elysiasong

[elysiasong]

“The best AI customer service!”

thanks, but when I’m desperate enough to call for help, I’d like to talk to a real human

[elysiasong]

TFW you don’t want to talk anyone and would prefer to vegetate in bed but alas, you have to go to work

[elysiasong]

Favorite Reads in July 2025

Unleashing Mayhem by Grae Bryan 😈 Monster who feeds on fear x human who is afraid of the world (for good reason) 😈 Bad things happening to bad people 😈 Monsterfucking 😈 Introducing the Nightmare monster to horror movies 😈 Actually sweeter than it sounds based on above points - Book 4 in the series, and probably best read in order

Little Did We Know by Cara Dee 🏠 Found family with a side of friends fucking 🏠 Founding a BDSM club and community together 🏠 Spinoff novella, origin story for author's series The Game. Best read after reading the first few books of the main series. I mainly loved this one because I adore The Game. This is the origin story of how the founders of Mclean House, a BDSM club and community, met and developed the place that is a staple in The game. The characters and the dynamics are great, and the evolution of the found family through 15 books has been wonderful to read over the years. Many of the kinks weren't my thing, but I still picked up every book because of how much I adore the characters. Cara Dee writes characters with such distinctive voices that even with eight characters in a novella, it was so easy to tell everyone apart.

[elysiasong]

Favorite Reads in June 2025

Peculiar Engagements by Iris Foxglove 💐 Wedding shenanigans 💐 Spinoff standalone novella but better enjoyed after reading the main series 💐 Massive pining (actually across multiple books in the author's main series that culminated in this book) 💐 Found family vibes amongst a group of courtesans living in the same house 💐 Loving someone for their flaws, not in spite of them

Copper Script by K.J. Charles ✍️ Mystery solving by a graphologist (someone who can deduce a person's life by reading their handwriting) ✍️ Defeating police corruption ✍️ Disabled main character (loss of a hand during war) ✍️ Well-researched historical aspects (as always, with K.J. Charles) ✍️ Slow-burn romance between graphologist x detective over multiple meals (as said graphologist slowly seduces detective with pornographic sounds (that he doesn’t realize he’s making) over enjoying delicious meals)

[elysiasong]

"you can use ai to improve spelling and grammar"

[elysiasong]

TIL the reason you don’t find much Lyme’s Disease in California is not because we don’t have Ticks, or Lyme Disease Vectors; but rather: because the Western Fence Lizard (if you live anywhere in California this is your regular Garden Variety Lizard) has adapted a passive immune response that makes their blood lethal to Lyme Disease Bacteria. Any Tick that feeds on one gets its gut cleansed of Lyme Disease as a side effect.

Fucking neat.

[elysiasong]

so many ppl on tiktok will be like 'look at my epic style glow up omg my style used to be so cringe' and it just shows them wearing clothes that were in fashion in 2015 and then clothes that are in fashion now like baby that's what happens when u don't have ur own sense of style

[elysiasong]

Shop , Patreon , Books and Cards , Mailing List

[elysiasong]

a scene can start wherever you want it to

writing isn't real life. You don't need to set up a character walking into a room or two characters greeting each other and talking about the weather or what-have-you in order to lead into the conversation you actually want them to have. just start at the conversation.

hell, start in the middle of the conversation. you could even start at the end and then have one of them leave and the other one left behind to reflect back on what just happened.

writing gets easier when you open yourself up to writing the parts that are interesting, to starting where it's easy instead of where you think you should start.

if it ends up not working? that's okay. you tried it, and sometimes just getting something out of your head is a necessary first step to getting the words right

[elysiasong]

i feel so seen!!

(twitter thread)

[elysiasong]

Happy Pride! 🌟

[elysiasong]

Above image is a pride flag with every color band represented by a NASA image. White is Earth clouds, pink is aurora, blue is the Sun in a specific wavelength, brown is Jupiter clouds, black is the Hubble deep field, red is the top of sprites, orange is a Mars crater, yellow is the surface of Io, green is a lake with algae, blue is Neptune, and purple is the Crab Nebula in a specific wavelength.

[elysiasong]

fake relationship but its a king and his concubine that was once an amazing soldier but he couldn’t go up the ranks for whatever reason so the king was like listen. hear me out. you can be my strategy dude. u just gotta be okay w walking around shirtless a lot. and soldier dude is like man that’s an UPSIDE and yknow they end up falling in love

[elysiasong]

Murderbot, a construct that was built and used to do extreme violence it's entire existence : I hate talking to people but I will try to resolve this situation peacefully if I can, threats only make people panic and then they take irrational decisions. Extreme violence is sometimes unavoidable but last resort.

ART, a peaceful research transportation : I love talking to people because I can threaten them with extreme violence right off the bat and it makes them do what I want (ads more totally-not-weapons to it's research equipment)

[elysiasong]

Leverage 1x2- "The Homecoming Job"

Leverage 2x6- "The Top Hat Job"

Leverage 3x11- "The Rashomon Job"

Leverage 3x12- "The King George Job"

Leverage 4x1- "The Long Way Down Job"

Leverage 5x3- "The First Contact Job""

Leverage 5x9- "The Rundown Job"

Leverage: Redemption 1x2- "The Panamanian Monkey Job"

Leverage: Redemption 1x3- "The Rollin' on the River Job"

Leverage: Redemption 1x7- "The Double-Edged Sword Job"

Leverage: Redemption 2x4- "The Date Night Job"

Leverage: Redemption 2x8- "The Turkish Prisoner Job"

Leverage: Redemption 2x13- "The Crowning Achievement Job"

Leverage: Redemption 3x6- "The Swipe Right Job"

Leverage: Redemption 3x8- "The Cooling Off the Mark Job"

Leverage: Redemption 3x9- "The Polygeist Job"

[elysiasong]

PSA: Credit Card Phone Scam

(Or, how Tumblr just saved my ass)

I saw a PSA recently about a scam going around with spoofed official numbers calling and asking for information, and how you should hang up and call back using the correct number rather than just go along with what the caller is telling you. But this is Tumblr, so I'll never be able to find the post again.

I decided to make my own, because this literally just happened to me an hour ago. Hopefully my story can spread some more awareness and save other asses the way mine was saved.

Around 7:30pm tonight (Friday), I got a phone call from a 1-800 number. I almost didn't answer it, then I saw it was 1-800-465-4___, and I recognized that as the start of the CIBC phone number, so I picked up.

Me: Hello?

Guy: Hi, is this [MrsD]?"

Me: Yes.

Guy: Hi, [MrsD], this is _____ from CIBC, how are you tonight?

I thought, okay, this is a sales call. Right before I'm about to sit down for dinner. Typical. Mentally, I'm already putting together an exit strategy, preparing to say no to everything and get off the phone ASAP. But then—

Guy: We've just flagged suspicious activity on your CIBC Visa card. It was an online BestBuy transaction for $980.00. Was that your transaction?

Me, flustered: Uh. What? Sorry, how much?

Guy: $980.00 at BestBuy, was that you?

Me: Oh. At BestBuy?

Guy: Yes, your card was used at a BestBuy in [town nearby]. Was that you? Did you go to [town nearby] today? You don't live in [town nearby], right?

Me: Uh. No?

Guy: Okay, so I need some information to verify this transaction.

By this point, my brain had caught on that something about this was hinky. First of all, I thought he said it was an online purchase, then he said it was in person. But maybe I'd misheard, he was talking fast. My second thought was that every other time there was a suspicious transaction, I got an automated phone call and a text message with instructions to call back. I've never had a person call me directly.

My third thought was, well, the phone number on the caller ID was right....

THEN! I remembered a Tumblr post I saw recently, and I remembered what it told me to do.

Me: I'm skeptical about this call. I'm going to call CIBC myself and look into this.

Guy: What? Ma'am, you can just tell me, I can verify—

Me: No. Thank you, but I'll call the number on the back of my card.

Guy, getting more agitated: Ma'am, if you look at the number on your card, you'll see it's the same number.

Me: You know that can spoofed, right?

Guy: Uh— but ma'am—

Me: Sorry, but I need to make sure. I'm going to call CIBC directly.

The guy kept sputtering, but I hung up on him. In that moment, I really didn't think that he was a scammer. In fact, I thought I was being paranoid and was maybe kinda rude to the guy. I wondered if I was being overcautious, and I felt a bit guilty.

I called the number on the back of my credit card, waited 15 minutes for an agent, and told him what just happened.

IMMEDIATELY—

Agent: You didn't tell him anything, did you?

Me: No. I said I wasn't in [town nearby] today, but that's it.

Agent: Good. You did the right thing by calling us, let me look into the transaction for you.

Then, a minute later:

Agent: I'm not seeing any transaction like that. There's no flags on your card, nothing suspicious at all.

Me: So it was a scam?

Agent: Yep. Entirely fake.

I was honestly surprised. I really thought that there was some kind of mix-up and that I would be apologizing to this guy for being rude to his colleague.

Looking back on it now, I can see all the telltale signs of it being a scam call:

Time of day. Early evening on a Friday, chances are people are either sitting down for dinner or in a hurry to get somewhere. In this situation, a lot people probably wouldn't think twice about giving "the bank" some information just to get off the phone. (Joke's on them, I have no life!) But the way that I reacted to his introduction did evoke the desired reaction of Ugh, what now? Leave me alone! that the scammer was banking on (pun intended).

Sense of urgency. The scammer spoke fast, threw details at me quickly, and made sure I knew that I had to give him my information right away. This honestly threw me off. It was overwhelming, and I felt concerned and a bit frantic for a few seconds until I thought about what I know about scams and what I'd just read in that Tumblr PSA.

Complete lack of empathy or understanding about my skepticism/anti-fraud precautions. The last time I had to get a new credit card number due to fraud, the agent I spoke to said things like "I know this is frustrating", "I'm sorry this is a hassle", etc. And of course the CIBC agent I spoke to tonight was immediately grateful that I'd called them directly and reassured me that CIBC would never ask for information. By contrast, the scammer was outright dismissive of my concerns and got agitated when I wouldn't just trust him right off the bat.

Emotional provocation. Similar to #2 & #3 above, the scammer was very good at making me feel things. Worried and fearful at first, then guilty about being suspicious, to the point where I actually apologized to the guy. (Granted, I am Canadian, but still!)

And finally, I cannot stress enough: the spoofed phone number. I am a pretty well-informed person. I keep up with news about scams and whatnot. I know that phone numbers can be spoofed. I've been in front of my phone when it just starts to ring and I can see the auto-dialler number appear briefly before it gets replaced with a number that has my area code. But tonight—early evening on a Friday—I was cooking dinner and my phone was across the room. It had rung several times by the time I got to it. I only picked it up because I recognized the CIBC number. And when the scammer started his spiel, the fact that the number was the same was enough for me to give him just a tiny moment of trust. Had he actually gotten past that first barrier and started requesting my information, I think I would have caught on, because people asking for sensitive information over the phone is a huge obvious red flag. I like to think I would have caught on, anyway. But maybe not! That fake number almost had me.

TL;DR: No matter what the number on your caller ID says—that it's your bank, your energy company, your internet provider, whatever!—if the person on the other end is requesting sensitive information urgently, don't panic. Stop. Think. Then tell them nothing, hang up the phone, and call your service provider yourself using a verified phone number.

[elysiasong]

Punctuating interrupted dialogue without a dialogue tag

How it’s supposed to be done (per Chicago Manual of Style): “This”—they threw the gun on the table—“is the murder weapon.”

What I see instead:

“This,” they threw the gun on the murder table, “is the murder weapon.” (Most common variety and irks me every time I see it because it’s so close to being right. If only they added a dialogue tag to the action phrase.) [1]

“This—” they threw the gun on the murder table “—is the murder weapon.” (Maybe not wrong outside of the US? I don’t know grammar rules of other countries so I won’t immediately say this is wrong.)

“This,” They threw the gun on the murder table. “Is the murder weapon.” (Period please if it’s not a dialogue tag.) (The period won’t fix everything but it’s a start.)

“This—” They threw the gun on the murder table. “—is the murder weapon.” (So close to being right…..)

“This—” they threw the gun on the murder table— “is the murder weapon.” (Another near miss)

“This—” they threw the gun on the murder table, “is the murder weapon.” (Why must I be tormented so? What sins have I committed to deserve such punishment?) (it’s the excruciating asymmetry in this one that bothers me in particular.)

—

[1] To clarify, the issue with this is the interruption phrase. The proper way to use commas in interrupted dialogue is something like: “This,” they said as they tossed the gun on the table, “is the murder weapon.” Dialogue tags (said/asked/etc.) allow you to use commas, and you can punctuate it as you would any other sentence with “they said.”