them leeches and ask for tax breaks when really we want free preschool for everyone because we want smart well adjusted kids why is this so hard? www.nytimes.com/2026/03/31/n...

I spend way too much time marinating in self-loathing and convincing myself I'm not worthy of anything good because of every mistake I've ever made from the age of 9 up to last week for this many other people to walk around going "heehee look I 'wrote' a novel using AI, off to watch Harry Potter"

Having to push a clunky button in to take the face plate off the radio so some scrotey little fucker wouldn't nick it

I agree with all of this, except I know for a FACT that by no means all writers ENJOY writing. A good schlug of us enjoy, per Dorothy Parker, having written.

[0011112] Monster Slayer "horrified by watching <monster> die"

[0010396] Cannot Bury Reanimated Corpses

A person I think about sometimes is Bob Ebeling, the man who realised the Challenger launch was going to go wrong, and spent his life wracked with guilt at failing to stop it, to the extent that people wrote to him on his deathbed trying to help him find peace. www.npr.org/sections/the...

Went to the pub for dinner, got horribly anxious as I always do (which I NOW know is ND overwhelm from noise and people and smells and SHRIEKING but always just thought was 'a thing everyone gets but just puts up with'), and am now at home, on an oversize beanbag, under two weighted blankets

We report: the west wind veered southwest through the night, and the moderate breeze turned into a strong breeze. Fog banks advanced towards land in the early morning, but dissipated before first lights. It is now the coldest it will get today; it feels exactly right.

A nostalgic yearning, the youthful optimism of a Star Trek future, flashed up, up and across the endless expanse of my jaded soul for a fraction of a second, there, before burning up on re-entry.

moby-dick, his eyes enormous: from hell's heart you STAB at moby? for hate's sake you spit your last BREATH at moby? oh! oh! the great shroud of the sea for ahab! the great shroud of the sea rolling on as it rolled five thousand years ago!!!!

Going to be slowly posting art I did for LARP: Book of Kubeth Done in faux woodcut and watercolour. 1/4

I studied the Diggers/Seekers/Fifth Monarchists for my dissertation on The Ranters at uni - the execution of the king in January 1649 led to all these radical sects who perceived that social hierarchy had been smashed. What Cromwell and the army grandees had unleashed completely terrified them

Today

The 'stop complaining, life is suffering, you don't have ADHD, you never did, you're just a silly woman who can't cope' narrative emerging from St Streeting, the right-wing press, and wider society is doubly damaging for me as someone with long-standing issues from an evangelical childhood, I think

HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT! i will strangle a horse VR edition available NOW brainmage.itch.io/i-will-stran...

I am very, very tired.

most brands on April 1st: half-arsed 200 word blog post Warhammer: www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articl...

1am posting: do you oscillate wildly between 'Everyone is struggling so much. I want to do something to help. Something. Anything. I feel so powerless and stupid even on the small things' and 'How dare I ever assume that anything I do is worthwhile, valuable, helpful, or wanted. I should disappear'

ah, le sac magique

“I wore a dangly chain connected to my wallet, which was the style at the time.”

The otherwise calm life of the last “neurotypical” person on the planet to like Sonic the Hedgehog has become increasingly disturbed by the ominous sound of ticking, according to reports.

There are very stupid people in charge of important matters or with great influence, doing and saying very stupid things, and earning a great deal of money, and meanwhile I am spending my day supporting very vulnerable Union members with challenging cases, and arguing for basic inclusion in a game

This evening someone earnestly flagged the word 'scatter' as an example of language that had been edited to be too 'sophisticated' (their term), and I think, with everyone's permission, I might just gouge my own eyes out and walk directly into the Thames.

God, I hate irritable and grumpy pain makes me.

Outsourcing a costume, what things would someone raised in a post-apocalyptic commune based in an abandoned analogue television factory wear / have about their person So far I'm thinking of printing out the components of Test Card F as a 'guide to making explosives' and doing neon striped facepaint

"actually Kier Starmer is doing a really good job in incredibly difficult circumstances. He is a strong and credible leader."

Start thw week by playing my horse adventure, that's what I say. I mean, honestly. It's free to play, I genuinely think it's very funny, and you can die by shitting yourself because you thought of a robot policeman tok much. What more do you people want??

Hot take: Men & masc-presenting people at LARP do one 20 min session of waggling a foam weapon in someone's face and then start talking very seriously about battle tactics and footwork in exactly the same way that a junior karateka who has just passed their 8th kyu talks about 'fighting awareness'

Look at this chunky little fucker who turned up yesterday, alright pal

'Not everyone has time to write a book,' says the AI advert, as if shitting on the planet and other people's hard work to use it will somehow mean that you have miraculously written a book

Clear, targeted, evidence-based regulation is generally Good, Actually

Fanad Lighthouse, County Donegal

Gosh, I get super sleepy after my elvanse top up

The thing about hypermobility is a lot ofthe pain is from muscles spasming 'cos they're having to take up the load from lax ligaments, so they get tight, but because the joints are so loose, you can't really stretch the muscles either as the joint goes well beyond reason before any stretch happens

What the average person thinks HR is supposed to do for them at a job is what unions are actually for.

Uni has said they will pay for me to go to this conference! I'm a real post-doc student now, Gepetto :3

A Little Owl was rescued after falling down a chimney. South Essex Wildlife Hospital reported he was "dirty and dehydrated but soon on his way back home". Want to donate to SEWH? southessexwildlife.org/donate Source: fb.com/555952912555... #owlsintowels 💛🦉

I am going to eastercon and selling my soul to pay for it

Possibly doing a couple of fundraising twitch streams over the next couple of days to help me go to the (space) ball, i.e. a sci fi convention happening over the easter weekend, because so much of it is relevant to my PhD, but MONEY

immediately after posting you have a brief window of i-frames before your skeet is submitted and hits the tl, so as long as you maintain skeet frequency and volume (not quantity) you CAN post through it and never die

I thought Marcel Vos did a vid on this but actually he made his own coaster absolutely chumping Mr Bones' Wild Ride. Exponentially, existentially. youtu.be/4o0-0G2OjSg?...

Just been approached by Huel to see if I'll be part of their paid influencer campaign. I don't think they're quite across what I do for a living. (FWIW, and in the interests of having influence, I regard Huel as a soul destroying, miserable product and the death of all that is worth living for.)