You'd think that learning of the death of one of the speculators who bought one's family's mortgage on the secondary market might lift one's mood. But he died of natural causes a fine old age, so no, no catharsis here.

The Covent Garden stabbing incident details could not be less terrorism-related. • 47-year-old woman • Mental health issues • Homeless • Scissors recovered at scene • Frequented the area • Known for unstable behaviour • Victims chosen at random www.theguardian.com/uk-news/live...

I'm not crying, *you're* crying.

Gail Simone@gailsimone.bsky.social · 2d ago

Okay, I am going to tell a little story. It's one I have saved for the last couple years, almost nobody knows about it. But it lives in my heart. I don't know how others will feel about it, maybe something, maybe nothing. It's about the Uncanny X-Men. 1/

@vallescurarule.bsky.social and I got to chat with Gareth at IZPod (that's Interzone's Podcast) about Spec Fic for Newbies plus solo projects! There are lots of ways to tune in: interzone.press/a-chat-with-... #writing #podcast #sciencefiction #fantasy #horror

If you see this, quote with the energy you bring to Bluesky. Artist: McKayla Hartsock (mhartsarts on most platforms)

🦇🤘 Miscreant Jennie 🔶️🏳️‍🌈@rigg.lgbt · 3d ago

if you see this, quote the energy you bring to Bluesky

That "men should be allowed, without judgement or consequence, to do an amount of harm to women and girls that I personally deem acceptable" seems to be a genuine opinion still held by too many people in the year two thousand and twenty six is incredibly grim

Delighted to have a poem included in the latest issue of @fullhouselitmag.bsky.social

Apropos of recent hagiographies nekocase.substack.com/p/in-what-fu...

IN WHAT FUCKING UNIVERSE?

This last week I was just cookin’ along minding my business when I suddenly found myself quite depressed.

nekocase.substack.com

"Time to update your articles." Don't fucking take that tone with me, Google Scholar; you're not my boss.

Lead The Way Boy, painting by Borders-based artist Mal Burton.

If anyone needs me over the next few hours, I'll be in the world of Stone Hell as a half-orc former sheep farmer with Daithí Ó Sé's accent.

The BSFA are working in partnership with English Heritage and Flame Tree Press to produce an anthology of works including The Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish, one of the earliest works of #ScienceFiction. @englishheritage.bsky.social

Ant Man and his bullshit physics. Hank Pym should come clean and just admit that he's not really a scientist, and he acquired the suit through a pact with Satan.

Sanjay Srivastava@sanjaysrivastava.com · 6d ago

What is an extremely nerdy/obscure/specific thing you hate with a white-hot wrath?

Very disappointing.

Lee Hurley@hleehurley.com · 6d ago

Amnesty have issued an apology to JK Rowling and the rest. Adjust your expectations, and donations, accordingly www.amnesty.org.uk/latest/an-ap...

Post a film you've watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Star Trek, Star Wars, LOTR, Marvel, Disney or Ghibli. ((I mean the Assembly Cut here, AKA the Version That Actually Makes Sense)) [Reposted to get rid of a number of really annoying typos]

Creepy Alien Encounter

Alt: A shaven-headed Ellen Ripley is menaced up close by a slavering xenomorph, which extends its inner mandibles, apparently preparing to strike.

static.klipy.com

I've passed 50,000 words on this thing, which I'm finding kind of astonishing. The thing that makes the difference seems to be talking to people about what you're working on - who knew?

"Ambiguity is a surplus. It is a story that has decided precisely what happened, several times over, and has built each of those readings to completion, and has laid them one on top of another so that every detail is load-bearing in more than one direction at once. Nothing in it is accidental."

Ginger Nuts of Horror@gnofhorror.com · last wk.

On Not Explaining https://gnofhorror.com/on-not-explaining/

From District Magazine. Grim.

One has to indulge one's inner baby-bat from time to time-- err, I mean, this is all for research. I'm totally going to write a sensible, grown-up paper about it.

i knew about jewish pirates of the carribean but i didn't know about 18th century jewish gunrunners of the carribean

This Jewish Community in the Caribbean Smuggled Gunpowder to the Patriots During the Revolution. A British Admiral Condemned the Island as a 'Nest of Vipers'

A new exhibition at the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History, in Philadelphia, spotlights the little-known wartime contributions of the Jews of St. Eustatius

smithsonianmag.com

The image here of a callow youth sucking his thumb and a very small man furiously shouting ineffectually was too good to pass up on.

Simon McGarr@tupped.bsky.social · 2w ago

"Neither Chambers or O'Callaghan have displayed any ability to do the job of being Taoiseach. But that's not the job they're trying to be hired for. They're auditioning to be the leader of the Fianna Fáil" www.thegist.ie/the-gist-who...

When fascism comes to Ireland, it'll arrive wearing clown shoes and speaking faster than it can think.

Joe Noonan@joenoonan.bsky.social · 2w ago

Minister attacks Court oversight under the Constitution. Dangerous.

The courts exist for a reason: the only good reason for them to exist is to hold power accountable. I don't want to live in a bloody half-assed FF/FG dictatorship (or duumvirate, or whatever cockeyed thing they come up with).

Simon McGarr@tupped.bsky.social · 2w ago

If Trump made a speech where he rejected the legitimacy of judicial action restraining the State we’d all know what we were hearing. Just because the ideas are delivered by a character consistently speaking in a tone of watered down milk doesn’t change what it means.

My Darling, Dreadful Thing X The London Séance Society A fabled witch howled the Blackstone Curse and mired generations in madness, murder, and mayhem. Only a monster and an heir to an earldom may break the spell, but first they must find each other. #QuestPit #Q #Gothic #A #H #LGBT

[Title TBC] The head of a powerful family, who owe their influence to a Faustian pact, finds himself dealing with new threats: a company that wants to use demons to disrupt the tech industry, and his ex-girlfriend, who now seems to have a demon of her own. #QuestPit #W #A #DF #H

Relaxing with some maximalist 80's-flashback synthpop after a day of actually getting a goodly chunk of writing done.

Brighter Than A Thousand Suns - God for Hire (Official Music Video)

YouTube video by Brighterthan1000suns

youtu.be

ETERNALLY DEAD explores how an injured musician gets a second shot at stardom--only it's by joining an all-vampire rock band in the dangerous Vampire Realm. When blood shortages hit the Realm, she's forced to confront if living out her rockstar dream is worth dying for🩸🧛‍♂️🎸 #questpit #a #f #pr #rf #q

"Yellow" was the name of a citrus fruit before it was a colour. That fruit is now extinct.

James McLeod@jamespmcleod.ca · 2w ago

It's safe to assume that all major LLMs are scraping Bluesky data to train future models. As an open protocol, Bluesky is one of the few sources of fresh human-generated content that anybody can gobble up. So all this is probably going in the models. There are submarines in the Great Lakes.

Well, I've forgotten how to bake bread. If anyone wants a pair of rock-hard door wedges, just let me know.