foxehrobot

[foxehrobot]

Every time someone on here complains about how community or third spaces are dying I do feel a little like when people who order exclusively off amazon bemoan the death of small local businesses.

Like were you actually participating in the community you claim is dying, or were you expecting other people to keep it running in the background so you could feel good about it being there without ever having to leave your house or talk to other people

[foxehrobot]

As a matter of principle I firmly support everyone reading whatever trashy, unbecoming, socialy harmful barely-justified-smut they might desire. But that doesn't mean I don't physically cringe at the cover art and book jacket summaries for most of it.

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[foxehrobot]

Star Trek won't show me enough queer rebellious counter culture on Cardassia so I will do it myself

[foxehrobot]

I went to this Northwest Passage museum once where they had the white explorers' journals on one side of the exhibit and the native people's accounts on the other side of the exhibit and the explorer journals were like "our canoe had almost sunk when we encountered some kindly Indians" and the native histories were like "we watched a bunch of strangers come down the river in the shittiest canoe you'd ever seen. Also, they had no rain gear"

[foxehrobot]

Katherine Addison writes a series of novels (begins with The Goblin Emperor and picks back up with The Cemeteries of Amalo trilogy) wherein the language (conveniently translated into English) has the formal/informal you and the informal you is "thou."

I, like many uncultured heathens, still read "thou" as a formal register when it's not so it took me a while to unknot it. The books are a delight, highly recommend.

Now that I know "thou" is tú for English I ironically find Shakespearean English even more informal

It's very weird because we now use "you" for everything, and using "thou" makes it sound fancy or old-timey to us

But now that I know it's just the informal "you" for English I can't help but feel like I'm reading "sup bro" in fancier words when I see "how art thou?"

[foxehrobot]

Remember "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" ? I feel like there's been a distancing from the "reduce" and "reuse" part and a favoritism towards "recycle" by corporate American.

Capitalism can still thrive with recycling in the mix. You buy Plastic Thing 1, throw it away after one use, and they take that and recycle it into Plastic Thing 2 and sell it back to you. All while continuing to harm the environment.

Reusing puts a damper on things. They can't sell you Plastic Thing 2 when you're still using Plastic Thing 1. Plastic forks, for example- there is literally no reason why you can't reuse plastic forks more than once (aside from maybe microplastics, but it's too late for that)

Reducing is the one everyone wants to ignore. Just don't buy Plastic Thing 1. You don't need Plastic Thing 1. Pick up a set of metal forks and use those for years. Convenience is killing the planet

[foxehrobot]

MCC Smart Eco-Speedster Concept, 1993

[foxehrobot]

Red Dwarf Series 3 Doodles!

Thanks so much for everyone for voting on the previous poll, I'm going to start making these into stickers for my Etsy shop (UK only for now though sorry!) and then I'll start working on Series 4!

Series 3 was actually the series that first introduced me to Red Dwarf so definitely has some nostalgia attached!

My Etsy shop is - Rosiemaybee if you would like to see when I put them up (although I will make a post about it here too).

[foxehrobot]

I like that I see both "Conclave is woke propaganda targeted at Catholics" and "Conclave is Catholic propaganda targeted at wokes" discourse. This tips things over the edge, I'm calling it a successful piece of art

[foxehrobot]

I'm currently reading A Drop of Corruption (sequel to The Tainted Cup) and it's a delight. The audiobooks have a brilliant narrator who really hits Ana Dolabra on the head. Alas, I feel like I'm picking up on some of the cues fast enough that they seem a little obvious, but it's fine, I'm in it for Ana being absolutely unhinged and Din watching her inflict herself on an unsuspecting populace.

Now that you've read them all, what are your Hugo rankings?

Oh excellent question! Hmm

Novella

The Butcher of the Forest - I am a sucker for dark fairy tales played straight, and this delivered in spades. Accomplishes what it's trying to with aplomb, wonderful imagery, limited and compelling cast.

The Tusks of Extinction - Big Idea Sci Fi of a kind I can't help but be endeared to, combination of incredibly wacky bullshit and quite grounded cli-fi. Naylar working through their ambivalence towards conservation work remains interesting.

The Brides of High Hill - A very fun campfire/ghost story, Cleric Chih remains a very fun POV. Return to form after the last two Singing Hills novellas, though the further we get from Salt and Fortune the more I miss when it had real literary aspirations.

What Feasts at Night - Another fun campfire/ghost story, though honestly comparing with Brides does it no favors at all. Rather strictly lesser than what it's a sequel of, sadly.

Navigational Entanglements - it was fine? Well done YA with a mildly evocative setting. Paces and written like it would make a very good movie. de Bodard just doesn't agree with me, I think. [No Award]

The Practice, The Horizon and the Chain - A sharp, affecting short story bloated and burdened down with extraneous details and the need for a euphoric happy ending until it became an incoherent mess.

Novel

The Tainted Cup - Absolutely charming fantastical fair play mystery, excellent characters and evocative setting, only moderately muddled politics. Just a delight to read.

Alien Clay - Very classic sci-fi Book About Ideas, and well-done. Wore its influences firmly on its sleeve, but not really a bad thing. The ending could have been more, but taken on its merits an excellent piece of work. Service Model - I refuse out of principle to give two books by the same author separate rankings for the same award, but it was fun! Decent satire.

A Sorceress Comes to Call - Amazingly realized main cast and fun setting, but I do rather wish there was any real surprise or moral ambiguity whatsoever (or, for that matter, a level of social critique that at least approached the Austen novels it was so clearly inspired by)

The Ministry of Time - An exceptionally sharp short story, or above-average Torchwood plot, that was inexplicably a 300 page novel instead. [No Award]

Someone You Can Build A Nest In - bad.

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okay I did laugh out loud.

[foxehrobot]

Just read an article that used the phrase "trans women and trans women of color" and wowza I hate that so much - it's just a racist version of "women and trans women". Like jeez if you wanna seem progressive (which this article was ostensibly) at least TRY and hide your racism in seeing the archetypal trans woman as a white girl

[foxehrobot]

Hey Patricia,

Ignore this if you already know, but there's a profile on Spotify with your name and it's got a bunch of AI generated images for cover art plus the pfp is an AI generated workout buff woman. There's a handful of songs that got uploaded like a couple weeks ago that I assume are also AI but I do not want to listen to them so idk what they are.

i support any effort towards making spotify more unusable

[foxehrobot]

-deep breath-

A 'no questions asked' food pantry means no questions asked.

When we're stocking our pantry, we are not looking at a person's clothes or their accessories or what kind of car they drove there in. We are HAPPY to see it BEING USED AT ALL.

I don't know anyone's situation. Maybe they got that designer bag at a thrift shop. Maybe its a knockoff. Maybe it was a gift. Maybe they got it when they had money and now they don't have money. Maybe they're getting stuff for a friend.

Maybe they have plenty of money, don't need to be taking stuff from the pantry, but they are anyway because we said-

NO QUESTIONS ASKED.

Do you know what happens when someone takes from our pantry when they don't need it? We're down one item. But maybe they tell someone that the pantry is there. Or maybe they come back to it when they need it. Or maybe they throw a dollar in the donation box. Or maybe they put an item on the shelf. Or maybe they come to our food drive.

WE DONT CARE.

We don't care who used it.

We care that it was used.

Im not a cop. Don't make me do cop stuff, I wont do it.

[foxehrobot]

I'm finished with art for the semester soooo here's what I've been workin on! All assets are my own. I used a DSLR camera along with Photoshop and Clip Studio Paint

Feel free to send asks about the unaltered photos/photo locations, cause some of the original signs were pretty interesting tbh