In short, every shithead you don't ban costs you ten other customers. "A [potentially regular] customer doesn't say anything but never comes back" doesn't register with you as An Event the way that kicking someone out (temporarily or permanently) does, so it's extremely easy to miss it.

Synopsis: You need to kick more people out. You will actually have a larger base of customers/attendees if you kick more people out. You will make more money. I am dead serious.

I spent an excessive number of years moderating a gaming forum and I learned a great deal about community spaces and cultivation, whether I wanted to or not. I have critical advice for anyone who runs a game store or gaming convention. Please share this thread with people who run those things.

"Many colleges now make policies, syllabi...with an eye on what congressional committees may think...I warn you gentlemen, there are some shocking things in Plato and the Bible." -- Prof. Oscar Schaftel (Queens College), 1952, before the McCarran Committee

I am YOUNG LADY, WHERE ARE YOUR PANTS years old.

My latest book The Starseekers is out today! And in a twist it’s oddly topical despite being set in the 1960s. NASA, student protests, humans vs computers, education, PBS, and museum heist are a few themes I can easily match to current headlines. Which makes it’s fun and very interesting 😅!

Okay, I will preface this with the GIGANTIC disclaimer that I promise I know how this looks, and I *swear* this is not personally motivated: If you have an old #LiveJournal account, and it has things you still care about in it, download it or import it to Dreamwidth SOON. Details:

this is how every outlet should refer to X

Hey, if you're looking for a new hobby -- especially one that's analog -- my brilliant friend @badasscrossstitch.bsky.social is hosting a learn to embroider on Zoom this weekend www.eventbrite.com/e/1977418083...

This is truth.

this is a crucial survival skill Online

It is the antithesis of “everyone is beautiful and no one is horny.”

So it's appropriate to arrest a world leader if you consider them criminal? You can just go get them? Just asking questions here.

This worked on me like an emergency braking system. Needed it.

Ask not what your representative will do for you (nothing), ask how you can make your representative so miserable they quit their job

hey remember when a bunch of middle-aged drunk korean lawmakers climbed the locked gates to the national assembly to hold an emergency session after the president gave illegal orders to the military, all of which ended with said president being sentenced to prison

The whole "Grok admits" "Grok apologizes" thing reminds me of the famous IBM presentation quote that evidently everyone has forgotten. And I do think representing your brand on social media counts as a "management decision".

Baby this is it - this is the frame -Mamdani: “These policies are not simply about the costs we make free but *the lives we fill with freedom.*” Not worrying about the cost of childcare and whether the bus will come makes you more free. Not worrying whether you can pay your rent makes you more free.

This also holds if you swap out urban America with people of color, I think

how I'm heading into 2026

If you are new to following, every two years I become possessed by the spirit of voting rights and with @totallydonna.kitrocha.com and @courtneymilan.com and a team of volunteers with all the ADHD and none of the self-control, we raise money for voting rights orgs. We hit $1 million total in 2024!

This is true and I was the only one on set excited about it (and playing the song on my phone to blank stares)

Can the straight men just read some goddamn romance novels and calm the fuck down?!

Thanks to Heated Rivalry, people are asking why so many women are writing and reading m/m romance. Not only is that a boring question, it's backwards. Why shouldn't women (and women-adjacent people) be doing this? Also: why aren't men reading and writing more genres that center love and HEAs?

Now that Heated Rivalry s1 has wrapped up I've been coping by listening to episode recaps by the finest hockey bros in all the land, i.e. What Chaos and Empty Netters, and I am so charmed by these guys, who are diving head-first into a genre they have zero experience with, but also. Also.

Alt my loving, I will send to you #HeatedRivalry

A late entry in the race for most curséd news summaries of 2025

This whole fucking thread, man...

You have got to be fucking kidding me. That’s it. I quit the internet. I draw the line at butt phrenology.

Once again, I must reiterate my biggest dream in the wake of Heated Rivalry’s success: If I had all the money in the world I would start an exclusively romance network and adapt ALL THE BOOKS for it. Varying subgenres, varying heat levels.

I've had a few people say to me (on the heels of watching Heated Rivalry) that they wished there were sapphic hockey romances, and folks... let me tell you the good news about @kellyfarmerauthor.bsky.social! www.kellyfarmerauthor.com/books

I went to the cottage and came back convinced that we need shows like Heated Rivalry more than ever. "Sometimes the most radical thing you can do is to have a good time on purpose." newsletter.sachajudd.com/archive/a-tr... Thanks @carlylane.bsky.social & @readingtheend.bsky.social for their posts.

Feeling this so hard this past several weeks

If you’re wondering why your friends in academia are a little on edge right now, it’s because an eighteen-year-old who hasn’t done the reading, doesn’t look at the assignment, and has does no critical thinking skills more complex than “because I think it’s in the Bible” can literally end your career

this website full of elder millennials has been training for this for 25 years

The purpose of a system is what it does

Bob Dylan attempts to explain Willie Nelson in The New Yorker's profile of Willie: www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

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."

The Trump supporter who runs CBS news just killed a story about Trump’s favorite torture prison. Here’s why America has a liberal media bias problem.

please let “bugs bunnying” become the slang for manipulating an LLM into ignoring its guardrails, i have never seen a more succinct and evocative term for it

👏

Periodic reminder: if your local library doesn’t have Kanopy, Hoopla, etc, your state probably does! Check your capitol or largest city. In Texas, it’s Houston: houstonlibrary.org/mylink

Hey, if your library has Kanopy (we just accessed it last night for the first time, holy molee, it's like the Criterion Collection in there, SO many excellent and classic films), they've got James Goldman's Christmas classic THE LION IN WINTER, which is essentially SUCCESSION, at Christmas, in 1187

One day something will happen — a wedding, a graduation, a job promotion, Jake Paul getting knocked out, Andrew Tate getting knocked out the next day — and you’ll want the right outfit to celebrate. Buy that special outfit now, so you’re ready when that next unexpected moment arrives.

When I rule the universe, fresh grapes will be labeled according to variety like wines, so you know not to buy the ones that are so sour they turn your tongue inside out.

you can cheer when the rats flee the ship, but you do not need to invite the rats over to your ship. the rats are icky. let those fuckers swim

"Next year, the British Book Awards will recognise romantic fiction for the first time. The recognition is long overdue." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

‘But, above all, Cristalián is a massively fun read. “There’s this female giant who flies a dragon that you don’t sit on,” said Arboleda. “There’s a door in its side and you open it and get in. It’s like a plane or like the bus from [Hayao] Miyazaki’s My Neighbour Totoro.”’ In 1545!

Seeing a lot of Heated Rivalry takes from people who are steeped in Queer Literature(tm) but not queer *romance* and they are so wildly off base that we seem to be watching different shows. “Why isn’t this joyful romance more tragic?” is apparently something people can get paid to write!