time to unleash The Grilled Cheese Essay (which personally made padma lakshmi cry) on the newskies

buttondown.com/theswordandt...

I can't recommend May Peterson enough as an editor, book doctor, and purveyor of thoughtful critique. I've lost count of the books we've worked on together at this point. She's my first port of call when a MS isn't coming together, because she has a literal genius for teasing out threads, spelling out issues, and otherwise spreading my tangled messes over the table in a way that makes the problem (and thus the solution) become clear. She's thorough, insightful, patient, and even phrases it nicely when telling you you forgot to include the plot. I have also worked with her as a sensitivity reader and found the experience invaluable. As a recovering editor of twenty years experience I am picky about editing to a fault, and I can recommend May without hesitation. You want her help. KJ Charles, bestselling author

I’m actively taking new editing clients!

Whether you’re stuck on a book, want help with a project idea, or simply have a manuscript you want to make the best it can be, check out my website for info about services and fees!

www.maypetersonbooks.com/editorial/

Nothing so perfectly proves the concept of whiteness as a social construct than the reality that white people who stand up for minorities forfeit some of the protections that whiteness afforded them.

Show up for black trans men!

I don’t think people quite understand that the occupation by ICE in the Twin Cities has more or less erased non-white people from public life. They cannot safely exist in any space accessible to the public and moving between private places leaves folks vulnerable to kidnapping by armed masked goons.

an emoji kitchen mashup of the square that says "COOL" with the clown, so it's the COOL square juggling

this is the only emoji i know how to use. and it's ruining my life

An excellent read as always

IMO, women's revulsion from criticising men overmuch is a kind of malignant immune reaction of someone--all of us, really--raised in a society that prioritises protecting and valorising men above all. That's why it's able to persist even when it's patently ineffective

Political Heterosexuality, or: The Tragedy of Feminism On the specter that is haunting feminism.

Today, I would like to present a deep dive into feminist history that got away from me.

Like, really got away from me.

It is about the futility of a politics of appeasement. It is about the unburial of a neglected feminist history. But most of all, it's about lesbian feminism, and sins unforgiven.

"Mamdani Says He Will Apologize for Calling the N.Y.P.D. Racist in 2020" lmfao look at my socialists, dog 😭😭😭

Denmark stole my Greenlandic friend's baby 2 hrs after she was born based on a racist "parent compancy" test (FKU) which is filled with nonsense when it comes to parenting abilities.

"To see if you are civilised enough, if you can act like a human being."

bbc.com/news/articles/c1wlw2qj113o

a hooded trans man getting the front of his tunic torn open by a skeletal warrior, exposing his breasts, while 2 more loom in the background. stylized text around the figures reads: "The Master Thief in... Down in the Bone-Hard"

haha... yes

small rabbit character in a hood holding a coin with a mischievous expression

an android smoking a cigarette and wearing a fedora

nick :)

It's almost like the App and Play Stores have never been about moderation or keeping users safe, they've been about control and taxing developers wherever possible

The 'No Hire' Economy US Job Growth has Zeroed Out as Hiring Rates Sink, Hitting Young & Low Income Workers the Hardest

NEW from me:

Job growth has been functionally zero over the last five months, as the US sinks from a “low hire, low fire” labor market to a “no hire” one.

That slowdown is hitting young & low income workers the hardest 🧵
www.apricitas.io/p/the-no-hir...

You’ve Heard About Who ICE Is Recruiting. The Truth Is Far Worse. I’m the Proof. What happens when you do minimal screening before hiring agents, arming them, and sending them into the streets? We're all finding out.

A few months ago, ICE hired me

I didn't sign and submit any paperwork. I almost certainly failed the drug test. I'm real outspoken about my opposition to the Trump administration, and I am extremely googlable

And yet, there it was, in plain English. "Welcome to ICE!"

My latest for Slate

In April 2024, Spotify implemented a new scheme: songs with less than 1k streams per year would no longer receive royalties.

The data for 2025 was just released via Luminate, and 88% of songs have been demonetized.

Read it again: 88% of songs on Spotify have been demonetized.

ICE deports 5-year-old US citizen from TX to Honduras, group says Génesis Ester Gutiérrez Castellanos and her mom were arrested in Austin on January 5.

Her mother called 911 for help… and got turned into ICE instead.

They placed her and her five year old daughter in a hotel and told them not to contact anyone.

ICE didn’t want the community fighting for them.

Mother & daughter have been deported to Honduras and the local police were complicit.

This is fact in all cases. And many sports orgs won't issue the TUE if you started prior to taking up the sport. And if they do issue it, it's with conditions that cant be met like random morning testing with mandatory low T levels which doesn't work that way with exogenous T

Thank you for reminding me. I should add that even back then people were meming on how Jack was butthurt about furries when in fact sex workers hit him first. It was just funny to imagine him scromiting over a furry picture at the time, I reckon.

But you speak truth here.

They nearly killed this woman. Then they went on national TV and tried to smear her.

Peaky Blinders meme: No fighting with regime-run accounts. No fucking fighting with regime-run accounts!

👇🏾👇🏾🚨🚨BLOCK. THEM. NOW.🚨🚨👇🏾👇🏾

How I Heard It Guest Writer Application First Pancake Studios is seeking guest writers for our upcoming TTRPG How I Heard it (Free Ashcan Available Here). How I Heard it is a GM-less storytelling game played around a campfire. Players take ...

Hey you! Are you a TTRPG writer staring at discourse on bluesky??? Would you rather be writing for a game? I want to pay you (at $0.20/word) to write for a zine month project!

I'm seeking folks interested in folk stories and examining power structures in storytelling!

I am begging you. Please learn about stress/discomfort tolerance. Practice raising it. You need this to survive. If someone online can ruin your day with a throwaway comment, you desperately need to understand discomfort tolerance and consciously, systematically build that shit. Also! Stress tolerance is such an important skill that having a learning disability in that area is a major symptom of a whole lot of other disabilities/mental illnesses! Struggling with it is a huge part of life! It sucks! Am I saying everyone with misophonia needs to listen to chewing noises all day? No. But you need to find ways to tolerate it enough that you don't treat others like shit if they make a mouth noise near you. No, you don't have to read the fic with your trigger tags. But you do need to be able to handle scrolling past the tags without being upset. It is hard! But not having it also makes you so so so easy to manipulate. That grandma is racist AF because her mom raised her to be uncomfortable around black people and she never fought that discomfort. Trans people make so many cis people uncomfortable and that discomfort turns into bigotry real fast. Letting your discomfort dictate your actions and beliefs about things is a great way to become a terrible person. Learn. Discomfort. Tolerance.

Important shit that I’m still trying to learn.

I often think about Jonathan Cooper's posts about TLOU2, that the studio ran out of seasoned game animators because its reputation was so bad and thus had to hire film folks who had to be taught how to put games together.