We laugh because otherwise we’d never stop screaming
The Beaverton@thebeaverton.com · 10h agoCarney vows to fast-track West Coast Pipeline before entire West Coast burns to the ground
'Nathan Burgoine (he/him)
@nathanburgoine.bsky.social
#Queer #Canadian author; Most Recent: DOGS DON’T BREAK HEARTS (queer hi/lo ya), UPON THE MIDNIGHT QUEER (queer holiday collection), TRIAD MAGIC (queer contemp fantasy); He/him 🏳️🌈; Prepare for #Husky photos; 🦖 "Trans Rights or I Bites" 🚫 LLM/GenAI/Substack
The Beaverton@thebeaverton.com · 10h ago
One of my favourite things about writing fanfic is taking a "one off" character—like Lieutenant Rollins (played by the hunky Scott MacDonald) or Taymon (handsome Patrick Fabian)—and just run with them. Or skate. As the case may be.
My Native middle-grade horror book—which melds environmental protection and ocean horror—is out now!!!! The Sinking House is good for ages 8-12. Read its Kirkus review here: www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews...
The HWA has apologized for the AI article and specifically apologized for the inclusion of Indigenous water rights struggles in the AI column, and removed the newsletter writer from their board position. I’m deeply appreciative of the apology and of all who expressed solidarity in my post about it.
Just realized I had a historical face-to-face bookstore manager moment with Bluesky’s person of the day and so I’m going to go package up all my cookies I just baked and mute the name.
I love the replies I get back from players when I sent the pre-game "Here’s stuff your character would already know" e-mails. "Ooo! Klingons!" "Holy crap! No pressure?" "I hope this means another appearance of [Character]. He’s cool as heck."
So, if, like me, the "the hands that brought you Coraline" make you blink a bit for obvious reasons, Wildwood is made by the same stop-motion company that made Coraline, not, y’know, HIM. I’m not sure I’d have chosen to make the link to Coraline given, y’know, HIM, but as far as I can tell, no.
Prepping for two games today. One as the GM, so it’s all about pre-game knowledge, making sure I’ve got NPC motivations down, etc.—the last most important because my group goes off book pretty much once I’ve done saying, "and that’s what you see." Other game I’m a player, so I’m baking cookies.
"If AI disappeared tomorrow…" "Great! I’m in." "I wasn’t finished…" "Whatever." (waves hand) "I mean, without ChatGPT, Claude or…" "Yes! Do it." "You’re not letting me finish." "Well, AI didn’t consult with me, either, so…"
A repeating pattern around "purity tests"/"you force people further right" is that they're never specific. When that rhetoric spouts off, they never have a concrete example, and as people point out things like "I’m not going to support an anti-trans candidate" they can then say, "I don’t mean that!"
Judge 'Nathan’s mental health by what game he’s playing: Minecraft (oh no).
The only reason Bluesky's policy of "you can completely block anyone" should bother you is if being blocked by someone who does not wish to interact with you bothers you. That is, if you are not in favor of voluntary interactions. That is what the "Bluesky is an echo chamber!" people object to.
Somehow “don’t speak ill of the dead” became “you must praise the worst men imaginable” and no, that’s not a thing. Ron Liddle was a garbage person and people are right to say it, then and now.
BeijingPalmer@beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 2d agoRod Liddle was a piece of shit in both his private and public life, and it speaks to the state of British media that they're praising the man. He presaged the steep downward decline of British broadsheet print columnists into increasingly open racism, misogyny, and hatred of queer people.
I quite adored this book, my favorite from Premee Mohamed so far! Although, now that I read the subtitle I wrote for the review, there's only one manticore and one vampire! Plenty of spies tho!
Nerds of a Feather@nerdsofafeather.bsky.social · 2d agoBook Review: Wickhills by Premee Mohamed Manticores, vampyrs, and spies challenge a magical city @klaxoncomms.com has our review at the blog www.nerds-feather.com/2026/08/book...
Canadians overwhelmingly demand wealth tax after Kevin O’Leary says it will make him move away
Canadians overwhelmingly demand wealth tax after Kevin O’Leary says it will make him move away
OTTAWA - Pollsters report a split among Canadians over the idea of higher tax on the assets of wealthy individuals, though support skyrockets after noting that Kevin O'Leary has vowed that he will res...
thebeaverton.com
Civic holiday, and we managed to walk Max before the real downpour hit, and we have tea and coffee and a snoozy husky and I’m not going to accomplish *anything* today. Just as the spiritual ancestors of Civic would have wanted.
A new study out of Canada looked at four youth gender clinics. Out of 445 patients only four who started gender affirming hormone therapy ceased taking it, and only one did so due to a re-identification with their birth sex. assignedmedia.org/breaking-new...
A New Study from Canada Again Finds Less Than 1 Percent of Trans Youth Detransition - Assigned Media
Out of 445 patients across four gender clinics only one who started hormone therapy stopped due to a change in gender identity.
assignedmedia.org
I got all the town’s straight men to follow me, like a twisted Pied Piper of Hamelin… …then led them all into the wilderness, where I left them with a monster and let nature take its course. Two days later the town was repopulated with menfolk and my character found his husband. A happy ending! 🌈
So I’ve been playing Fable, a game that was ahead of its time in 2004 for having same-sex marriage. The problem is, only a small minority of the game’s townsfolk are queer and it’s random. One town didn’t have a single queer guy. My character was rejected over and over. So I came up with a plan…
"Faux Ho Ho"’s audiobook is only available on Audible (not my choice; to be clear, I’d release everything wide every time) but every now and then I get a Google Alert about how it’s uploaded somewhere to some site for "free." What kills me is Audible exclusive means "not even library." Loathe that.
Re: last re-skeet. I mask everywhere, still. Grocery shopping, picking up to-go orders, etc. Going out to dinner for a friend’s birthday the other night left me uncomfortable; any friend events where we’ll be eating are the same. I mask at cons, but even when people *aren’t* saying anything? Oof.
A thread (starts further up, but this feels particularly relevant amidst the string of “Why aren’t you at [Convention]?” messages that inevitably arrive the last two weeks of July with a cascade of unmasked photos, followed by three weeks of “I’m so incredibly sick with *something*…”
Dr. Johnathan Flowers, Bisexual of the Blade (Alt-text or DIE)@shengokai.blacksky.app · 3d agoSo we should frame the COVID-19 response for what it is: a profound success of public health professionals in the face of overwhelming opposition, an absolute failure of our broader communities to extend compassion to its members, and a sign of the general orientation of our culture.
Me, pulling out my Captain’s Log book for some #SoloRPG fun: "They key thing here to keep it light, and have it be fun, and not to put pressure on myself to do more than just roll some dice and have fun." Also me: "If I bridge those characters via a symbiont and Klingon and Vulcan lifespans…"
Last day of Gen Con! Visit booth 1217 to try The Story Engine before the show ends!
Oh! Not *that* Max Miller. Phew. *returns to watching cool food history videos*
Another study on youth transition that find that about 97% of all youth who says they're trans turn out to be. Only 1.1% who start HRT stopped it for any reason whatsoever. This is, like, the fifth youth transition study that I'm aware of, and all of their results have been identical.
Xtra @xtramagazine.com · 4d agoCanadian researchers found that 97 percent of youth who seek treatment for gender dysphoria still identify as trans years later.
Hero shit
jessamyn@librarian.bsky.social · 5d agoI work at a public library. People who want to use AI seem to have no trouble doing so. People who don't want to use AI have a harder time. I crowdsourced and then finalized this document "How to disable or avoid intrusive AI" and then gave it a short URL: notoai.org Please pass along if it's useful
