Nicole Baugh
@eneffbee.bsky.social
Desert-living inveterate rereader. Drives a spaceship. (she/her)
where is the academic freedom letter, i would like to sign it
Stars and Stripes@starsandstripes.bsky.social · yesterdayA civilian geography professor was fired from West Point for pushing back after department officials barred faculty from teaching that humans contribute to climate change.
Oh, look, it's the little broad-billed assholes at my backyard feeders!
Rosemary Mosco@rosemarymosco.com · 4d agoHummingbirds.
where are the 500 professors signing an open letter about a professor being fired for talking about gender?
When it comes to signing open letters about academic freedom, “We have to take a principled stand!” doesn’t work if there have been loads of other much more obvious and serious instances of violations of academic freedom to which you said absolutely nothing.
Peter@notalawyer.bsky.social · 5d ago“if we don’t stand up for the free speech of racists, it puts everyone’s free speech in danger.” - guy who only ever talks about free speech when it’s racism
The continual badgering by software to use it (even when you have demonstrated that you aren't interested) is one of the reasons AI as currently constituted is not beating the allegations about being a machine for destroying or denying consent
Once again never not reposting praise for The Works of Vermin - it's so good! And this was a great listen (although if you haven't read the book, it's spoilery. But also, if you haven't read the book, go do that. Like, NOW).
Workers’ Lit Podcast@workerslit.bsky.social · 2w agoMonstrous bugs run amok. Artistic drama gets dirty. The queer community does war crimes. Monday, August 17th, 2026. The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes. Featuring special guest, @mariawrites.bsky.social!!! Get ready to lick some blood from your homie's earlobe.
Sweet deal on a grim story with sharp teeth that you should definitely buy.
Premee Mohamed@premeemohamed.com · 2w agoHELLO did you know THE BUTCHER OF THE FOREST is still $1.99 on ebook platforms? YES ALL! :D And they are helpfully rounded up here! An interesting old-growth forest, some independent kids, a pretty pretty unicorn, and... wait is that an altar Surely not
we have a 50 word micro by Mike Guajardo-Bennett @mguajardowrites.bsky.social ! in three sentences, the author describes a feeling so infectiously that you'll feel it too here's to sleepless, lovelorn nights on planet Earth xraylitmag.com/night-by-mik...
xraylitmag.com
I went to college in Greenville, SC and now live in southern AZ. I like 'em both! But the current hikes available to me within a ~1 hour drive of my home are much, much tougher hikes than the ones within a 1 hr drive of where I went to school.
Kris Lorischild@direkris.itch.io · 2w agoIt's so cute when people on the east coast talk about mountains
👹📖 Someone else reading Rakesfall - in the thread she calls out a couple of quotes that made it to our feed, too!
Nishka (she/her)@ek-nishka.bsky.social · 2w agoI finished reading Rakesfall by @vajra.me a few days ago and I'm still thinking about it. Cathy in Wuthering Heights famously said, "Whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same"; Rakesfall pushes this sentiment to the point where even some of the narrators didn't know who they were.
Yeah I think "taking care of young children" is its own full-time activity for a few years at least
Neil Fazakerley@neilfaz.bsky.social · 3w agoBefore I had kids I did Icelandic, and puppetry. Now the kids are older it’s time to restart the short-lived enthusiasms.
As of last night's reading, I'm calling pencils down for me on the 2026 Hugo ballot. It was my first year nominating and voting. Categories I voted in: Novel Novella Novelette Short story Dramatic presentation (long) Dramatic presentation (short) Poem Astounding Award
thou hast been blessed by the ibuprofen knight praise be ⚔️💚
👹 And done. The second time through was deeply rewarding. There are still questions, still things I'm not quite sure I have a firm grasp on, but I love this book, and I loved it more on the second read than I did on the first.
Nicole Baugh@eneffbee.bsky.social · 4w agoAnd Viramunda finds her daughter, her other, and the god of the gullet. They can't be separated (although she leaves him pinned to the rock for a year, just to be sure), so he escapes after all. I've come around to "the children" being the same as the dead children.
👹 Rakesfall, Ch 30. Viramunda (reestablished in her red web) is too angry for skin. She goes hunting shitty gods and her daughter, and Lambakanna.
Nicole Baugh@eneffbee.bsky.social · 4w agoSo Irugal was (probably) not the daughter/L, but they were hijacked by the patron god, and now Viramunda hunts. She's been hunting for a hundred million years, killing gods who've run the gullet, looking for Lambakanna and her daughter.
👹 Rakesfall, Ch 28-29. More dead, more children (but more/a return of the dead children from the beginning? Jury's out)
Nicole Baugh@eneffbee.bsky.social · last mo.Ah, right right - THESE are the chapters I got to and thought, oh, I need to reread the first couple of chapters. Are the "we" from Ch 28 the dead children from the first chapter? Or are the children in Ch 29 those dead children? Or neither? I think I lean toward the former.
👹 Rakesfall Ch 28. Grandmotherboard earth despairs of L ever getting it. I am right there with him.
Nicole Baugh@eneffbee.bsky.social · last mo.(I did not find the story) This chapter...augh! I'm just as confused as L, just as ahhhh almost got it/nope don't at all. The long lines are linked not by lineage/blood/soul but by choice (which is lovely - A&L are bound together, skin to skinless self because they choose to be? Lovely.)
another thing that bites basically every parent of more than one child is thinking that shit that works for your first child will work for your second child the fuck it will, have fun starting from square one buddy
👹 Rakesfall Ch 26-27. OK NOW I'm caught up. I love the story of the Traitor Wasp and the Detective King, but also it is such an indictment of humanity's worst impulses.
Nicole Baugh@eneffbee.bsky.social · last mo.I remember the story of the king, the prince and the wasp, but I wasn't sure until I got here that it was from this book. Ugh, this god (L's patron). He's the worst. So proud of "hacking" grandmother, of perverting human desires and systems for himself. Even when he's right (the system responds...
👹 Caught up, whew. Rakesfall, ch 22 - 25. Life is getting in the way of (careful) reading and will this week, too, but I'm going to try to keep up through the end. This book is so good. A/V is thrown through time (and thus space) and claws her way back to L, her pelt/other self.
Nicole Baugh@eneffbee.bsky.social · last mo.The Lamb skirts her visa interview by means of being dead enough not to trigger one. LOL: "she feels a little dead." The whole bit about "lake therapy" is also amusing. Intransigent lake, not balancing its ecosystem.
👹 Rakesfall, chapters 18 - 21. We are far in the future. Embi, Fern, and 'Miya are still here, and the Lamb is awakened to solve some murders. Grief compels the self-creation of the first red witch.
Nicole Baugh@eneffbee.bsky.social · last mo.Rakesfall: Behind, but catching up. Ch 18. The Lamb wakes up in a contingency bunker not to regreen the earth (what she thought she signed up for) but to solve the murders of other contingencies. Humans are thin on the ground on this Earth, thousands of years after the diaspora.
@hironennes.bsky.social, finally got one of my friends to read The Works of Vermin and he's finally hit That Point and is spinning out about it, and I am having almost as much fun watching that happen as I had reading the book. It is such a great book!
The U.S. Secretary of Defense just stated that—so far—the war with Iran has cost $37.5 billion dollars. That's since February. That same amount is how much the United States spent on planetary science from FY2013 through FY2026 inclusive. Thirteen years of planetary science or five months of war.
👹 Rakesfall. I felt on fairly firm ground in Ch 16 (even though its a play in the novel that ignores the 4th wall entirely), but Ch 17 has me spun around.
Nicole Baugh@eneffbee.bsky.social · last mo.Ch 16 - straightforward (sort of), for a play-within-a-novel. Our cast list includes ONEs and OTHERs, including biting commentary on OTHERs who are like ONEs, and "six of ONE and a half dozen of the OTHER" (I love that).
