Folks, we have a RIPCON 3. I believe this is our highest level since doing this

Just gonna leave this here

This is why we still make jokes about British cuisine.

Submitting is exhausting. No simultaneous submissions with mean to max response at 2.5 to 4 months. To get this acceptance they had to had 15 short stories ready to go at once. It can't possibly be making them enough money to be worth the work.

TLDR: I don't blame you for making mistakes and I respect you for owning up. But this is a major wakeup call that you need to take a hard look at your editorial standards and consider why fifteen of you all got played by the exact same playbook.

If what you really want is a story with a marginalized author's name on it that still sounds exactly like a white dude who went to Clarion, then LLMs are tailor-made to feed you exactly what you want.

It's not because real marginalized authors aren't good. Many are excellent. (I rebuke the idea that a diverse slate requires lowering your standards.) And, after all, the AI story itself wasn't good. But it turns out that for a lot of editors, "quality" means "looks like stuff I've read before."

It gets worse. Because we can't overlook that the author is (purporting to be) a queer woman of color from the global South. Magazines often say they want to support these authors, but in real life, they often hear "not what we're looking for" over and over. But everyone went for this one?

And what is this catnip? Was it the prose, the characters, the worldbuilding? Well, no. Upon examination, all of those were weak. No, the thing Bona mentions that made this story irresistible is...the premise. That's it. Just the premise. No wonder you all got rolled by a bot.

This should be impossible. What delights one editor should repulse another. This is healthy and natural. But that's not what we see happening. Instead there's one type of story that, catnip-like, every editor can't resist, so predictable that it can literally be algorithmically generated.

15 publications in one year is a wild number for someone who isn't a celebrity. Not necessarily too many to have written--some people are prolific--but too many to have had accepted. 15 different editors with their own tastes, whims, and giant slushpiles all happened to pick this one author?

SFF, we need to talk. I'm not here to rag specifically on Bona, who did the right thing by going public. No, I'm looking at all of you. Or at least, 15 of you. Because this right here? This is buckwild.

Video game boss that's all bellowing bravado and big untargeted fuck-your-life attacks that hit half the arena, then for phase two they're like "hold up'' and put on a pair of ridiculously tiny glasses, and suddenly they're ten times as dangerous because now they can see what they're aiming at.

DAWG WE'RE DOING STATE-RUN GAS PRICES AT PRICE CONTROLLED RATES DESPITE INCREASING SHORTAGES TO PACIFY THE PEOPLE AND THEY'RE SCREAMING ABOUT HOW THEIR OPPONENTS WANT COMMUNISM I AM GOING TO LOSE MY ENTIRE GODDAMN MIND

Sparks of Tomorrow shows that rookie director Minoru Ota loves pushing boundaries, but also how sharp he is when doing so. It reimagines this story & Kyoto itself as a gritty, beautiful but apathetic steampunk world in need of a revolution. The tools to invoke it, electricty & Ota's radical artistry

“we really gotta do something about those child broilers,” says woman operating the child broiler #gundam #gwitch

i don’t know how this happened, but i completely forgot to repost these seminal 5nore works on bluesky #gwitch

never trust people who find piracy "morally reprehensible"

This is how I feel listening to oomfs deeper in the sauce than I am talk about Deltarune

“Good heavens, John! Call someone! ... The entire basement looks dry!”

James McCloud sacrificing himself knowing he's leaving the Star Fox Team with endless massive debt.

What does Ampharos wish for? 💫 commission for michelleymori on IG! #art #traditionalart #pokemonart

went down to the centrist convention. they’re all shaking and crying, I heard one guy say “I’m starting to think a better world IS possible.” the lady next to him slapped him in the face

It will never stop being funny to me that the street fighter subreddit has a much better, well reasoned ai policy vis a vis literally all universities.

maomao

This btw (originally posted by @maikrisyay on Twitter)

SHUT THE FUCK UP, HOLY SHIT IT'S REAL the essay deadass starts with "it is unknowable through what lens and mentality daisuke operated when he declared that bridget was a girl" i am going to Throw Up

“I’ve got 99 problems, and extra money would solve at least 83 of these.”

NanoFate in big 2026...

hi i'm dane and i like to build legos and play #lancerrpg.

If Waffle House doesn’t make this their new slogan, then capitalism has failed

Based based based based

as an ironic nationalism enjoyer we really gotta crack down on this kind of deranged shit

such a powerful statement... 🦀🦀

You couldn’t make Blazing Saddles today because a movie specifically made to say “white people are stupid and racism is a tool meant to hurt them too” would cause half the country to go apoplectic.

they don't want kids to be able to find information on how to get help if you are a child being sexually abused because they want to preserve their access to victims

shoutouts to the tequila gundam, love that stuff and love that gundam

“Scots discovering tailgating” could be a real Prometheus stealing fire moment

Genuinely he was so fucking right it's insane here btw