no lie
Bookworming. Writing. Losing sleep over the state of the world. Author of THE MYRIAD OF SIMON HANSEN, a meandering, egghead gay romance(?) set in a Dublin bookshop in the 90s. https://myriadofsimonhansen.com/
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no lie
Honestly, doofus it up while you still can. ==My motto
(There’s also this, which completely messed me up when I read it; Simon’s story of having to skip the English classes where it was discussed when he was a teen is shamefully true to life).
For any fellow “Oscar Wilde’s writing formed my sexuality” people: I brought this deeply into MYRIAD’s main character’s own obsessions. The question is: Does he ever find his Hot John the Baptiste or…?
Oh damn. None of them were very pop, I’m afraid—looking back, I was a weird kid (but no regrets).
Everyone can contribute something to the fight, but because certain actions tend to get all the coverage, it can be easy to feel shut out. So here's a thread of ways to help that do NOT include: Going anywhere Calling anyone Writing anything If you want to help, we want your help. Let's go....
Welp, wiring can be faulty in some houses. 🤷♂️
The mental health benefits of not knowing any history right now must be massive. Moving through your day with total equanimity. What happens next? Who knows? Maybe something good
Battle, because the MAGA mass will schism hard.
🤞🤞🤞
Phishers n scammers lying thru their teeth. 😡
Hope in the future
Oh look. Another post stating exactly how dire this is while millions here still posting about the midterms, the 28 election, or cases “won” in court that will be overturned on appeal or outright ignored by trump. What do we think the line in the sand is?
For real.
Oh, oh I -like- this. If you want to switch gears on hassling the Payment Processors, take a page out of the (American) insurance industry by being a 'diligent customer' and calling the company ahead of time to confirm Prior Authorization. Be polite, but very confused when they insist you stop. 😇
Family friends had one and when we kids had sleepovers in the finished basement, that thing went all night in the next room... Scarred. 🤣
I always look better in humidity too--thicker hair, bit of a gleam to the skin. 🤷♂️
Wow, yes. Those architects could really work it.
Whoa. Same, haven’t been further east than Slovenia myself. Did stay in a hotel in former east Berlin that was pretty much unchanged since before reunification and it was wild in there. Bucket list: the torres blancas apartments in Madrid...
I drool…. duckduckgo.com?q=ussr+bruta...
Fr. I never wanted kids but my head is still constantly on a swivel looking out for their safety around water and traffic. It feels like wiring for sure to just give a shit about their safety if something bad is about to happen.
Love the flag-colours solidarity too.
kinky people going after other people’s kinks will never not be odd.
Largest Ukrainian diaspora on the planet.
I've been defending Brutalism forever and glad more and more people started showing appreciation abt a decade ago. Some of those buildings in old Iron states are mindblowing.
Welp, they can go sit over there and keep enjoying their schmaltz. 🤷♂️
I hope KAG sees the end of this nightmare and gets awarded with a massive damages settlement for being renditioned to a third country (again) where he’s effectively stateless, without contacts or recourse to the law, and subject to forced labour eg. slavery. Every US citizen owes him. Yes, you too.
Don’t be afraid to share your writing. There are six Sharknado movies.
Sir, this is an app.
One of the reasons why I gravitate more toward low fantasy these days. Typically has better characters, prose and storyweaving. Tired of PLOT PLOT DRAGON PLOT SPELL PLOT MAGICAL DEUS EX MACHINA.
Along with Pritzker's billions. 💪
One of my favourite things about torcs, is that the word comes from the Latin word torquere (tor-kwe-ray) meaning twist, bend or torture. This is also where we get the word 'queer'. So even in its origin, queer meant twisted and wrong, as well as something shiny and fabulous.
Reading media discourse online, I've come to the conclusion that most people aren't thinking beyond how it makes them feel. "This made me feel bad, so the author is a bad person!" "They made a character I relate to and sounds cool, this is good writing!" It's toddler mentality.
Heh. I crossed paths same time/day at a (IIRC) Brussels station with those terrorists who got on a train heading to (IIRC) Paris. The one where some US soldiers in civvies foiled their plan. Details foggy now but I recall thinking, Never tell Mum this bit.
French train stations were wild with big packs of AK-47 cops or soldiers between 2015-2020 after all the bombings (no idea if still). They scared me worse than any terrorism odds.
Still happened in 2015 when authorities got niffy about borders again due to influx of migrants and terrorism cluster. Danish border guards asked to see the passport of the browner travellers in my train car but waved away paler people's passports when we held them out.
Yup.
Is he a Ugandan citizen? Otherwise this is not a deportation. It’s a rendition.
Yes! Not sure what else it may have, and may depend on region, but there are movies and tv shows on my local Hoopla. It connects to your local library so you need a library card to use, but it’s very nice to have.
tl;dr there is no universe where I get up on a major stage and *not* know how to say things even if I have to chase that info down myself, bc that egg is heading for MY face, and from an etiquette POV I'd be mortified.
It's 2025 and many nominees will be linked to an interview etc where we can hear em speak their names. Those that don't, bug the SMoFs or even reach out to the nominee. I've had folks di that re my very weird Other Name, and I was thankful.
Yup, so much. It's just fnk incumbent on the runners to...run it. On mispronouncing, it's also incumbent on the hosts themselves because it's their butts on the line if they foul it. If I can do 15 mins research to learn pronunciations of new-to-me names for entire uni classrooms before 1st day...
💯 I'm well outside that sphere (so far), not being American, but I got my handful of US-based loved ones on Signal since November because
Well said.
fr Good, useful criticism requires massive context, ie a serious background in the medium + genre/movement etc. I watched literally 1000s of films from diff eras and nations before I felt I earned it. Otherwise, it's just opinion, which...
It's a bummer fr. But I just look at it as: I'm not entitled to *every*thing I want to read, watch, hear, esp when there are so many other options. Man, the shows I still haven't seen bc I refuse to pirate. I'm ok with it. My queue's still huge. 😂
And buying off them supports local indie bookshops. So long as authors are getting fair proceeds (I still haven't looked deeply into it), it's win win plus win. So encouraging!
Thanks for your service to your community, and here's hoping for another run.
Yep. I dream of the day I can afford to hire narrators for my SP stuff, so until then no audiobook of MYRIAD because no fkn way am I going the slop route. Both my book and my reader deserve better. (And I library my ABs as a reader bc fuck Audible/Amazon indeed.)
It's exhausting. I was a paid film critic back in the olden days, so "It could have been shorter" and "The movie departed from the book ergo it sucked" have been up my butt since then, and very telling of who does *not* have any real critical chops. 🤷♂️
Folks, if you love audiobooks, if you want creators to be able to keep MAKING audiobooks, you're going to have to start... paying for audiobooks. Not subscriptions. Audiobooks themselves. Because Amazon are absolutely intent on paying creators even less. They aren't cheap to make.
Jfc 🤦
I am so far removed from the fanfic trenches that I had to look up rpf. TIL that's a thing. Them's some desperate waters trad pub is thrashing about in.
I have zero opinion on the 2 series in question, since I haven't watched em, but let me get behind this rant 100% because "It could have been shorter" has always been criticism for navel-gazers when it comes to books, films and series. Learn to bask, ffs.
Truth.
it's really disappointing the very well-known, wealthy, successful people to blame for tens of thousands of beaten and probably dead queer kids keep dying of old age in their sleep in their mansions, you know? wow he died peacefully in his sleep at 89 having seen his wildest dreams fulfilled. owned
Never underestimate the power of leaving a positive comment/review on a piece of art/media you like is This week has been rough, but I got a really lovely heartfelt comment on my old slice of life/escapism game They Live Here Now and now I'm feeling a little less alone 💜 Kind words have power ⭐
Watching Alien with his dad....
I have a close friend with a very multisyllabic, very Scottish name who lived in Taiwan for 7 years. She can tell you stories. Another who lived in a Central European country and it's amazing how "Cooper" can morph into "Tsoperova". FOR AN AWARDS SHOW THO. 🤦
I'm not unpetty enough not to have bellylaughed when I learned who the hosts were. I feel bad for the nominees tho. I'm used to people butchering my other name on the daily (and pretty forgiving), but for formal/public events? Super basic etiquette. 😬
One of Online SFF's biggest scolds (and dogpile initiators), along with an SFF writer who specializes in training writers of the Other to do so with respect, didn't plan ahead, you say? No big online reaction so far (not terribly surprising...), but I'm very 👀 over the irony of it all.
RT if you also wish ill upon JK Rowling.
Well, cheers!
Post a non religious picture you think of as holy.
#Pinks #ResistanceUnited
Every tech update now is like: "Great news, the word processor you've relied on for twenty years has learned to juggle! Is it good at it? No! Does it help in any way? Of course not! Has it made it insufferable to use? Oh, absolutely."
"too far left" 😂😂😂
Seconding pen name use. I’ve never used my legal name as a byline outside of academia since I started to publish fiction 25 years back, and it’s the best decision I ever made given…the world now.
My SFF/H stuff is mostly closed door. MYRIAD book 1 is a mere🌶 due to being pretty tame. But book 2 gets as 🌶🌶🌶🌶 as a book can be without being actual erotica (hey, MC has some catching up to do. 🤷♂️)
(Any fresh sardine or fresh anchovy out of the sea rather than a can makes me believe there is a god for a brief moment.)
Same. In love with whole boquerones lightly lemoned on warm buttered sourdough. Could eat all day.
I need this set.
“velocity” 😒
Unlike the character in the meme, this meme itself just never gets old. 🤣
Also, John Irving way back in 1978, I thought...
To answer your very good question, IMO and IME no. Forex, I struggle to enjoy 80% of published works by non-synaesthetes because the writing/prose seems…thin to my neurospice. But that’s a me issue, not a them issue. Mainly, not every book is *meant* to be for every reader, and that’s fine? 2/2
I know several successful mid-list trad pubbed writers who have it. It doesn’t seem to impede their descriptive etc. abilities. It’s possible other folks with aphantasia can spot a writer with the same condition, tho. Just like I can always spot a fellow synaesthete when I read a book. 1/2
Will do, and thanks for the workaround. 🤗
I have litfic! Can folks without google accounts apply?
💯 Everything from history, anthro and architecture to pop science has made my SFF worlds more robust and tactile.
Rhythm.
Yeah. Not surprised. No source link, no buy-in from me. 🤷♂️
This is in the replies and it demonstrates a real issue which is if you find profundity from an AI, you’re responding to something profound a human being wrote that was vacuumed up and what ends up happening is you thank AI and not only don’t thank the person, you have no idea they were involved
As someone so pale I'm nearly vampiric, I love the sunstroke-foiling practicality of this. And yeah, paganism is manifold and personal, and that feels right. Mine has an ancient link but it's also individual to me and hella private. My wee shrine makes little sense to those who see it. 🤷♂️
That's...that's it? Man alive. 🤦
Not currently, since MYRIAD was put away for years (and never subbed) for being too odd and personal. I revised for 2 years and now it's out in the world. 😬 But I love this prompt bc I don't believe there's such a thing as trunk stories--just unfinished ones. Keep redrafting!
Exactly. Surreal when random Bluesky users get suspended for that while a demented billionaire with millions of Xitter followers has her tentacles all over UK media and gov policy to strip rights and gin up hate against a marginalized demographic. 😡
what the absolute fuck
Simon's ghastly American parents win Worst Couple hands down. There are a few grand couples in MYRIAD, but for symmetry Best goes to the Irish couple who rescue Simon from his US family and quasi-raise him--fully accept and adore him. Model parents. 👍
Hey there birthday and decade twin! Have a grand one. 🥂
All of this. When I found out Spielberg was "finishing" Kubrick's AI, I punched a wall. And yeah, I hate the movie as much as the directorial mismatch. Esp for a creator as control freak as Kubrick.
Wait, don't world leaders need official invites from other world leaders? Not sure Macron et al can decide unilaterally to drop in to the WH. Make it make sense.
We wish! It'll be AI button-mashing only... 😒
Worth remembering that Terence Stamp was the son of a ship's stoker. Stamp desperately wanted to act, after falling in love with movies as a kid, and it was a scholarship to Drama School that allowed him to walk that path. Every time arts cuts are made, they rob us of more Terence Stamps.
I needed to see this.
It was a guest in the gallery just observing things. The MP (Speaker of the House) who invited him thought he was a Ukrainian vet. Turns out it was...complicated.
Are you thinking of non-Scandinavian Netherlands re Wilders?
A thing to be avoided.
Between Stamp and Blow-Up era Hemmings, we have the same taste in 60s idols. 😂
Seconded. (Also, for folks just getting into Loach, you can feast on a young Cillian Murphy in The Wind that Shakes the Barley. Wee bonus there.)