Purveyor of Fine Falsehoods

Writer trying to learn how to social media | Tumblr Denizen of many years under other blogs | Pronoun Anarchist but my faves are en/ens and it/its | I'm probably gonna curse so there's that

[whimsyandmetaphor]

Promotion Announcement!

Hello! Do you like reading things, stickers, and/or discounts?

The fourth (and final!) physical book in 'The Ferryman's Apprentice' is now available to buy, so I've put together some bundles!

(Description in ID)

This art is done by the absolutely amazing @juimondraws, by the way, and you should all go and shower them with praise.

The books come in four bundles (one, two, three or four books). Every bundle comes with a cool sticker sheet (made by @whispatchet, whom you should also shower with praise!) and you can also add on one of my short story zines if you want to give yourself whiplash reading my writing styles from about a decade apart!

Go visit my Ko-Fi shop to check out the bundles available, and if you want the full announcement details, here's the post on my website!

[nessochist]

Kandy G. Lopez R ² - Roscoe and Reggie 2024 Yarn and acrylic paint on hook mesh

Orlando Museum of Art’s 2025 Florida Prize in Contemporary Art

[highladyluck]

Hello my beautiful human body! I’ve invited you here today to discuss adopting non-mucus-based solutions to common challenges—

[xn3city]

[evandahm]

Hello; I made the webcomic RICE BOY 20 years ago; I am premiering a big video essay about that on Twitch, Sunday June 14 at 9pm EST if you would like to come by. Starting a preliminary curated music pre-show thing at 8pm EST

video will be up on youtube afterwards

[aurpiment]

“It’s easy to assume”: someone’s misconception is about to be amiably corrected

“It’s tempting to assume”: someone’s assumption is about to be criticized

“It’s comforting to assume”: someone’s assumption is going to be read for filth

[topatoco]

This year marks the 20th anniversary of Rice Boy! Hooray!!! 🥳

Sit back with a nice plate of orange popping plants and spend a while re-reading (or reading for the first ever time! wow!) the epic tale of Rice Boy over at rice-boy.com, by the incredible @evandahm!

Also, we have a few Rice Boy things on the site, including two prints of a lovingly drawn Rice Boy wandering the lands of Overside. 🚶‍♂️🌱

[ihearasong]

Please help us save our house.

…I'm going to make this the first thing I say so that people can get angry right off the bat and scroll past if they want to, but I want to say…I'm sorry.  I'm so…so fucking sorry.  I'm re-opening my ko-fi donations.  We need $3k/month.  I'm aware that is completely absurd.  Please keep reading.  I know some people were probably expecting us to fall back in this hole.  I'm…sorry to say it has happened.  I hate writing this post.  I dread writing it.  But I don't know what else to do.  My family has been doing fine for a while, it seems.  We made it to June, right?  But for the past two months, I've been helping pay for my parents' groceries in addition to my own suddenly.  That was odd, I thought.  And concerning.  You can probably expect the bombshell Mom hit me with a couple weeks ago.  We can't pay the mortgage.  It's going on the credit card.  Which apparently is already bloated.  Admittedly I'm not sure how we made it this far into the year if we were struggling so hard last year.  I'm not sure where my parents got the money.  My mom and I are going out today because…she's going to sell the ring of her last husband who died.  My last stepdad.  Neither of us…want to do this.  But this was my parents' dream home, and we're trying to hold onto it desperately.  Yeah, we're privileged fucks.  Yeah, my parents made a stupid decision building a place like this and throwing ALL their finances into it without a backup plan if one of them lost their jobs in this economy, especially when they work in the tech field during the surge of layoffs and AI.  But…fuck.  It's so peaceful here.  Healing.  This is the first house where I've felt at home.  At peace.  Like I can heal.  I shit you not, my chronic pain has gotten easier here.  I don't want to lose that.  If there's one thing I've learned, it's that when you need help, ask for it.  So I'm going to selfishly ask for help, and I'm sorry for that.  The amount of money we need EVERY MONTH just to zero the accounts is stupid.  We'd need even more for gas, doctor appointments, groceries, etc.  This is not a permanent solution.  I don't know what is.  My mom is currently fighting for Disability, but that won't be enough.  So yeah, I'm asking for help.  If it's okay, I'm going to beg you for two things:  One, is there ANYTHING you can think of to help us get money long term to help us out of this situation.  Two…obviously, I'm opening donations.  I'm so sorry to ask you to bear this financial burden with us.  I feel guilty as hell.  Especially since the goal is so high every month.  And I *mean* that.  It's HIGH AS FUCK  Whatever you're thinking it is, it's higher.  As I said, this is their dream home.  And we're privileged fucks.  (My parents moreso than me, who are the ones who initially could afford to build this place.  I'm disabled, in poverty, and have no choice but to live with them.  I cannot afford to live on my own.)  My parents got in too deep.  And I'm contributing as much as I can to keep this place afloat.  If you see the amount and balk, I don't blame you.  Again, I'm so…so sorry.

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[the-punforgiven]

I'm just saying, if you're going to worldbuild magic being a "raw, primal force, akin to and interweaving with nature itself" you gotta explain to me why animals don't use it

[the-punforgiven]

I know the normal answer is "they just aren't smart enough for it" but idk I've seen enough media where a character uses a spell in a moment of brain-off panic ilI feel like animals could probably stumble into a spell or two like, accidentally

[the-punforgiven]

Also how funny would it be to see a completely normal regular bear cast magic missile outta nowhere

[the-punforgiven]

Also there is no way ravens wouldn't figure out spells, tbh

They're smart fuckin birds, I believe in them

Either through observing or just figuring shit out ravens could 100% learn how to cast spells I'm sure of it

[the-punforgiven]

Dogs can also cast Magic Missile but every time they do the projectile is shaped like a bone or a stick and they chase after it

[rathayibacter]

group of wizards who ask this in-universe, and after extensive study learn to their surprise that animals are casting spells all the time, just that their magic is so fundamental as to be unrecognizable to humans. turns out the only reason acorns grow on trees is because squirrels keep wishing for them.

[thatquietkid108]

When a species becomes extinct humans have to figure out what kind of magic they were doing to keep the ecosystem from becoming out of balance

[toasthaste]

according to An Immense World, apparently giant squid eyes are, like, UNREASONABLY large, even for something their size living at those depths. the next largest eyes on earth, blue whale eyes, are less than half the size, and swordfish, who live at similar depths as giant squid and have the largest eyes of any fish, have eyes that could fit inside a giant squid's pupil.

eyes hit serious diminishing returns wrt resource costs vs vision quality as they get bigger, so the question became: what the FUCK do giant (and colossal) squid need to see so badly that they couldn't see with swordfish-sized eyes that's justifying that massive energy cost? that nothing else in the deep ocean needs to see so fucking badly??

turns out the one strength eyes that big really have over much smaller eyes is: seeing large glowing objects in water deeper than 500 meters from an appreciable distance.

sperm whales are the primary predator of giant squid. sperm whales don't glow. BUT! water that deep is full of bioluminescent creatures-- these creatures light up when bumped into. something a sperm whale's size is continuously bumping into those critters, it's just surrounded by a glowing field all the time when it's swimming at those depths, visible from a distance-- if you have the right eyes-- as a massive glowing shape. so basically the only reason to have eyes the size of soccer balls is if you live in the deep ocean and your life depends on having a heads up when a hungry sperm whale lurking around

and also I gotta say, the imagery... the huge lurking threat betrayed only by the ambiguous glowing shape of its movements through the water, is really evocative, if spooky deep-sea games aren't already using that to make things extremely ominous then they should really start

[foone]

A fun thing about computer skills is that as you have more of them, the number of computer problems you have doesn't go down.

This is because as a beginner, you have troubles because you don't have much knowledge.

But then you learn a bunch more, and now you've got the skills to do a bunch of stuff, so you run into a lot of problems because you're doing so much stuff, and only an expert could figure them out.

But then one day you are an expert. You can reprogram everything and build new hardware! You understand all the various layers of tech!

And your problems are now legendary. You are trying things no one else has ever tried. You Google them and get zero results, or at best one forum post from 1997. You discover bugs in the silicon of obscure processors. You crash your compiler. Your software gets cited in academic papers because you accidently discovered a new mathematical proof while trying to remote control a vibrator. You can't use the wifi on your main laptop because you wrote your own uefi implementation and Intel has a bug in their firmware that they haven't fixed yet, no matter how much you email them. You post on mastodon about your technical issue and the most common replies are names of psychiatric medications. You have written your own OS but there arent many programs for it because no one else understands how they have to write apps as a small federation of coroutine-based microservices. You ask for help and get Pagliacci'd, constantly.

But this is the natural of computer skills: as you know more, your problems don't get easier, they just get weirder.

[sreegs]

you know you've made it when you're googling problems and ending up with 0-9 results

[manyblinkinglights]

#you don't actually have to be good to have these problems#you just have to be obsessed with a micro-issue that no one else cares about

[teratocybernetics]

[xkcd-for-that]

Certified skydiving instructors know way more about safely falling from planes than I do, and are way more likely to die that way.

TV Problems

[transxfiles]

this pride month i want everyone to consider the benefits of abolishing the sex binary

[transxfiles]

furthermore, abolish the government systems that require people to categorize themselves into gendered categories. why do y'all need to know that.

[transxfiles]

no more assigning babies a legal sex at birth. i feel like this should go without saying, but no more surgeries on intersex infants. no more surgeries on intersex children. embrace intersex traits as natural. because they are.

no more gendered dress codes. no more gender markers on passports, driver's licenses, ids. i'm not talking about "adding x" or "adding a third category" i'm talking about no more categories, period. why does the government need to know what my genital situation is? why does the government feel the need to assign me a sex on the basis of genitals? why does the cop who pulled me over need to see an m, or an f, or an x?

no more "gender is a social construct, sex is the thing that's binary." sex is not binary. abolish the idea that it is. normalize conversations about intersex traits. being intersex is natural. the sex binary is a thing imposed by the state.

no more gendered sports. if you really care about equity, sort people into categories based on skill level and athleticism, not gender or sex. the concept that there are only two sexes and that one is inherently weaker than the other is pseudoscience. the male/female hunter/gatherer dichotomy is not based in fact, and is a product of modern sexist cultural biases. one gender is not inherently subservient to the other. people are not inherently different on the basis of sex or gender. it is just more complicated than that.

the concept of multiple genders and sexes beyond the man/woman male/female dichotomy has existed as long as humans have existed. the sex binary only serves to benefit the patriarchy. the gender binary only serves to benefit the patriarchy. continuing to impose it just controls (and harms) the people it forcibly categorizes.

i'm not asking for the end of gender, i'm calling for an acknowledgement of gender and sex that understands the infinite diversity of the human species. i'm suggesting an end to binary systems that only benefit the ruling class. just think about it. okay?

[specialagentartemis]

What queer Asian sci fi authors would you recommend?

Yeah, to put my money where my mouth is, here are some queer SFF writers from Asia and the Asian Diaspora in the Anglosphere that I really like and highly recommend:

Nghi Vo: probably doesn’t need an endorsement from me, hah, her The Empress of Salt and Fortune is one of the most perfect novellas I’ve ever read and well deserved its Hugo win. The whole Singing Hills cycle is great. It’s a fantasy world strongly inspired by Imperial China and Vietnam, and does clever things with fantasy, folklore, storytelling, and memory. Her novels are standalone historical fantasy set in 1920s-America-with-magic and are very much about Asian immigrant/diaspora experiences in the early 20th century US. With Magic.

Yoon Ha Lee: I love his Machineries of Empire. Would love to finish that trilogy someday. But seriously it’s creative, intense military sci-fi in a magic-science space empire and is very interested in what it takes to uphold such a system.

Simon Jimenez: The Vanished Birds is sooo heartbreakingly good and I need to read A Spear Cuts Through Water soon.

Isabel J. Kim: Short story writer. Runs the gamut of sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and the weird stuff in between. Creative and vivid in really compelling ways. Her first novel is in the works and I am SUPER interested. She does funky and creative things with perspective and structure in her stories. Has several stories now that are about turning popular tropes or other iconic stories around like they’re in a kaleidoscope, but her first published story “Homecoming Is Just Another Word for the Sublimation of the Self” is probably still the most affecting to me.

Michelle Kan: Has a trilogy of novelettes called Tales of the Thread, self-described as “aromantic Chinese fairytales” that take a deliberately aro approach to fairytale retellings and fairytale style fantasy. I recommend them. (Also has a superhero novel I haven’t read.)

———

Haven’t read yet but they are on my TBR:

Aliette de Bodard: Her Xuya universe novellas, and the relationships between humans and AIs and spaceships, sound super up my alley.

Kai Cheng Thom: Author of Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl’s Confabulous Memoir is a less traditionally sff entry but is a fabulist/surrealist take on the Trans Memoir… which I feel like I have to be in the right space for, but I do want to read it.

———

Also he’s not out as queer or anything but I can’t not recommend Ted Chiang because he writes some of the best short stories In The World and has THE most interesting and unique and compelling ideas.

———

There are also so many more authors out there I don’t know and haven’t read! But! Someday!!

[wearethekat]

let me also add:

Shelley Parker Chan: Author of a duology set in mythological China, starting with She Who Became the Sun about a peasant child who disguises herself as a man in order to seize political power. Lots of morally grey characters, lots of gender. The author has said that the theme of the books is, respectfully, "fuck Confucius"

Vajra Chandrasekera: author of two standalone novels, Rakesfall and Saint of Bright Doors. not particularly books that lend themselves to being summed up, but they're complex and spiky and beautiful.

[booksandchainmail]

I'd add:

Justinian Huang: first book was published this year, The Emperor and the Endless Palace. Twisty reincarnation romance tracking gay culture over centuries, riffing on Chinese history/literature

Victor Manibo: I've only read his novel Escape Velocity, but it's an excellent critique of the ultra-rich, set on board a luxury space hotel during the reunion of an elite boarding school. Good mystery, complex ensemble cast, a (perhaps controversial) ending I adored.

Tasha Suri: her Burning Kingdoms trilogy is an entry into the "morally grey queer women in stories about imperialism" subgenre. An imprisoned princess and the survivor of an imperialist massacre of priests must balance their conflicting goals against their growing feelings.

Ryka Aoki: more on the literary side of speculative, her novel Light From Uncommon Stars features a trans girl running away from home, a demonic violin teacher, and a doughnut shop run by a space refugee. I've seen some people find it a bit too fluffy and vague, but I deeply enjoyed it, particularly on reread. An absolute for violin fans, or people who really like food descriptions

Emma Mieko Candon: I bounced off their novel The Archive Undying pretty hard, but I've seen people love it. Not an easy novel but an ambitious one, where an unwise romance brings the onetime priest of an AI back into the conflict that killed his god.

S. L. Huang: I really liked her queer, feminist retelling of Water Margin. She also has some excellent short fiction

Zen Cho: she's been recced by others on this post, so check the notes

[trickstertime]

Huh? What's this?? Something is on this 5c coin???

ENHANCE

[homunculus-argument]

Artfully layering an axe bodyspray deodorant and two different perfume oils to create a tasteful mixture of amber, oud, mint, lavender, moss and petrichor, producing a scent that smells exactly like damp, stale, rotting laundry.

[dreamsareliminalspaces-deactiva]

Reminds me of that tumblr user that made powdered milk with sparkling water and created instant spoiled milk

[homunculus-argument]

That was also me.

[adeline-wheat]

Do you know any other ways to speed ruin things?

[homunculus-argument]

I wish I knew any other way to do anything.

[hellopuns]

The Monday Period: Part 1 of 6

Part 1: you are here

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

[bugshroom]

my mind palace is not up to code

[iftadwascool]

David Lynch on Twin Peaks

[whimsyandmetaphor]

Every day the desire to continue this aspect of David Lynch's legacy grows stronger within me.