Happy Banned Books Week AND Anti-Prime Day! We've spent this week fighting with Amazon, who blocked Issue 3... because a stylized illustration of a statue = porn, at least if you're a queer publication. The best way to support us is directly. Code ANTIPRIME gets you 15% off subscriptions this week.

OTHERSIDE — a magazine of the queer fantastic.

Get more from OTHERSIDE on Patreon. a magazine of the queer fantastic.. Support OTHERSIDE and get exclusive access to their work.

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What I’m working on – October 2026 Here’s an update on what I’m working on in October 2026. Leaning into some reading and making this month as befitting fall.

What I’m working on – October 2026

Here’s an update on what I’m working on in October 2026. Leaning into some reading and making this month as befitting fall.

misty.granades.com

The judging period for the 32nd annual #IFComp is open until October 19th! You can support the authors by donating to The Colossal Fund that provides a cash prize pool for the top entries. Check them out at ifcomp.org!

The Interactive Fiction Competition

ifcomp.org

me: I just want the dentist to tell me I’m the best at teeth therapist: that’s messed up me: yeah therapist: you should want to win at therapy

Look, there’s therapy, and then there’s this approach, and you get to decide which seems scarier.

Small Wonders@smallwondersmag.com · yesterday

We're starting out spooky month strong with "Mess" by Rose Maxwell! What if you could remove all the messy parts from yourself, literally? Would you see the appeal?

Today we are playing an ANATOMY GAME. He's a 10. But wow can he NOT handle change. Do you date this body part? I’m going to give you a dating profile of a body part, and you’re going to decide if you’re shooting your shot. youtube.com/shorts/LTpYy...

date that body part! All images are by @studentofwhim #science #sciencefacts #stem #acl #tinder

YouTube video by Bethany Brookshire

youtube.com

me: I just want the dentist to tell me I’m the best at teeth therapist: that’s messed up me: yeah therapist: you should want to win at therapy

This dingus strained a back leg so we can’t run her to exhaustion (Corgis: working dogs what Need a Job) so us getting her to nap on the couch is a major win.

We are watching Ladyhawke at @misty.granades.com’s urging and it’s pretty great but even I a noted Prog Rock Enjoyer am not sure about this bananas score.

Gonna put big scare quotes around “art” but Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.

Judy Berman@judyberman.bsky.social · 5d ago

What work of art, in any medium, do you think has generated the largest volume of bad critical writing?

Man the whole AI “bitter lesson” is capitalism writ large: just keep going bigger and inefficiently burn more resources faster and you can get better short term results at the low low cost of any long term sustainability.

yay, my story is free to read in this awesome issue of Adventitious! a bird-woman and her witch take in frightened children, at a cost. it's a dark, short little piece that's probably as close as I get to uplifting 🍂🦉🪶

VLAD-ventitious.@adventitiouswords.bsky.social · 5d ago

If you found the devil woman who owns the woods, would you accept her bargain to escape a life that betrayed you? A stunning dagger of a story by @ashvalewrites.bsky.social. "Ruby Tips to Her Feathers" www.adventitious.net/stories/ruby...

How satisfied are you with this post? Please take the following eighty question survey and win a chance to post an additional review on Google.

wake up horror writer friends, a new prompt dropped

New from me and free to read today in @othersidespec.bsky.social: Do you like climate change-induced societal collapse? Do you like devotion that puts duty to each other above institutions? Do you like tragic queer yearning? Consider: "His Face, in the End, Inches From Mine".

His Face, in the End, Inches from Mine - OTHERSIDE

The worst of it is the noise of them. The shouting, the scuff of sandal on stone, the scrape of bronze on the wood of the temple door. Hot summers and lean rains have bred discontent—crops dead in the...

othersidespec.com

🏳️‍🌈SOME QUEER SHORT SFF - AUGUST 2026🏳️‍🌈 I round up over 10 stories by @elijah.mea.rs @sylvie-althoff.bsky.social @mariness.bsky.social @thelialao.bsky.social @ellisnyeland.bsky.social @chpearcewrites.bsky.social @tinaconnolly.bsky.social & MORE!!! www.patreon.com/quicksiprevi...

Some Queer Short SFF - August 2026 | Charles Payseur

Hi all! The year continues to be a difficult for me personally but I’m still happy to be able to help spread the news about some recent quee

patreon.com

This resonated with me, especially the bit about procedural generation. I loved seeing how it would generate weird and broken and occasionally sublime things. It functioned a lot like Tarot for me: providing patterns I could then project meaning on. Now we’re drowning in slop that at best suffices.

Mike Cook@mtrc.bsky.social · 2w ago

New Post: Why I Love AI Next month it'll be twenty years since I went to university, learned to program, and studied AI. I wrote about why I loved it, why I still love it, and why, unfortunately, it no longer exists. www.possibilityspace.org/blog/posts/i...

me, in front of the tv

AiredOnTVToday@airedontvtoday.bsky.social · last wk.

35 years ago on September 28, 1991, TV show 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' aired episode "Darmok"

"Players will choose to make themselves miserable and have a bad time if you let them" is an unpleasant lesson to learn about game design.

Cohen is a Ghost@skullmandible.bsky.social · last wk.

I still quote your explanation for not letting players attempt to blow open locks in NV (with a high chance of destroying the contents) being that metagamers would just endlessly reload and never put a single point into lockpicking. changed how I thought about incidental incentivization

this is how I learned that Control Resonant is out, and given my four playthroughs of Control I guess that's my future entertainment sorted.

psst kids have you heard of the hit game tunnels and trolls

Stephen Granade@granades.com · last wk.

We’re organizing our office and I found a real treasure.

We’re organizing our office and I found a real treasure.

Fuck ChatGPT flyers. The future is broadsheets.

We end this month with ayida shonibar's story about the threads of the past, how they can be weaved into personal stories of supremacy and conquest, and what happens when those threads fray.

Heritage, or This Body of Folklore - Small Wonders

You’re woven together with threads that stretch back for centuries, fingers of your forefathers tugging and tweaking the shape of you into place.

smallwondersmag.com

do NOT throw bodies out the airlock, no matter what the cold equations guy keeps telling you

Stephen Granade@granades.com · 2w ago

I brought up NASA’s Human Remains Containment Unit in the group discord, guess this is where they yank my scicomm badge.

I brought up NASA’s Human Remains Containment Unit in the group discord, guess this is where they yank my scicomm badge.

Our Corgi is so good at sleeping on a bed.

"Density of purpose is boring. I want the luxury of prose again." hit me like a clarion call.

C. L. Polk@clpolk.com · 2w ago

I really feel like "just do it" drafting is getting me down so I'm going to get into a slow return to Steering The Craft I have invited people on my Patreon Discord to join me. I'm not boot camping it. I am tired of efficiency. Density of purpose is boring. I want the luxury of prose again.

This short story keeps piling on words like Giles Corey asking for more weight, it refuses to be tamed.

Today, my poem "Single Mothers and Coyote Fathers" comes out at @smallwondersmag.com and I feel a lot of things...It's a piece dedicated to single women who raised children on their own and the young growing without a father. For me, it was my abuela who raised me smallwondersmag.com/piece/single...

Single Mothers and Coyote Fathers - Small Wonders

Mother: “Where night is full of hungry mouths, / I lost my dream. I gave it to a coyote passing."

smallwondersmag.com