Sure. Fine.

Anyway, kill Claudio.

[akaahsokatano]

happy pride month !

[sshannonauthor]

What is your opinion on using ChatGPT to help you write? I myself use it for moral boosters and when I'm doubting myself and ask it if something makes sense, nothing more as I'd never want a word of my novel to not be my own. But I've seen some hate online recently from writers saying that anyone who uses it at all isn't a writer? Which does make me awfully sad

-

It's not hate – we're scared and frustrated. Not just for ourselves, because AI is a genuine threat to our livelihoods, but also for the next generation of writers, like you. It's going to be a lot harder to get discovered or published with AI-generated content flooding the Internet and the book market.

Earlier this year, it was revealed that Meta trained Llama 3 on a massive body of pirated work. You can read more about it here. Meta employees knew this was morally wrong, but they did it anyway, because (1) they didn't want to pay anyone for the use of copyrighted work, and (2) they knew they could get away with it, and they have. They took our stories, born of real human experiences, and used them to feed something that's designed to be able to replace us. There are other reasons writers may be anti-AI, like the impact on the environment, but hopefully that gives you some context for why writers, specifically, are reacting to this so strongly.

You've said you wouldn't use ChatGPT to write your novel, which is great to hear. If you did, I would tell you that you weren't, in my opinion, a writer – just as I would never claim to be an artist if I used ChatGPT to create images, or a musician if I used it to generate a song. But I would also gently question why you feel like you need it to give you morale boosters or tell you if something makes sense. ChatGPT is not a human reader; unless you specifically instruct it not to flatter you, it will say what you want to hear. It isn't reacting to you, or to your story, with a human gut or a human heart. To me, any praise or encouragement it offers is empty. There's nobody and nothing behind it.

As for asking it to help you work out if something makes sense: I really do understand the temptation. I'm chronically ill, so I write at a slower pace than a lot of my colleagues, and it might help me churn out books faster if I asked ChatGPT to help me unpick a knot in the narrative, or fix a plot hole. But I don't want to surrender the ability to think and problem-solve for myself, and I would caution you against doing that – not just for the sake of your writing, but for everyday life. In this era of disinformation and propaganda, our ability to think, interrogate and analyse the world around us is more important than ever.

I can't stop you from using AI. But ask yourself: what would you have done before ChatGPT? Could you have figured out for yourself if something about your story makes sense? I think you definitely could have. It might have taken a bit longer, but you would have worked it out. I would encourage you to hold on to that ability. Cherish and nurture it. Rather than relying on artificial intelligence, trust your own.

[ariaste]

All of this but I also want to add: OR ASK A FRIEND. MAKE FRIENDS AND THEN ASK FOR HELP FROM A HUMAN BEING. We're all so fucking scared of each other that we're turning to the hallucination machine to feed our hunger for connection, and ChatGPT can only give you a version of that which is utterly empty calories. It's like eating grass in a famine. Yeah, it'll fill your stomach so you stop hurting with hunger, but it won't nourish you, and it'll just make you sicker and you'll starve faster because your body will have to expend energy to try and fail to digest it.

Talk to other writers. Make friends. It's not rocket science, it's what a human being is wired to do. Just be kind and friendly and interested in other people and their writing, and they'll be interested in you and yours. And then if you can't figure it out, ASK FOR HELP. There is NOTHING wrong with asking for help. Asking for help is, in fact, a beautiful thing that will bring you closer together with a new friend. That's what you're sacrificing when you turn to ChatGPT for it -- you're losing out on the possibility of making a really profound, lasting, potentially lifetime friendship with another human being. You're missing out on something sacred and beautiful because you're impatient and scared and insecure.

Insecurity doesn't just vanish automatically. You have to file it down gradually over time, like filing your nails or sanding a piece of wood butter-smooth. You can do it. It is WORTH doing. It just takes some elbow grease.

Don't ask ChatGPT. Ask your new acquaintance, the one who you're like "ooh i don't know if we're good enough friends yet for me to ask for help..." DO IT. YOU ARE. DO IT. Experience shared humanity together! Open yourself to the possibility of connection! If you can't handle the small rejection of "ooh sorry, I can't, I'm at the grocery store right now and I've got errands the rest of the day," then you are ABSOLUTELY not cut out to have any kind of a writing career with bigger rejections than that. Build your muscles while you can, learn some resilience so that when you Make It as a writer, you're strong enough to survive the experience without being utterly annihilated.

[duckprintspress]

Buy Queer Creations, Support Queer Causes: 2026 Story and Art Bundles for Charity!

HAPPY PRIDE! It’s time for our fourth-annual Pride Bundle charity drive! We’ve got three bundles this year: a general imprint bundle with 25 titles totaling 381 pages; an explicit bundle of 15 stories, 237 pages; and an art bundle with 10 artworks, 250 mb of digital artwork! In the first three years of this initiative, we’ve raised over $725 for the charities we’ve selected, and we’re delighted to be back, this time in an effort to raise money for the Queer Liberation Library ( @queerliblib ) and the Transgender Law Center.

The General Imprint Bundle costs $25 USD (60% off normal!). 40% of this sales price will be divided equally between the two charities.

The Explicit Imprint Bundle costs $15 USD (60% off normal!). 44% of this sales price will be divided equally between the two charities.

The Art Bundle costs $10 USD (66% off normal!). 24% of this sales price will be divided equally between the two charities.

How This Works

You buy one or both bundles between now and June 30th, 2026.

We tally up all the proceeds earned and do some math-e-magic to figure out how much we’re donating!

Before the end of July, we divide our total raised amount in half and donate equal amounts to the Queer Liberation Library and the Transgender Law Center.

We post the proof that we’ve made the donation (you can see past proof here, here, and here.)

You get fantastic stories!

We all get that happy, glowy feeling of knowing that money has been well-spent on fantastic causes!

About the Press

Duck Prints Press is a queer-owned indie press, founded to publish original works by fancreators. We’ve been in operation for over 5.5 years, and in that time we’ve worked with well over 150 creators to publish ten anthologies and over 200 other stories, from shorts to novels, and we’ve got more on the works (five anthologies in progress, multiple novels slated for the later half of 2026, an art project, and more). The vast majority of our creators and their creations are queer/LGTBQIA+ (maybe even all, but we don’t out anyone and we don’t ask demography because, frankly, it’s none of our business).

About Our Selected Charities

Note: These charities are not affiliated with the Press, do not know we’re doing this fundraiser, have not endorsed this in anyway and are, as such, utterly uninvolved in this beyond being the beneficiaries of our efforts! Text is from their webpages.

The Queer Liberation Library: “Queer Liberation Library (QLL) is fighting to build a vibrant, flourishing queer future by connecting LGBTQ+ people with literature, information, and resources that celebrate the unique and empowering diversity of our community.”

The Transgender Law Center: “Transgender Law Center is the largest national trans-led organization advocating self-determination for all people. Since 2002 we’ve been organizing, assisting, informing and empowering thousands of individual community members towards a long-term, national, trans-led movement for liberation.”

About the Bundles

We are offering three bundles: general imprint stories, with 25 works; explicit imprint stories, with 15 works; and art, with 10 works. The shop listings include details about and excerpts from all the stories and previews of all the art. Purchasing book bundles gets you access to the e-book (in ePub and PDF formats) of each title included in the bundle. Purchasing the art bundle gets you access to high-quality print-ready images, sized to print clearly at 8.5 in x 11 in (21.6 cm x 27.9 cm) (FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY!). Here’s what you’ll get!

Works in the General Imprint Charity Bundle:

Farm to Table by Andi Rigby

The Problem with Wishes by Annabeth Lynch

Of Loops and Weaves by Catherine E. Green

Starstruck, Adrift by Cedar D. McCafferty-Svec

Let the Solstice Come by D. V. Morse

Red Ink, Black Water by Dei Walker

Old Books, New Friends by Genevieve Maxwell

A Galaxy Run in 30 Minutes or Less by J. D. Harlock

Seal Island by K. B. Vimes

Quintessentially You by Len Amin

Sonic Boom of My Heart by Linnea Peterson

Night Birds by Max Jason Peterson

Snow Day Memories by Merlin Grey

Sarisa by N. C. Farrell

Wolven Dance by Neo Scarlett

It’s Witchcraft! by Nicola Kapron

Living Room Beauty Shop by O. E. Hendrickson

One Moon at a Time by R. L. Houck

a name to call by Rascal Hartley

Nycticorax by S. J. Ralston

Bubble, Bubble by Sage Mooreland

The Wayward Timekeeper by Terra P. Waters

To Fill My Cup by Violet J. Hayes

Tincture of Clarity by Willa Blythe

Chrysopoeia by Zel Howland

25 stories. 381 pages. 130,140 words of fiction! Price: $25.00 USD

GET THE GENERAL IMPRINT BUNDLE

Approximately 40% of the list price of this bundle will go to charity.

Works in the Explicit Imprint Charity Bundle:

Snowbound and Love Sick by A. L. Heard

Heart’s Scaffold by Alec J. Marsh

Heated Desperation by Aria L. Deair

A Safe Place to Land by boneturtle

Can’t Let Go by Dei Walker

Like it Sharp by E. V. Dean

then, too, at sea by ilgaksu

Sinking by Lyn Weaver

We the Hunters by Lyonel Loy

Goals by R. L. Houck

Easier Than Expected by Samantha M. Piper

Worlds Apart (but Still Close)by Sanne Burg

Taken at Sea by Shea Sullivan

Warm Anything You Want by Tris Lawrence

Allay the Burning Fever in My Blood by YF Ollwell

15 stories. 237 pages. 80,768 words of fiction! Price: $15.00 USD

GET THE EXPLICIT IMPRINT BUNDLE

Approximately 44% of the list price of this bundle will go to charity.

Works in the Art Charity Bundle:

Devour by Aaron Kotze

Warm by Aceriee

Aurora by æonswinter

Forever Halloween by Max Jason Peterson

Demi Dragon by May Barros

Bar on the outskirts. by MizuShiba

old truths, new patches by radicalhoodie

The Riddle by Shea Sullivan

[untitled] by swev.art

Another Spring by Zel Howland

10 artworks. 247 mb of art! Price: $10.00 USD

GET THE ART PRINT BUNDLE

Approximately 24% of the list price of this bundle will go to charity.

Check out our bundles for charity now, and help us help others!!

Can’t support right now? Signal boosts help too!!

[queerliblib]

queer books! queer authors! queer publishers! queer libraries!

all of the above!!

[normal-horoscopes]

I legitimately think the first video game to ever say the word "bisexual" out loud was Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. There is a nonzero chance it was actually the first video game to print "bisexual" in a text format.

[normal-horoscopes]

It is very possible that the first video game character to ever say the word "Bisexual" out loud was Solid Snake.

[lakemojave]

Based on what I found, the first ever bisexual character in a video game was Curtis Craig from Phantasmagoria 2 (1996) but I have yet to find out if he says the word "bisexual" in the scene where this is revealed

[lakemojave]

He does not. He says he's attracted to his male best friend but he never says the word "bisexual."

The first ever character to ever correctly and overtly identify a person as bisexual was Solid Snake in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001)

[nyanbinyuri]

I once again have to point out for those who've never played mgs2 he says this when asked if another character that goes by the name of vamp is a vampire

[laliluleho]

Everyone here who hasn’t yet needs to see how fucking incredible this whole conversation is.

Snake: “He was at church when a bomb went off, got pierced by a crucifix, survived by drinking his family’s blood.”

Raiden: “So that’s why he’s called Vamp?”

Snake: “No it’s because he’s bisexual.”

[preludeinz]

Every instance of this screenshot I have seen, I assumed was an edit as a joke.

[catasters]

[rocktheholygrail]

[espanolbot2]

Experts sound alarm over Elon Musk's 'coup' that's 'about to rob your 401k'

Financial experts sounded the alarm Monday over what some have described as a financial “coup” being carried out by Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO a

Financial experts sounded the alarm Monday over what some have described as a financial “coup” being carried out by Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO and fierce ally to President Donald Trump, one that could see tens of millions of Americans unknowingly prop up his unprofitable company SpaceX through their retirement accounts. “The richest guy on the planet is about to rob your 401K,” warned content creator Zack Nelson, writing in a social media post Sunday on X to his nearly 1 million followers. In a move that one of the United States’ largest unions warned “defies financial logic,” private index providers – the companies that decide what stocks go into major market indexes – have fast tracked SpaceX to be added to indexes like the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq-100, indexes that millions of Americans buy into via their retirement accounts. On aggregate, SpaceX operates at a loss, a factor that would ordinarily make the company ineligible to be added to certain indexes without the “newly announced fast-entry rules,” Reuters reported. “Amazing,” noted investor and market commentator Ari Paul, the chief investment officer of BlockTower Capital, in a social media post on X to his more than 230,000 followers. “Pensions forced to buy SpaceX IPO (initial public offering) en masse even if it’s unprofitable. Impressive coup by Musk.” Ian McMillan, a portfolio manager and market technician at Client First Tax and Wealth Advisors, was more blunt in his assessment. “Listen, I’m a big ‘the index is the index’ guy, but they are openly looting the coffers,” he wrote in a social media post on X to his more than 130,000 followers. “This is 100% fraud.”

[sweetfirebird]

It's Leave a Comment Time again

Hello people already tired of US American Project 2025 bullshit. Today's is Russell Vought/the OMB Office putting forth a proposal that all federal science grants have to be reviewed for "woke."

I'm not kidding. The proposal includes the word "woke" in quotes. It also includes some Trumpian ranting about DEI and gender ideology.

The basic idea being, following vague and basically undefined guidelines (whatever they decide woke means that day), the OMB office of Federal Financial Management will review applications for research grants and the like and reject or approve them based on "woke."

Being Russell Vought-run, this would likely mean anything they decide has to do with climate change, women, gay stuff, trans stuff, and possibly anything that might even remotely be about sex positivity or reproductive rights.

Comment period is open until July 14th.

Here is the proposed regulation. It's a doozy.

On this page, you will see a link to regulations.gov which is where you actually leave a comment. In the search bar right at the start of this page, you enter OMB-2026-0034 and it will take you to the place to comment on this bullshit.

I am hoping someone smart will start posting sample comments for us all. I did a ranty comment already but I wouldn't recommend that. I will do a proper one later. (Yeah, you can comment again. You can also comment anonymously.)

Some things to bring up: the guidelines are (probably deliberately) vague and undefined. This is going to drastically inhibit and hamstring valuable research. This is going to damage the US' reputation (even more). This is going to damage our status as an international power. (I mean, if you are looking for an argument to use against these people. We deserve to lose that but this is to save the science and the research, so.... Project 2025 wants Americans uneducated, isolated, and dumb but paradoxically also still wants to be the number one superpower. I know. P2025 people are real stupid.) This will cost the US money in possible future innovations, as the best and the brightest will go elsewhere and take their cutting edge tech and knowledge with them. (As they should honestly, but again, we are trying to defend the scientists here now who need their grant money.) Talking about money usually helps when arguing with these losers.

Anyway, hopefully someone posts this better, or creates some sample posts. Here this is for now.

[necrotranscjk]

An important tweet

[sighinastorm]

This is such a "common sense" way of putting it. Everybody memorize this for spitting it back out whenever needed.

[skin-slave]

Never thought I'd have the opportunity to say this again: Reducing women and girls to their vaginas and then forcing them to show those vaginas to strangers is not a feminist ideal.

[tzikeh]

More examples of the WORST mansplaining here.

[useyourblinker]

This might be my favorite

[lotsofcatsandcheapwine]

This is mine

[stockyardsyndrome]

[inkskinned]

Every day I handle more money than I will ever make. Every day.

At the start of my employment, my boss showed me videos of people stealing, and we both had a chuckle about it. How silly they were! There was a camera overhead, and it’s not to watch the shoppers. See, we can’t actually stop shoplifters. They get away with it maybe nine out of ten times. But we, who are watched and tallied and witnessed? We are always caught.

At first it was hard to hold one hundred dollars bills. An amount I had never seen before. An amount that didn’t exist in my household. It’s normal now. Here is something that is not for me.

“What the hell, I’ll take another,” says the man, pondering our 200 dollar watches. What the hell. Total comes to 580 and not even a flinch in his face. I have been working for 11 hours today and made only 110 dollars. It will go to my rent. Today I work for free, it feels. When I get my check, I will have 35 dollars left for food and saving.

The six hundreds he hands me go into the cash register. For a moment, I imagine having money. Then I put it away, counting out his change.

I know for a fact we sell our products for double what they are worth. That I could be making commission. That they could hand me those 580 dollars and change my life and not even mark the difference in their checkbooks. He’s not the only sale they make today, but I am the reason they made it. He’s not the only one spending 600 dollars, but if I hadn’t spent two hours with him telling me about his life, he wouldn’t have spent any. I go home. I don’t own a watch.

I have watched and rewatched a video on how to make salmon four ways. My shopping list is always the same. Pasta. Rice. Tuna. If I can afford butter it was a good week. I dream of the world I will never walk in, where I can throw the best fish fillet in the cart with a shrug. I hold hundreds in my hand and look up at the camera. I put them under the cash drawer.

I go to work. I scrap together my savings. I eat my bowl of rice slowly. My manager takes a paid week off from work just for his birthday. He owns a yacht. 

I’m not worth the cost of a watch.

[inkskinned]

i wrote this while i was working at orlando’s walt disney world parks.

i was part of their college program. i moved to the state for it. they legally owned the building i was living in and still charged me rent. i ostensibly was being charged to work for them. it was a 2 bedroom apartment and they placed 6 adult women in it in forced triples.

as many as one in ten disney employees have experienced homelessness while working for the company. despite huge efforts to unionize, strike, or otherwise demand fair treatment; disney has refused to increase employee quality of life.

disney admits publicly that a good portion of their success is because the employees (“cast members”) are dedicated, passionate, and selfless. this is never reflected in pay. even “face” characters (ie those that are princesses etc) make barely above a minimum wage.

at the time that i worked there, i made $8.50 an hour. at one point i was asked to create a human shield around a bag because a bomb dog had alerted to it. for eight fucking dollars an hour.

i now work a very cushy office job. i have bought the salmon and cooked it all four ways.

i go to the store. i am nice to the person behind the counter. she looks up at the camera while she counts out my change. there is nothing fundamentally different about her and i.

we are both worth more than the watch, anyway.

[treebeardsrevenge]

"Mirkwood would judge Legolas so hard for Gimli-" Wrong. Gimly has consistently charmed the pants off every single elf he's come across. The elves of Lothlorien went from wanting to kick him out to loving him in like 2 days. He's Galadriel's special little guy. My man is out there singlehandedly tearing down centuries of prejudice because he's just so damn charming. When he was nearing the end, he didn't even go to Durin's halls - he just went with Legolas to the undying lands so he could hang out with elves for the rest of time. Gimli would have Thranduil and the rest of the elves of Mirkwood wrapped around his dwarven finger in a week's time. Ideal son in law except for the beard.

[detectivebambam]

is this not what happened?

[sharpestlives]

some of you people are so annoying. i mean me too but good lord

[shilyas]

nuzzle

[willgrahamscock]

one man’s phobia is another man’s kink

[willgrahamscock]

and it’s the same man

[frontmansdefender]

people saying “don’t use your full government name for your ao3”, “create different emails for work and personal use” but personally I think it’s both sad and dystopian how capitalism/companies/even schools think they have the rights to cross your personal boundaries and insert themselves into your personal life. like, I get it, safety wise, why checking digital footprints can be important sometimes. but a gay fanfiction is not a fucking threat that could ever cause anybody harm. it’s funny (not really, it’s still sad and dystopian) how they now think they can control your personal life and prevent you from having hobbies

[talesfromthecrypts]

Crash (1996) dir. David Cronenberg

[maybe-the-next-one-darling]

[garak-pussy-indulgence]

Happy Pride only to the car wreck fetish polycule