va

Ray | any pronouns, bi, old | MoreThanSlightly (cadignan) on AO3 | Locked Tomb, Ted Lasso (RJK), whatever | I also write books

[morethanslightly]

Here is a guide to my books! There are kind of a lot of them now. Sci-fi and fantasy romance with bisexual main characters. Full descriptions, content guidance, buy links, etc, at my site.

[wiisagi-maiingan]

Anything that claims that it can sort all humans into neat categories is bullshit, sorry to say. The sex binary, the gender binary, astrology, MBTI, love languages, whatever. Humans are hugely complex and unique and not a single person on this earth can be accurately described using simple terms like that.

[hatersmad]

thinking about that one wordless calvin and hobbes sunday strip thats just calvins dad ditching his work to go play in the snow... its going to make me cry

[hatersmad]

ohhhh my god

[faithful-grigori]

”#I LOVE that the comic keeps the lens on Calvin’s dad to the degree of not even showing Calvin’s excited face when his dad surprises him, #You can see the joy and excitement of the moment in his pose and reflected in his dad’s expression, #it’s a great little artistic decision, #I realized what gets me about it it’s the hat covering his dad’s head and hair so the dad just looks like Calvin. #you don’t HAVE to show Calvin! You already see him in the dad becoming a kid for a moment you only have to draw that once”

[transheadcrab]

why do they always show cranberries in thos big pits n its implied its wet and possibly swimmable. do cranberries really grow like that. wh

[khamingbird-blog]

You’ve never heard of The Bog?

[transheadcrab]

th

the what

[transheadcrab]

EACH ADDITION TO THIS POST MAKES MY BLOOD RUN COLD

[punkrorschach]

This is a cranberry bog (unflooded) it’s how cranberries grow. Once they’re ripe, the blog is flooded and the cranberries harvested.

Basically by using big floaty things to round them all up and then scooping them out of the water.

[transheadcrab]

thank u. i hate it a little less but the horrible little man in my head is still screaming “BOG BODY BOG BODY BOG BODY”, but i appreciate the education,

[bomberqueen17]

oh here is a fun lil perspective on cranberry harvesting i never heard about anywhere else. the guy who owns the restaurant right down the road from the farm, who fries our chickens sometimes, is from Boston, with the strongest Boston accent ever, and in a former life before he started slinging reasonably priced barbeque and occasional organic chicken, he was a cranberry farmer.

His farm was on the leading edge of kinda using organic/sustainable pest control methods, and one of the things that they did to keep insect damage down was that they encouraged wolf spiders to live in the cranberry field, to eat the bugs. 

This was all fine and good until they flooded the bog. Now, you don’t just like flood the bog and then go around it in a boat or whatever. No, you use hip waders to get in there and put the big floaty things where they go and get all the berries and such.

Well when you’re in the bog in hip waders, that makes you the tallest thing. Wolf spiders can swim a bit, but they don’t like it, so they’re, quite understandably, looking to climb out of the water onto a tall thing.

So yeah the first interview question he always asked potential cranberry bog harvester hires was “are you cool with spiders?”

“You’d be amazed,” he said to us, shaking his head a little, “how many guys would just straight lie. Like, you think I’m asking you that question to be cute? Nah man you’re gonna have like a hundred wolf spiders trying to climb your eyebrows, you gotta be chill, those wolf spiders are fellow employees. You really gotta be chill with spiders if you’re gonna work a cranberry harvest.”

[antiocheanism]

happy international workers day to the cranberry bog spiders

[massachusetts-official]

Official Post of Massachusetts

[nariarts]

Longtime readers may be aware of how much I relish an excuse to bully a company, so I'm sharing the wealth;

Clothing company Patagonia is currently sueing drag queen Pattie Gonia for "irreparable” harm to their brand.

To be clear; Pattie named herself after the region in South America.

So Pattie is asking people to politely ask Patagonia to drop the lawsuit.

I'm extending the invitation to all of you, because sueing a drag queen for 'infringement' in the current political cultural landscape is vile. Especially a drag queen who has raised millions of dollars for non-profits, uses her platform to raise awareness for climate activism, and fully aligns with Patagonia's apparent climate-conscious mission statement.

They're claiming they're sueing for $1. They're actually asking her to stop using her name, and pay over $1 million in legal fees. They're straight up harassing her.

In contrast, drag queen Jan Sport has a Jansport bag line. It's that easy to just... work with a queen.

Anyway. Be respectful(ish), but feel free to be annoying on Patagnoia's socials, asking them to 'DROP THE LAWSUIT'

I think they have a twitter and tiktok too!

[maimonideznuts]

I think Australia actually had the best answer to the question "what do we do with phone booths?"

In Australia anybody can make free calls from any phone booth, also most phone booths also provide wi-fi.

So many people benefit, in so many situations.

The free phone booths have been so popular and important that new(fancy) phone booths are being installed.

Making phone booths a free public utility 👍

Ripping them out in the assumption that everyone has access to a phone or internet 👎

How free public payphones are proving to be a lifeline for thousands of Australians

There has been a sharp increase in calls to helplines and emergency services using the free calls service provided through public payphones

[depsidase]

[barkingbarghest]

Here is an article from NPR about it (May 22, 2026):

Carolina Milanesi, an independent technology analyst, said Google is trying to make its cash cow business — search — richer and more personalized, and it will make shopping easier. But there is a risk that users may have fewer choices about what to click. "Right now it's: I ask a question, I get a bunch of answers and I feel that I'm in control as to which answer I take, or if I'm looking for something, which product I'm going to end up buying. That is going to be less so going forward," she said. Milanesi envisions AI-enabled search and agents proposing products to consumers — perhaps even those they have requested — but with less clarity or choice around where it's coming from. "If you're going to say: 'I want a pair of Jordans, go find them,' you're not necessarily sure what steps have been taken and whether the AI has used a source or a store that was paid for and therefore came up in the search results," she said, "or if AI actually went and did their due diligence and picked the best for me as a customer."

And here's one from Time magazine (May 20, 2026):

While Google already has “AI Mode,” the company will now power the whole search bar through its new Gemini 3.5 Flash model.  Instead of the classic list of blue links, Google Search will now also generate a custom page with an AI-generated summary of what you’re searching about, which will then trigger a conversation with AI Mode on the main page, allowing users to ask follow-up questions—similar to the kind of layout you would see when opening ChatGPT.

And a little more from Time's article on how this may affect the websites that we are trying to search for:

When Google first started implementing AI-assisted results, news publishers warned of “catastrophic” impacts on the industry, much of which relies on Google search to drive users to their websites.  Last year, news websites saw significant traffic declines as chatbots increasingly replaced Google search as the primary way to find sites and ask questions.  Small businesses also noted drops in traffic to their sites from Google, which has traditionally delivered customers.   Lily Ray, vice president of SEO strategy & research at Amsive, a digital marketing agency, warned as early as last year that Google’s planned changes to search are “going to have a devastating impact on the Internet.”  “It will severely cut into the main source of revenue for most publishers and it will disincentivize content creators who rely on organic search traffic, which is millions of websites, maybe more,” she told Technology Magazine.  

[anarchopuppy]

noai.duckduckgo.com blocks all AI content in search results automatically

[adibkhorram]

So I saw this news last week and finally switched over to duckduckdo and the difference is STAGGERING. It's like...search from 20 years ago. The results I want are at the TOP. I can't believe I waited so long to switch.

[tjalexandernyc]

agreed, switching to duckduckgo last year was the single best improvement in my life. just remember to change the search settings > manage ai and turn all the different toggles to Off (duck.ai), Never (search assist), and On (Hide ai images)

[fairycosmos]

apparently youre supposed to perform. they love it when you perform. but it has to be authentic. they hate it when it's not authentic. but you have to perform.

[elierlick]

This is one of the oldest surviving recordings of a trans person.

Masoud El Amaratly (1897-1944) was an Iraqi trans singer who became famous in 1920s Baghdad for his folk music. He worked as a farmer before transitioning in his teens. The mustarjil, a term similar to trans man, then moved to the city and sang in cafés. A music agent discovered him there and his fame spread across West Asia.

Enjoy this 1925 recording of him singing the traditional Iraqi song, "Khadri al Chai" ("Please Make Tea"). Check out Ajam's website for more.

[softieskywalker]

i think the key difference between george lucas’s star wars and disney’s star wars is that lucas is a man with an ideology. someone with a point of view, and all that entails. which comes with ideas of revolution, anti-imperialism, challenging the status quo, cultural appropriation and racist stereotypes. complex and contradictory ideas because that’s how artists are: complex and complicated people. disney is not. disney is a corporation. a corporation can’t have ideology, because ideology defeats the purpose of profit. and when the only thing you do is to turn on the movie manufacturing machine before you sit down and plan what ideas are you trying to convey to the audience, then your results are going to be washed out corporate garbage. and because when you’re a giant corporation who only cares about selling to the widest audience possible, you can’t take sides. you can’t decide on an idea. because you want to sell your product to people who are on the entire political spectrum. which results in movies without ideology, without purpose, without soul.

[david-talks-sw]

I have been looking for this post for years after I came across it and it’s finally here and I need to reblog this because it is absolutely and entirely accurate.

[comebackali]

#as I always say: lucas was making a samurai film and a ww2 flying ace film and a western film and adding laser swords#because he fundamentally LIKED samurai films and dambusters films and westerns and 40’s adventure serials#but disney are making a ‘star wars film’ and adding nothing because it already had laser swords and they have nothing else to say#xerox of a xerox baybeeeee (via harrietvane)

[juleskelleybooks]

IT'S MY BOOK MONTH

After having been in the works since roughly 2015, EDGE OF THE WOODS is now almost in the world.

It's, uh, not the most mainstream take on werewolves and vampires, so my queer, disabled ass would appreciate anyone who feels like giving this little indie "contemporary fantasy with strong romantic elements" some love.

Here's the parts of the book that I, the author, love the most and am most excited about:

-- Main and major characters who are bisexual, gay, trans, and asexual. (Although the ace part admittedly isn't on-page in this book, it will come up in later books.)

-- A young woman who is a werewolf alpha, who starts out afraid of her power and ends up going absolutely fucking feral on some assholes.

-- A ridiculously self-indulgent sexy-ass vampire lord that I didn't have a fancast for until I watched the "Montero" music video

-- I managed to pull off a book-long running joke tribute to a single damn line in What We Do in the Shadows (but now I'm committed to it for two more books, so...)

-- Two characters who are Not Skinny and Not Ripped but who are EXTREMELY into each other's bodies, and extremely into enthusiastic consent.

Anyway, if any of this sounds interesting to you, consider adding this to your GoodReads list, or pre-ordering on Amazon (or waiting until May 18 and buying it from https://cityowlpress.com), or at least reblogging this post.

GoodReads: https://t.co/S8GojjREt3?amp=1 Amazon: https://t.co/QfrzaIB8g8?amp=1

Find content advisories and other stories (including free short fiction) on my website: http://julesrobinkelley.com

[saekokato]

@thebibliosphere

[thebibliosphere]

Oh trust me, I’ve already got my ARC of this and it is *chef kiss*

[juleskelleybooks]

Congrats on finding a really old post! Website is now juleskelleybooks dot com., I got the rights back and self-published and now the cover is different, but please have fun!

[henk-heijmans]

Housing complex: architect Mario Botta, Novazzano, Switzerland, 1988/1993 - by Stefano Perego (1984), Italian

[status-quo-hater]

I think one of the funniest abortion stances I've heard was from my parents neighbor. He's a like, hard-core libertarian viking larper guy who is very tall and very fat and very bald.

He believes a fetus is human with a soul, but also its "basically attacking the woman's body" so if she wants to get rid of it, that's "basically self-defense". He compared it to shooting a home invader. So he supports abortion not as healthcare, but as killing a baby in self-defense

[status-quo-hater]

Y'know I'm so glad someone reminded me of this. Because this was also discussed.

My stepmother did NOT like the way her Libertarian Viking Neighbor framed pregnancy as the fetus "attacking the woman". She incredulously told him this was extremely disrespectful to expectant mothers to portray pregnancy as so violent and negative.

Libertarian Viking Neighbor's response was that people consensually hurt each other all the time, and "there's like a whole community about that, with the acronym the one that starts with a B" And his reasoning was that if the mother was consenting to bring attacked by the baby, it in fact wasn't violent and negative because there was consent.

He brought up people consensually hurting each other, didn't go for one of the obvious answers like boxing or body mods or something, no he went STRAIGHT TO BDSM and he DIDN'T EVEN REMEMBER THE ACRONYM

[romanceyourdemons]

next time you’re at the thrift store and find a nice solid thick pile area rug for a shockingly good price and you’ve been looking for an area rug for the office forever and the color goes really nicely with the office color scheme and you think this is it, this is what i’ve been waiting for, stop, and ask yourself: did i take the bus here?

[romanceyourdemons]

next time you’re on the bus and see someone with an area rug and a look of deep disappointment in themself mind your own business

[passionpeachy]

The way adult fandom people hold indie online creators and cartoons to a much higher standard than their actual local politicians. You could be putting that energy into terrorizing and protesting conservatives at your town hall and actually make a good material impact on the world but instead you're background checking everything the trans woman who made the amazing digital circus has ever said

[passionpeachy]

The point isn't "stop criticizing indie artists" or "defend your favorite show under this post". I don't even watch Digital Circus and no one is above criticism. Literally every indie show is getting torn to shreds on twitter right now and I'm not saying this to defend anyone I don't know. The point is "someone who actually has the power to kill us all and get away with it deserves way more ire and accountability than a cartoonist and I expect grown adults to understand this"

[kuttithevangu]

Gentle notice that “highbrow” and “lowbrow” are eugenics/race science terms and it may be better to just quietly retire them in casual discussions of art

[elamarth-calmagol]

Oh my god, are we actually talking about the height of actual eyebrows? That never even occurred to me.

[kuttithevangu]

The eyebrows and forehead yeah

Highbrow - Wikipedia

Highbrow - Wikipedia

[parkchanwoohoo]

How does this eve-- whatever