I’m back.

Cautiously, for now.

I still feel profound antipathy toward this hellsite and everything it stands for, but I’m also feeling a need for social media platform affordances that Twitter doesn’t provide, and as much as I wish me and Pillowfort had worked out, we do not appear to have done. So yeah. I’m here more actively again, at least in some capacity. I’m still figuring that out. I’m still figuring out what this is all for. For now the inbox is staying closed. I may at some point start inching it open. I do not want to let this place start damaging my state of mind again, and the degree to which I feel like I have control over my space is going to be the biggest part of that.

So yeah, wow. This year. In brief and in no particular order, assorted personal and professional updates:

I’m still writing Bethyl although much more slowly, and I’m mostly focusing on The Good Stars. The Keep Singing podcast is happening only sporadically but I refuse to give it up. Related:
Howl is going to come back at some point. Not sure when, but it’s still occupying my brain, and in fact it’s lately been tugging at me a bit more, in significant part because:
I appear to have become a Christian Druid and among other things am studying magic now, so that’s a whole thing.
Sort of by accident I finished one of the longest and weirdest and most fucked up pieces of fanfic I have ever written. Yes, waaaaaaay more fucked up than Everything Where it Belongs.
I didn’t write any books this year but my agent and I did manage to get one out on submission.
I got a short story about quantum mechanics and academic essays and existential crises published.
I got a short story about love and lust and loneliness during a pandemic published.
I got a short story about love and parenting and hope during a pandemic published.
I got to be part of a truly fantastic team of writers in creating season one of a horror-noir series about a queer Afro-Latina gumshoe WWI veteran who can see creeping fascism in the form of eldritch horrors destroying NYC.
I’m in the uncomfortable and annoying position of having a number of projects I can almost talk about but not yet because things are not in a sufficient state of officialness.
I’ve been in almost total lockdown, except for walks in the woods, since March. So far I haven’t gotten sick, nor has anyone in my family. We’ll see if we can all make it to Vaccine Day.
I actually take that back: I got quite sick, just not with COVID. Finally identified the mouth ailment that’s been plaguing (ha) me for four years. It is not candidiasis as I thought; turns out my immune system just thinks my tongue and cheeks are super sus. Anyway I’ve been soaking it in dexamethasone and I’m getting better. There’s no cure but the symptoms can usually be managed.
Everything sucks and is weird but I’ve done a lot of chilling out about a lot of stuff and am just generally in a better place overall.
I miss y’all. Especially you.

#personal stuff #professional stuff #fandom stuff

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paulsemel

Though it's set during a pandemic, in my new interview with "Your Shadow Half Remains" author Sunny Moraine, they say this horror novella is actually about so much more. https://paulsemel.com/exclusive-interview-your-shadow-half-remains-author-sunny-moraine/ 📖👀😵‍💫

Source: paulsemel.com

dynamicsymmetry

TOMORROW

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flashedarrow

bonesandthebees

ao3 commenters PSA: even on older fics with a ton of comments the authors still get the notifs for every single comment

re: the person who just left a multi paragraph comment on one of my older fics talking about how much they disliked the ending and detailing several alternate endings they came up with instead that they thought would be better, and ending the comment with "no one is going to see this but oh well" authors see your comments yes even on old fics and it really doesn't feel good to see a comment like that even years after I finished the fic

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flashedarrow

gffa

I don't want to write fic that's "good", I want to write a fic that hits someone's id so hard it changes their brain chemistry.

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bob-belcher

#my sweet emotionally stunted yet profoundly mature baby #amos burton #the expanse

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archipelagoofliterarynonsense

I wanted to put a more positive spin on the popular skeleton leaving meme

severeannoyance

both of these memes are true :D

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seananmcguire

asynca

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the-rain-monster

captainsblogsupplemental

geekremix

Data was an artist on a level organics cannot achieve and I appreciate him.

old-manrupee

“you may experience the emptiness with me if you wish” is all at once 1) a very cool thing to say and 2) unbearably romantic

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spockvarietyhour

girls love playing with...That Thang....

hamptercatapult

summoningraziel

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ysabelfaerie

mostly-funnytwittertweets

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ysabelfaerie

gacorley

There’s some common threads I see in the anti-voting posts going around, and I feel like I need to discuss some of them. Let’s start with the biggest one:

Voting to punish evil. I see lots of variations of this. Biden is supporting Israel, therefore we can’t vote for him. Is there any viable candidate who would stop the genocide? I don’t think the anti voting crowd actually cares. They are appealing to moral feelings rather than political strategy, because strategically, you have to realize that voting is not going to change foreign policy, and that change has to be pushed by other means. It’ll probably be something in the long haul.
Democrats should run someone else. First of all, this is a shit strategy. You don’t primary your president in the second term unless your party is falling apart. This may come from people from countries where replacing the head of government is easier, but the POTUS is the de facto party head. Also, going to the lack of thought to the goal — do you know someone willing to primary Biden and able to win who would do the things you want.
Biden hasn’t done anything anyway. This is just a way to bat away pro arguments. There’s plenty of lists of progress on lots of things. Student loans, insulin price caps, regulations, anti-trust.
Putting the entire Palestinian genocide on Biden. I’m not saying there’s not culpability there, but understand that the entire US government is in support of Israel, on both sides. It was a miracle we got a handful of Senators to call for investigations. We should cut off aid, absolutely. Who’s running to do that? And keep in mind that Israel chose to engage. US officials would have liked a more limited response, not out of care for Palestinians, but because they know from experience that it will come back to bite Israel in the form of newly radicalized Hamas recruits.
Liberals just have no hope for change. This is a new one. Just some idea that people are stuck in a rut and that’s the reason the two party system exists. The two party system is a mathematical consequence of the way we vote. There is reason to hope for change. The change, though, whatever means you choose, will take decades. Keep working at it. The hope is not that this election will fundamentally change things. The hope is that many small political actions over the years will push things forward.

Funnily enough, I haven’t seen a whole lot of third party promotion, just lots of this rhetoric aiming to punish. When voting, ask yourself:

Is this problem I have with this candidate something that the other candidate would be better on?
Are there other political actions I can take that will help?
What things can change with a different President or Congress, and what needs to be pursued by other means?

Withholding your vote as a punishment isn’t really going to help. Biden doesn’t know who you are or why you are not voting for him, and there is no one with a chance of winning that will do everything you want. But you have other means. Protest, organize, donate, build up alternatives, advocate for a different system.

Vote to give yourself space and get a little bit. Do other things to keep things moving.

thats-what-sidhe-said

I saw a post on BlueSky that said that if Biden loses, the party will see that his centric policies (including international policy) have failed and will therefore move the party further to the left.

I cannot stress how much this will not happen. The party attempts to shift to the center when there is a major loss, because they want to pull in the left leaning-independents and the center leaning-Republicans. The Democratic party pays attention to the left when the left is pulling in victories. They go where the votes are. Not where the votes aren't.

You can go fucking nuts at the primaries, though. If some otherwise ignored candidate starts racking up the numbers, the Dems will pay attention and may focus on that candidate's pet issues in the general election. They'll also be watching where the donations are going.

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thejollywriter

duckdotcom

imagine if doorways grew back like scabbed over with fresh drywall and you had to keep carving them back out with a jabsaw to keep the doorway clear etc

cryptotheism

Imagine if the membranes recoiled in pain every time you did this. Imagine if over time, some doorways became accustomed sensation. Imagine that very rarely, some even seemed to enjoy it.

moonbeamdagger

*sleepover host voice* imagine if you two went to sleep

elodieunderglass

Oh for gods sake kids it’s like piercing an ear - that’s why you put a doorframe in - you don’t hang a door in drywall, you gremlins. You frame the door. It’s like those gauges that people put in their ears - the hole stays. It won’t scab over with a doorframe in it. You’ve lived around doors you whole life, you little clowns. Lights out

macleod

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spockvarietyhour

tvandfilm

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) dir. Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert

dynamicsymmetry

I know Amazon rankings are bullshit but I’m still going to crown myself queer horror royalty for like a day

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disgustinggf

not ignoring you not replying to you but a secret third thing

hopeworth

forgor

knitmeapony

Stuck in an endless cycle of worrying it's been too long and it would be weird to reply to you versus I don't want to ignore you and never reply to you

dynamicsymmetry

“It’s been two weeks since I received this text/DM/email and I haven’t yet responded, I guess I can just never speak to this person again”

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ysabelfaerie

doberbutts

"Well are you a [controversial identity] supporter???"

My friend I do not know what to tell you here. My rule is and remains "I don't care what you call yourself because your actions and who you are as a person is more valuable to me" and "as long as everyone in the situation is an adult and is giving enthusiastic consent I genuinely do not give a fuck what you do" and "words are stupid and people are complicated so it doesn't matter if The Words Are Wrong as long as it makes you happy"

I'm a longer tables not higher walls kind of guy. Have a seat. Break bread with me. Tell me a story over dinner. I think that'll be better for the both of us.

doberbutts

This post has gained about 2.5k notes in 24 hours for some reason and is doing numbers in the Identities Fandom but I feel like I need to be clear about something:

I wrote this before I'd ever even heard of crimew but also like.

Also yes I mean even that identity. That one too. Especially that one. And we can't forget that one either.

Come and sit at my table. Try my soup, it's an old recipe. Tell me how your day went. I think that's a better course of action.