I am a Lemming

[friedwizardwhispers]

Thirteen years ago, when he came back to the capital:

[garrettauthor]

I got real petty over on the Facebook page and IT WAS GLORIOUS.

[wintergrey]

This is me, going to check out Legendary Books now…

[thefingerfuckingfemalefury]

Publisher: We think that the way the fantasy genre treats women is problematic so we’re going to try and do better

A Fool: If you don’t like it why don’t you make your own!

Publisher: That

That is literally what we just said we are doing

[garrettauthor]

GUESS WHO’S BACK, BIGOTED FUCKWADS?

BOY it feels good to be back in this particular saddle!

[garrettauthor]

AHAHAHAHAHA we have a winner for today!

[snigepippi]

*Snort*

[loopy-lolly-loo-deactivated2023]

@princessjellyfishie

[notyourplayground]

if anybody like me a) lol’d and b) wanted to get my hands on that book series, here’s the link

[seanchaidh101]

This is magically what I’m looking for right now.

[tragedybunny]

Hi Legendary Books, I’ll take one of everything.

[garrettauthor]

Happy to oblige!

https://underrealm.net/books

<3

[maggiemae873]

I literally don’t have the space for any more physical books, but I’ve downloaded every Underrealm book on Kindle. I read The Alchemist’s Touch specifically because of this post and I seriously can’t recommend the Underrealm books enough. they are absolutely fantastic.

[holycafe]

I don’t really read anymore, not like i used to. And of i get a masters this year like i am planning to then that isn’t going to change. But hell yes I’m going to go and buy these books because THIS is exactly the kind of thing that i want to support!

[thefingerfuckingfemalefury]

YISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

[vigilantsycamore]

One day I will have a job and a bank account and I will have money from the job in the bank account and I will use some of the money to purchase these books

[garrettauthor]

Hey did you

did you know

did you know we have a podcast now and you can literally listen to the books for free.

(You probably didn’t. That’s okay because it’s very new).

It’s slower than buying and reading them, but it’s great if you have no book budget but you do have some listening time!

The Nightblade Epic Podcast

The Nightblade Epic Podcast is an audio presentation of the #1 Amazon bestselling series. Narrated by Garrett Robinson, and hosted by Meghan

[siawrites]

You could also beg your local library to get them.  Just saying.

[garrettauthor]

Asking your library to stock a book for you to read is one of the most helpful things you can possibly do for an author.

[garrettauthor]

Happy Pride, y'all!

[orcboxer]

Things that work in fiction but not real life

torture getting reliable information out of people

knocking someone out to harmlessly incapacitate them for like an hour

jumping into water from staggering heights and surviving the fall completely intact

calling the police to deescalate a situation

rafting your way off a desert island

correctly profiling total strangers based on vibes

effectively operating every computer by typing and nothing else

ripping an IV out of your arm without consequences

heterosexual cowboy

[orcboxer]

This post breaching containment has taught me that a lot of people seem to think they can accurately profile complete strangers. For the record, no the fuck you can't.

[spock-shock]

I know "60s housewives who invented slash fanfiction" has taken on a life of its own as a phrase, but Kirk/Spock didn't really exist until the 70s and THOSE WOMEN HAD JOBS. They were teachers and librarians and bookkeepers and scientists and they damn well spent their own money going to conventions, printing zines, buying fanart and making fandom happen. Put some respect on their names.

[spock-shock]

Salute to our troops (70s careerwomen who put their hard-earned dollars into homemade gay erotica)

[mrsmarymorstan]

It was women with secretarial jobs doing a lot of the heavy lifting, if memory serves correctly.

They had training in type setting, could churn things out quickly, knew how to organise mailing lists, and had easy access to Expensive High Tech like photocopiers.

Boss make a dollar, she makes a dime. That's why she's printing Kirk X Spock zines on company time.

[madscientistenthusiast]

Personally I think that Azula should have been redeemed simply so that she can become Zuko's horrible little advisor who whispers evil little plans to him so that he can do the exact opposite

[captainkirkk]

#the only reason she gets this job is bc he doesnt trust her anywhere else in the palace#its like enrichment for manipulative girls#also so that he can set her on asshole deligates like a rabid little lapdog#she just has mean fuckin pomeranian energy that thing bites then lights you on fire w flames so hot theyre cold#i think their sibling dynamic could be sooo fucking funny its insane (@madscientistenthusiast)

Zuko doesn't like instilling fear in people as the Fire Lord because it makes him feel too much like Ozai but sometimes motherfuckers NEED to be rattled so they don't try anything. Which is where Azula comes in. It's a win/win for everyone except for the poor sucker Azula has set her sights on

[psychoticallytrans]

If a worker who isn't the owner says ANYTHING similar to "I'm not really supposed to do this but-" and then does something that helps you, under no circumstances inform the business, including through reviews. You tell them that the worker was polite, professional, the very model of customer service and why you like to go there. You do not breathe a word of the rulebreaking.

[steampunktomboy]

Employee-customer solidarity

[dykepuffs]

Even if they don't- Your review can be the thing that wrecks someone up accidentally;

"Janie was so helpful when I wanted to buy a new washing machine on Friday, she stayed with me for half an hour and wasn't pushy at all, we had a good laugh about our cats' silly antics and she got Adam and Suzy to carry it to the car for me- 10/10 excellent service, I'd come back any day!"

-But Management has a policy that workers should spend no more than 10 focused minutes on any customer at a time, and that they should always try to upsell the insurance and the higher price model, so Janie was breaking policy.

-And they aren't supposed to have their phones on the sales floor, so now Janie is going to be quizzed on whether she was showing photos of her cat to a customer.

-Adam is a warehouse worker and shouldn't have been in the front-of-house at all, Suzy is a porter, and store policy is both to use a trolley to move heavy items, and that only the porters should do it, so now Janie is in trouble for pulling Adam off-task, Adam is in trouble for walking through the shop floor, and Suzy is in trouble for poor handling procedure. Maybe the store even has a paid delivery service that Janie was supposed to upsell as soon as you said "I can't put this in my car without help", so this was all against policy.

Your review should always be as bland as possible, "10/10, five star service, will shop here again, thank you to Janie at the Town Street branch" You NEVER know what was technically a rule-break, capitalism is not your friend, the review process is part of the panopticon.

FIVE STARS, TEN OUT OF TEN, VERY GOOD, NOTHING MORE.

[katchwreck]

One of the best shot of Total Solar Eclipse from 08-04-2024.

Via @nasa-official

[crispy-ghee]

if I say "I have to Austin Powers my car out of a parking space," do you understand what i mean

[thundersnapp]

like this?

[whisperingwordsofwisdom]

[whitepeopletwitter]

[speakingofdoorknobs]

[1e3no]

[copperbadge]

#2, Brute?

[downwithneocolonialism]

Please don’t pay for his music.

[oncelerfucker69-deactivated2019]

also don’t listen to it, it’s extremely bad

[holybucketbatman]

He’s wanting to do this to his home: 

He submitted the proposal to the Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council and the plan was rejected because the proposed four-foot-high railings (fence) and simple cast iron gate (which was chosen purely privacy and security for the front of the home) were considered “too domestic” looking for the former industrial area. The council gave Sheeran a list of options for privacy “railings”, and after changing the proposal Sheeran was given permission that was more in line with the neighbourhood, which is in a conservation area.  A direct quote from Sheeran states: “Dear Natalie Edwards from The Sun newspaper. Your story is bollocks, I have done lots of work in the past for Crisis and Shelter and would never build railings outside my home for that reason.The reason was to keep the paps that you employ from being on my doorstep. Have a good day.” this comment has been substantiated by the local police and security companies that Sheeran and his neighbours have had to contact previously when paparazzi have been taking photographs not only of Sheeran’s house but inside his windows, and constantly knocking on his door and yelling outside his house.  Think about this for a moment, a guy bought a house and fixed it up, he was trying to gain some privacy by asking for a simple fence and gate to indicate the property line and gain some distance from the paps, - which the police and council said was fine - and the newspapers who can no longer use these ill-gotten photos and are probably pissed have managed to spin this story to make it seem that this guy (whether you like his music or not), is an asshole and is anti-homeless. And you’re all eating this shit up and believing the newspapers, even though the Sun and Telegraph are well known across the UK for making shit up and lying. smh. 

[marzipanandminutiae]

I don’t care about Ed Sheeran, but this is an exercise in media literacy

[depsidase]

[seymour-butz-stuff]

DENTAL PLAN!

LISA NEEDS BRACES!

DENTAL PLAN!

[norvicensiandoran]

[mckitterick]

the Ides of March grows near

[crabs-with-sticks]

Has anybody else read The Art of Prophecy by Wesley Chu, because I’m honestly surprised its not more popular.

Its got such a great spin on the chosen one trope, where the chosen one is a boy who is kinda useless and very spoiled from the fact that nobody is going to question or hurt the Important and Powerful chosen one. Somehow though, he is still a very likeable character and its easy to sympathise with him in the later parts of the books.

So he’s very much a whiny looser at the start, and it takes Taishi, an elderly grandmaster war artist who is very grumpy about leaving retirement to make him…not that. She was such a great character, simultaneously grumpy and sharp tongued, but a softy underneath it all.

Thats not even mentioning the other POV characters who are also amazing, cool, badass, and flawed, and also show that there is no good and evil sides in war.

For a book about a young male chosen one there are so many badass older women while the male characters are all way less cool and competent (said with the greatest affection). So, would highly recommend giving it a read!

[xiranjayzhao]

Here's the video version of my discussion of the leaked emails that prove the Hugo Awards removed finalists (me, RF Kuang, Paul Weimer, Neil Gaiman & Ep 6 of Sandman) for political reasons, despite us having the required votes. Because too many of you are making assumptions without bothering to read the full exposé.

There's a lot of nuance in this case that I hope people can acknowledge. No, it is not "sinophobic" to criticize the Chinese government's severe censorship policies when anyone who's spent more than ten minutes on the Chinese internet knows how bad it is, and there IS evidence of pressure in this case. There's nothing to accomplish by pretending like it's not a thing. You're not furthering the world proletarian revolution by speaking over the lived experiences of Chinese comrades and denying factually shitty aspects of your favorite AES.

Yes, the Western and presumably white members of the Hugo admin team DID circle back to racism by trying so hard to appease the Chinese government that they preemptively censored Chinese diaspora ~ to be safe ~ on extremely flimsy reasons without even reading our books. And of course, confusing Nepal for Tibet.

It's really not one or the other.

[neil-gaiman]

Remember, if someone asks you to censor something, you can say no. If they ask you to compile dossiers on problematic individuals, you can say no. You are allowed to not do the censors work for them. You can tell them to go [censored] themselves.

[xiranjayzhao]

Mystery solved, everyone!

Emails between the Hugo Awards admin team last year were leaked and turns out the American & Canadian members willingly went through all the finalists and removed those of us who they thought might offend China.

The leaked emails

The full exposé

Edit: We can't yet say for sure if the team did this due to government pressure or not. If you read the exposé there's a piece of evidence that suggests the local Sichuan government had a hand, but there's no confirmation. The point is that the Western admins chose to actively comply instead of uphold the integrity of the awards.

[xiranjayzhao]

Reblogging with additional context from the exposé because some of you cannot be bothered to read through it and think this has automatically cleared the Chinese government. Right now government pressure is UNCONFIRMED, but suspected with evidence. It can be simultaneously true that the admin team overcorrected in a racist way (preemptively disqualifying Chinese diaspora ~ just to be safe ~) AND that local pressure had a hand in their decisions

Some of you Internet communists on here who've never stepped foot in China cross the line from "critical support of AES" to "China can do nothing wrong ever" and it's really fucking annoying. It's called CRITICAL support for a reason. Pretending like censorship isn't an issue in China (as it ALSO IS IN THE WEST, AS WE HAVE CLEARLY SEEN THESE PAST FEW MONTHS) and accusing people who raise concerns about it of being paranoid conspiracy theorists doesn't help anyone.

[xiranjayzhao]

I am so tired, tired, TIRED of people accusing me of lying because they mixed facts up in their head or never bothered to check what I've actually said

1. I have NEVER claimed the Hugo Awards censored me for being vocal about Palestine. The nominations were way before October and I know that, so that was obviously not the reason!!

2. I AM in a dispute with my publisher for Palestine-related reasons. I would not be making claims against a corporation that aren't true because that's grounds for a lawsuit. They did serve me legal papers, but not for any reason you think. You would NEVER guess the reason, actually, because it's such a petty technicality being used to intimidate me into shutting up. This is in the process of getting settled.

3. I didn't tell anyone to specifically go after the Chinese members of the Hugo Awards admin team. That would obviously be useless. If you actually watched my reel about it you would know my focus was on Dave McCarty, and guess what? The censorship was indeed spearheaded by him. But it also cannot be confirmed that he received 0 pressure from the Chinese government, because there's indeed a (now deleted) post by the Sichuan local government on WeChat saying they had 3 teams screening the 1500+ works relevant to the Hugo Awards. The screen cap is linked IN the exposé. If you can't read it you have no business speaking over actual Chinese people and our lived experiences. The idea that I would willingly contribute to sinophobia is laughable. You're not punk rock for licking the boot of the 2nd most powerful government in the world instead of the 1st.