Elly Bangs
@ellybangs.bsky.social
Author of the apocalyptic cyberpunk novel UNITY, available in bookstores and libraries near you. Short fiction and more at elbangs.com. Queer and trans. (She/her)
Ray Bradbury’s 1950 story, “There Will Come Soft Rains”, starts with a household AI reminding its owners of their appointments. But nobody is listening; they have all been killed in a nuclear war.
Jokes aside, I see people go "I think I'm trans but I'm not gonna address it because of all the difficult stuff, what would I get out of it?" And the answer is true joy. That's what you get out of it. Unless you face yourself, fully and completely, and know who you are, you will never find true joy.
Jay Hulme@jayhulmepoet.bsky.social · 4d ago"Being trans is sad Being trans is horrid." Shut up. Being trans is great. Look. I've got inner peace and a fucking scythe.
Red Hot Nickel Ball considered as the primordial essence of storytelling, a thread: 🧵
Red Hot Nickel Ball On Ice
YouTube video by carsandwater
youtube.com
If nuclear war happens, I do not wish to die instantly in the fireball. I reject the assumption that those who do are the lucky ones. I plan to survive, and so should you.
Sanjay Srivastava@sanjaysrivastava.com · 6d agoWhat is an extremely nerdy/obscure/specific thing you hate with a white-hot wrath?
If nuclear war happens, I do not wish to die instantly in the fireball. I reject the assumption that those who do are the lucky ones. I plan to survive, and so should you.
Sanjay Srivastava@sanjaysrivastava.com · 6d agoWhat is an extremely nerdy/obscure/specific thing you hate with a white-hot wrath?
Friday, Summer, 2026 CE, Anthropocene Epoch, Stelliferous Era
This is a metaphor so on the nose it hurts. Literally, they are removing knowledge from the public domain to feed their machines and permanently deny your access to it. The privatization of knowledge and information is their goal.
chiller@chiller.eurosky.social · last wk.This is ... horrific
Garden is unleashing such a tidal wave of fresh ripe cherry tomatoes that I'm gonna have to invite Denethor over for supper
What percentage of the population are you willing to sacrifice? I suggest everyone do some thinking on this, given the mass complicity in the name of normalcy. Because it’s not far off from what this guy’s saying, and it lends him legitimacy.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · last wk.Rep. Ogles: "Look, I don't want to play down the effects of the virus, but at the end of the day it had a roughly 1 percent mortality rate. We coulda gotten through this."
We've been in the ripping-the-copper-wiring-out-of-the-walls era of society for awhile now. There's no attempts to make anything better. There's no attempts to make anything people want. It's just syphoning gas out of cars and burying people in gambling debt from rigged betting markets.
Sacrifice! At the Harvest Festival@theharvestmaid.bsky.social · last wk.Why is everything so transparently evil now?
!["Print books from the pre-LLM era are structurally guaranteed to be free of this contamination. That alone is a significant advantage," it explains in an article on its website, as quoted by
404. "Physical books published before this date [pre-2022] are structurally clean of modern poisoning tools."
Once focused on helping libraries, distributors, and book shops find and sell books, ISBNdb now helps Al companies bulk-buy anywhere between 1,000 to one million books per order, according to 404.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:pxunhtt4zdl4rkkjub54m5ia/bafkreic7burhqtyy3mrqnzzf5gwr3pokwr6gznvg7p5htr4gz3mghh4hny)
Headlight salesman, leading you through the showroom: "And this here is my personal favorite, the Eyeball-Vaporizer 3000!" <Turns it on, causing a mannequin in its path to burst into flame>
If your last name is Hough, until you tell me I honestly don't know whether to pronounce it How or Hoff or Huff or Ho or Hoo or Haw.
Shecky@shecky.bsky.social · 2w agoBack when I was teaching French, I'd inevitably hear a student complain loudly that "the writing doesn't match the pronunciation." I wouldn't say a word. Just went up to the chalkboard and wrote plough cough tough dough through ought
Loot drop after defeating me: - 2,500-page unpublishable novel in standard manuscript format (deals 999 crushing + 999 psychic damage on death) - beanie (cursed item)
K. Vale Nagle@kvalenagle.bsky.social · 2w agoLoot drop after defeating me: -chainmail anklet -pocket gryphon -copy of Blue Eyes & Other Tales that misprinted purple -box of bandages -turquoise eye liner -an amulet with a purple gem that turns a cat into a girl (metaphorically speaking)
Social media platforms, like car-centric cities, are designed to make you feel as if everyone on earth is slightly miffed at you.
The USA is incapable of regulating guns or cars because these things provide intense sensations of being in control -- even as they degrade our *actual* control, e.g. by making all our lives shorter and worse.
Elly Bangs@ellybangs.bsky.social · 3w agoHuman behavior makes no sense until you recognize that the need for control over our lives runs much deeper than our interest in happiness. And since no one is ever really in control, in practice this tends to mean pursuing the thickest possible illusion of control.
Human behavior makes no sense until you recognize that the need for control over our lives runs much deeper than our interest in happiness. And since no one is ever really in control, in practice this tends to mean pursuing the thickest possible illusion of control.
Here is a verified gofundme for his family: gofund.me/bf251d4ee
Donate to In Loving Memory of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52 Years Old, organized by LULAC Institute, Inc.
On the morning of July 7, 2026, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was ta… LULAC Institute, Inc. needs your support for In Loving Memory of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52 Years Old
gofund.me
Marisa Kabas@marisakabas.bsky.social · 4w agoThe ICE murder of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo deserves the same fury as Renee Good and Alex Pretti
Abolish ICE and prosecute them for crimes against humanity.
No. This is somewhere to be. This is all you have, but it's still something. Streets and sodium lights. The sky, the world. You're still alive.
There's a part in the book "Careless People" where the author beats Zuck at Settlers of Catan, and he is absolutely wrecked by it. Someone pulls her aside to explain everyone else has been letting him win for years. I think about this a lot re: why tech bros think everyone will love AI chatbots.
Julian Sanchez@normative.bsky.social · last mo.People who spiral out overusing LLM chatbots are really just experiencing the kind of brain-damaging stream of unconditional validation that’s always been the norm for the hyper-wealthy, which explains a lot.