Most people aren’t asking you mask at all times. They ask that you mask in essential places: public transit, hospitals, doctors’ offices, pharmacies etc. Places high risk people can’t avoid. But if you hate wearing masks? Then advocate for indoor air quality: ventilation, filtration, etc.

People who opposes taxes are people who don't realize they're already benefiting from us acting collectively at scale. Mostly dudes who can't conceive of their own disabled future and think that roads are facts of life instead of major ongoing human projects.

(couldn't help myself)

Spoiler alert- it was a Catholic hospital. I’ve been reading stories about people being denied miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy care at Catholic hospitals for well over a decade now, and people have definitely died because of these policies, but maternal mortality data is imperfect.

Setting aside graverobbing woman who died in no small part due to men exploiting her image, copyright violations aren't "growing pains." It's literally the law. They’re breaking the law. Without copyright law, there is no creative industry, and without a creative industry, there is no genAI.

Secondary worlds in Fantasy novels are actually real. All of them. When you close the cover, everyone in that world dies screaming. They die screaming over and over again. That's on you.

Angeltober 2022 Illustrations Day 11: Sacrament "Sanctus" Josiel, Principality of Written Laws

Them: need help doing things? Me: yes Them: we have a doing things medication Me: ooh Them: hahahahaha guess what you have to do to get it? Me: oh no Them: things.

been really getting into painting traditionally again #myart

When we write or draw porn or erotica, we get banned from having a bank account and our livelihoods get seized even if we give it away for free. When billionaires steal what we've written or drawn to churn out a slop-approximate of porn, they're allowed to charge for it.

Writing novels is very hard, and everyone who finishes writing one deserves praise and accolades purely for that accomplishment.

look: the industry is rigged against you from top to bottom. BUT there have never been more tools for you to share your work with people, from self-pub to Patreon to the AO3's original fiction section. do what you have to do. (then yell at me to take my own advice.)

Hey im so sorry but I need to take bo to the emergency vet and I absolutely do not have enough to cover x rays as my wellness plan only covers the office visit. If you were ever interested in a book, now is a great time!

I just don't know how you see a story like this and think "yes, this is exactly the kind of technology I want in the classroom."

A lot of comments on Mars rovers or Moon landings, but it's important to remember that the planet NASA studies most is Earth. This is less about cutting flashy things like moonwalks and more about keeping communities in the dark on climate, weather, agriculture, pollution, natural hazards, and more.

Romance readers AND publishers need to stop expecting authors to publish a book a year, *especially* if the publisher is not providing a livable advance bsky.app/profile/rach...

Not very unhinged, but: Stop reading a book if you're bouncing off of it. Stop "powering through." You're just wasting your time. You don't get a gold star for finishing books you're not enjoying reading.

Gentle reminder: I am seeing more "I cannot afford pet food" posts & if you might face this in the near future/now, I recommend checking your local area's subreddit and posting if anyone knows of local programs for pet food. Many areas have small under-the-radar charities that give out pet food.

Most "classics" are boring as fuck to a modern reader in no small part because the context of the story is not understood by them and so many of the allusions and "inside jokes" known to then-contemporary readers have been lost in time and in translation

"This is the age of hubris — a time in which we are going to watch stupid, powerful and rich men fuck up their legacies by finding a technology so vulgar in its costs and mythical outcomes that it drives the avaricious insane and makes fools of them."

Because of a large storm moving into Southern California over the next couple days the areas of the Palisades and Eaton burn scars are under flood evacuation warning. If you live in those areas you might want to consider leaving now. Mudslides are not to be fucked with. abc7.com/live-updates...

Signs of approaching Autumn: - dark fairies return from their summer vacations - forest gloom takes on an orange hue - moss awakens from slumber to devour unwary hikers - garden gnomes sharpen their fangs - the twig witch inflicts her pumpkin-spiced curse upon the land once more

More writers need to watch all the seasons of HOW IT'S MADE because they for whatever reason have NO idea how the world works, or how things work, or how things work in the world, and then it shows up in their fiction and makes me yell and swear and pace and weep and rend my clothes in despair.

You can't logic your way out of being burnt out. Unless you're me. Who should be able to do it and it's a personal failing that I can't

you know, like it "worked out" for the irish after the great famine the english could’ve not engineered. sam altman is irresponsible af.

CANADIANS!! The official petition started by a member of Parliament to fight back against payment processors' censorship of legal content is only open for a few more days. Make sure you've signed it: www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en...

People have no idea how many homeless people in this area are serving their fast food or checking them out at the grocery store lane. Want to solve homelessness? Build a lot more affordable housing and pay living wages.

The vampires in my world got tired of being hunted down and living in fear, so about 300 years ago they took over a collection of cities spread across the world. They stopped there, telling the mortal world “These are ours now. You’re welcome to visit or live in them if you behave.”

We absolutely, positively DO NOT need to learn to live with anyone who wants some of us FUCKING ERASED. Rowling & her money is doing real harm to trans men & women across the world and she needs to fuck off into the sun at her earliest opportunity. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Into the sun.

Tension is created by anticipation, juxtaposition, questions, and conflicts. All of these things create structure. When you use a recipe, if you understand the science behind it, you can make ingredient swaps or create something new. I think the same is true of fiction.

We control Pace through Cadence, Transitions & Tone. Lens is about Context. Who is writing it? Who are you writing it for? Who is experiencing it? Order is about sequence. Where do we start and stop? When do we give information? What are the connections between things?

I think narrative structure is created through Pace, Lens , Order, and Tension. The various recipes for plots out there have all of these. I don't think there's anything wrong with using a recipe. I also think that saying they ARE structure means that we are always using someone else's recipe.

My hot take is that none of these are structure. These are all recipes that describe structure. Structure is the Salt, Fat, Acid Heat of writing. 3-Act/Hero's Journey etc are recipes. You can make great meals without using a recipe if you understand the principles of structure.

This is really good and useful. I’ve received two of these gen-AI scam emails just today.

"The customer is always right" ... IN MATTERS OF TASTE.

If you’re after a little autumn treat for someone you care about, my seasonal chocolate bars are still around. Delicious, ethical, and sure to bring a smile this season 🍫🍂. jenkinsemporium.co.uk

I am so fucking mad that the "cash not credit card they'll use it to control us" consparanoid weirdos turned out to be right.

“No Kings” is great , but we really don't get a functioning democracy back until we internalize, bone deep, the instinctive response to this and every other statement like it: “I don’t care what that rich guy thinks.” Make it your morning affirmation. Say it ten times at the top of every hour.

There are any number of legitimate reasons to use the passive voice, including not knowing who did the action you’re describing, or the whom is more interesting/germane than the who. Exonerating the Gestapo is not one of those legitimate reasons.

Today is the 4th anniversary of The Thirteenth Hour, the first book in my Cruel Gods series. This book went on to become a SPFBO & BBNYA finalist AND Indie Ink award winner for best setting/wittiest character! To celebrate, I've put the ebook up for FREE for today only! 🥳 mybook.to/TheThirteent...

If anyone needs me I will be in the museum, lying down next to the bog bodies.

objective quality is fake and most people are really just judging how much they enjoyed something instead of how well it accomplished the thing it was setting out to do, because answering that question requires being curious about what it was trying to do

It’s no longer the weekend (boo!), but you can still grab this on sale for a couple more days!

GenAI truly was the worst technology to come along at this moment. An energy and water guzzler when we most urgently need to take climate action. A disinformation machine as our journalism fails. A bias machine as fascism takes root. A job killer in a cost of living crisis.

Honestly, it needs to go further than this. We need to confront the fact that democracy and wealth hoarding cannot coexist. Allowing people to amass the resources of a small state/country allows them to act as such, which is inimical to a shared society of “one person, one vote.”

This won't stop until Harry Potter adults--and it is the adults--stop supporting this nonsense. They made HP their entire personality and they'll need to find a new one. Hard, yes, but not impossible. There are plenty of fandoms that don't fund a known bigot.

Happy Columbo’s Day

its very easy to fall into "one weird trick" ideas in publishing, like personalizing queries and such. you don't have to! unfortunately there are only two weird tricks (write a good book, get lucky) and they're both incredibly hard.

Any time you see the words “labor shortage” you can replace them with the words “unwillingness to pay a decent wage”

this isn't jarring but a lot of people use plot and story interchangeably. plot is the sequence of events in the story but it's not the only thing telling the story. set dressing tells story. costuming tells story. lighting. framing. word choice. acting choice. story is bigger than plot.