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"Bro, the new Agatha Christie dropped!"

"Great! What kind of novel is it?"

Stares blankly. "Um, buddy. Agatha Christie? It's a murder mystery."

"Again? Why do they keep paying her to write the same thing over and over again?"

"Bro, we're going to need to cut down your screen time..."

this tweet is really motivating honestly…….

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it was nice seeing you at the devil's sacrament

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No, we definitely don't need to ask anyone about that.

(confidently) no, that's a self-tolling bell. it tolls automatically, signifying nothing for the hearer. why

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"I'm on a boat."

I have no words

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That user may not be trying to dunk, but I am. As that user said, Republicans at the RNC gleefully held signs at the RNC saying "mass deportations now" and everyone heard Trump saying Haitian immigrants were eating cats and dogs. There was no "information environment" that hid this information from voters. They heard Trump's explicit promises of violent xenophobia loud and clear. They knew. We all knew.

We have got to stop treating voters like children who can't possibly be held accountable for their actions. There's a fucking legal age requirement for voting for a reason--because it's assumed that by the age of 18, people are old enough to understand the world around them and that there's a cause/effect with their actions. These MAGA fucks weren't some sheltered, lost lambs who had no idea what they were doing. Every Trump voter did vote to deport moms, it's just that some never thought they would face consequences for their actions, so now they're trying to rewrite history and deflect blame. That's all it is.

Democratic politicians may not be able to treat them with the contempt they deserve without facing electoral backlash, but the rest of us are under no obligation to entertain these people's lies. People refusing to hold MAGA accountable for supporting the most gleefully, proudly awful person alive is a big reason why we're back in this fucking hell 8 years later. These people should have been shamed from polite society way back in 2016. Fuck them. The guilt should keep them up at night for the rest of their lives.

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I was waiting for the crab rave.

Someday I'm going to wipe my ass with my parents' copy of The Strong-Willed Child.

But for now, it's enough that the motherfucker is dead.

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The only option is the one that seems to be slowly happening: massive sanctions against lawyers who submit this to the courts.

Like one strike=disbarred.

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I still remember it's got to be 20 years ago, I have friends who were doing corsetry at the time, including a line of historical men's corsets (you didn't think those Prussian horse troops looked like that because of naturally good posture, did you?).

This dude in some sort of anime cosplay stopped in. Big, barrel chested kid (mid-20s maybe). Couldn't tell you the series or the character, but it was slow in the room, and he was wearing some sort of oversized anime sort-of cylindrical overcoat (you know the kind I'm talking about if you've ever watched anything with a fantasy edge to it). He looked fine. It wasn't going to win the masquerade, but this was before cosplayer was a job.

I don't recall if he was wandering the booth or my friend invited him in, but he tried on one of the men's corsets and put the top layer back on.

I don't know exactly what kind of awakening he had, but he had an awakening. I think for the first time, he saw himself as the character. He looked like an anime figure in the corset, and the coat was hanging correctly.

The ehlers danlos syndrome person to historical costumer pipeline is or will be a thing and I shall explain why.

At some point one discovers that some sort of supportive structure around your torso feels incredibly comfortable and gives your tired muscles a rest. What’s the coolest and most non obtrusive torso bracing garment? A corset. Believe me when I say that when your torso has the structural integrity of a wet sack of jello, a tightly laced corset makes you feel like a god.

And because historical corsets tend to be more comfortable and are usually made with regular wear in mind, they are the natural choice.

Then you have the shoes. What shoes is someone with unstable ankles supposed to wear, you ask?Lace up boots, for stability. And due to their middle of the heel heel placement, historical lace up boots tend to be way more comfortable than the modern variety.Even the non healed ones, really. Couple that with the fact that Edwardian and Victorian boots are really really pretty…

And after the boots and the corset, it’s a very slippery slope.

Pretty soon you’ll be wondering how to hide your corset under your clothes for when an outer corset is not the vibe, and you’ll be buying yourself a corset cover. Or making one yourself. They’re a great starter project. But that looks weird with a fitted top so cool flowy blouse it is.

Then you realize wearing this with a skirt makes you feel intensely powerful but you don’t want to keep tripping over it so you add petticoats.

And then you realize your neck isn’t so great at holding up your head so you really need to find a hairstyle where your hair sits on top of your head instead of to the sides or to the back so that it’s balanced and you don’t get a neck ache. A high bun it is. Not too tightly, because your scalp is sensitive, but a high bun still works if you bobby-pin it in place.

And then one day, you look in the mirror and you’re dressed like Anne of Green Gables.

And you’ve never looked cooler.

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Enormous 'Tell me the name of God, you fungal piece of shit!' energy.

10/10 No notes.

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Folks, this is wisdom.

We just had a reorg (the type that's got me down to choosing do I send an email at 5:00pm on my last day or just turn on my out of office with "I don't work here anymore.").

I've talked to three of my colleagues who were saying they were working on the weekend to keep up. I flat told them to stop doing that. There are not enough people to do the work. That is the employer's problem, not ours.

my career advice isn't "do what you love" it's "do what will give you the most money without making you want to kill yourself"

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That's the sum total of it.

“He is not bright. He has no hidden dimensions. He quite obviously has dementia. His family has all but abandoned him for their own self-preservation; now that Ivanka is a billionaire in her own right, thanks to Saudi generosity, she has no particular need to be the interventionist keeping daddy’s worst delusions from being acted on. Trump wants an end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine because he believes people will praise him for achieving it, and by “people” he means the ones he sees on Fox News, not the ones dying in trenches or to Russian bombs. He wanted a military parade because that is what the people he admires have; he wants the military to confront protesters because that is what his favorite dictators would do and he thinks, not without reason, that the power to mold the world entirely to his liking can be reached by following the steps that Putin and others have mapped out for him. But there is no grand conspiracy behind any of it. He is just a stupid and venal man, one who has risen to power because stupid and venal men have been all the rage in American power circles for some time now.”

— Trump’s Alaska debacle couldn’t have gone any worse, or any better

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Just to be fully clear, this shit used to happen all the time.

The past was not an idealized vision of monogamy and the nuclear family. People just understood the power of "That's none of my business."

My grandma’s on and off again boyfriend that she cheated on grandpa with died today.

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Really good Twitter thread originally about Elon Musk and Twitter, but also applies to Netflix and a lot of other corporations.

Full thread. Text transcription under cut.

Keep reading

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It is also important to remember that the world that allowed authors to exist on their writing hasn't existed for 50 years.

One of my favorite authors, Ray Bradbury (greatest short story writer of the 20th century, fight me), famously wrote his first stories on a pay-as-you-go typewriter at his local public library (drop a dime in the slot and type for 10 minutes). He had to sell it to write the next one. When he saw one of his stories adapted into a comic book (without authorization), he wrote a polite letter to the publisher indicating he was glad to see it, but that the royalty check they'd agreed to hadn't arrived. The publisher wrote back asking to be reminded of the amount. Bradbury replied $50.00, promptly received the check, and a dozen more as the comic continued to adapt his short stories.

It the 1950s when this happened, $600 was a princely sum, especially for work that was already completed and published. He'd been paid once. This was a bonus.

Bradbury's home in LA that he owned and lived in most of his life was recently demolished because it had had no improvements made since the 70s.

But, on the basis of his writing (and his movie work, which is where the real money was), he lived a comfortable if modest middle-class life in Los Angeles from the mid to the early 21st century.

Harlan Ellison, writer and professional curmudgeon, had a saying he lived by, "Fuck you. Pay me." He never did anything for free (and he was a litigious bastard, both reasonably and unreasonably).

If you were a "high-end" writer, you could write three articles a year for The Atlantic and live comfortably on it. I don't think you could make a month's rent on three Atlantic articles today.

You can't even make a living as a hack turning out pulp for airport bookshops. There are no midlist books anymore. Paperbacks are a dying species.

In closing, write because you don't have the option of not writing. If you get published, great. But never, ever in the Year of Our Gritty 2025 imagine that if you're someone other than Stephen King or George RR Martin that you can make a living by writing.

Edit: Same with commercial art:

“Here’s my life. My husband and I get up each morning at 7 o’clock and he showers while I make coffee. By the time he’s dressed I’m already sitting at my desk writing. He kisses me goodbye then leaves for the job where he makes good money, draws excellent benefits and gets many perks, such as travel, catered lunches and full reimbursement for the gym where I attend yoga midday. His career has allowed me to work only sporadically, as a consultant, in a field I enjoy. All that disclosure is crass, I know. I’m sorry. Because in this world where women will sit around discussing the various topiary shapes of their bikini waxes, the conversation about money (or privilege) is the one we never have. Why? I think it’s the Marie Antoinette syndrome: Those with privilege and luck don’t want the riffraff knowing the details. After all, if “those people” understood the differences in our lives, they might revolt. Or, God forbid, not see us as somehow more special, talented and/or deserving than them. There’s a special version of this masquerade that we writers put on. Two examples: I attended a packed reading (I’m talking 300+ people) about a year and a half ago. The author was very well-known, a magnificent nonfictionist who has, deservedly, won several big awards. He also happens to be the heir to a mammoth fortune. Mega-millions. In other words he’s a man who has never had to work one job, much less two. He has several children; I know, because they were at the reading with him, all lined up. I heard someone say they were all traveling with him, plus two nannies, on his worldwide tour. None of this takes away from his brilliance. Yet, when an audience member — young, wide-eyed, clearly not clued in — rose to ask him how he’d managed to spend 10 years writing his current masterpiece — What had he done to sustain himself and his family during that time? — he told her in a serious tone that it had been tough but he’d written a number of magazine articles to get by. I heard a titter pass through the half of the audience that knew the truth. But the author, impassive, moved on and left this woman thinking he’d supported his Manhattan life for a decade with a handful of pieces in the Nation and Salon. Example two. A reading in a different city, featuring a 30-ish woman whose debut novel had just appeared on the front page of the New York Times Book Review. I didn’t love the book (a coming-of-age story set among wealthy teenagers) but many people I respect thought it was great, so I defer. The author had herself attended one of the big, East Coast prep schools, while her parents were busy growing their careers on the New York literary scene. These were people — her parents — who traded Christmas cards with William Maxwell and had the Styrons over for dinner. She, the author, was their only beloved child. After prep school, she’d earned two creative writing degrees (Iowa plus an Ivy). Her first book was being heralded by editors and reviewers all over the country, many of whom had watched her grow up. It was a phenomenon even before it hit bookshelves. She was an immediate star. When (again) an audience member, clearly an undergrad, rose to ask this glamorous writer to what she attributed her success, the woman paused, then said that she had worked very, very hard and she’d had some good training, but she thought in looking back it was her decision never to have children that had allowed her to become a true artist. If you have kids, she explained to the group of desperate nubile writers, you have to choose between them and your writing. Keep it pure. Don’t let yourself be distracted by a baby’s cry. I was dumbfounded. I wanted to leap to my feet and shout. “Hello? Alice Munro! Doris Lessing! Joan Didion!” Of course, there are thousands of other extraordinary writers who managed to produce art despite motherhood. But the essential point was that, the quality of her book notwithstanding, this author’s chief advantage had nothing to do with her reproductive decisions. It was about connections. Straight up. She’d had them since birth. In my opinion, we do an enormous “let them eat cake” disservice to our community when we obfuscate the circumstances that help us write, publish and in some way succeed. I can’t claim the wealth of the first author (not even close); nor do I have the connections of the second. I don’t have their fame either. But I do have a huge advantage over the writer who is living paycheck to paycheck, or lonely and isolated, or dealing with a medical condition, or working a full-time job. How can I be so sure? Because I used to be poor, overworked and overwhelmed. And I produced zero books during that time. Throughout my 20s, I was married to an addict who tried valiantly (but failed, over and over) to stay straight. We had three children, one with autism, and lived in poverty for a long, wretched time. In my 30s I divorced the man because it was the only way out of constant crisis. For the next 10 years, I worked two jobs and raised my three kids alone, without child support or the involvement of their dad. I published my first novel at 39, but only after a teaching stint where I met some influential writers and three months living with my parents while I completed the first draft. After turning in that manuscript, I landed a pretty cushy magazine editor’s job. A year later, I met my second husband. For the first time I had a true partner, someone I could rely on who was there in every way for me and our kids. Life got easier. I produced a nonfiction book, a second novel and about 30 essays within a relatively short time. Today, I am essentially “sponsored” by this very loving man who shows up at the end of the day, asks me how the writing went, pours me a glass of wine, then takes me out to eat. He accompanies me when I travel 500 miles to do a 75-minute reading, manages my finances, and never complains that my dark, heady little books have resulted in low advances and rather modest sales. I completed my third novel in eight months flat. I started the book while on a lovely vacation. Then I wrote happily and relatively quickly because I had the time and the funding, as well as help from my husband, my agent and a very talented editor friend. Without all those advantages, I might be on page 52. OK, there’s mine. Now show me yours.”

—

Ann Bauer, ““Sponsored” by my husband: Why it’s a problem that writers never talk about where their money comes from”, http://www.salon.com/2015/01/25/sponsored_by_my_husband_why_its_a_problem_that_writers_never_talk_about_where_their_money_comes_from/ (via angrygirlcomics)

This is so important, especially for people like me, who are always hearing the radio station that plays “but you’re 26 and you are ~*~gifted~*~ and you can write, WHERE IS YOUR NOVEL” on constant loop.

It’s so important because I see younger people who can write going “oh yes, I can write, therefore I will be an English major, and write my book and live on that yes?? then I don’t have to do other jobs yes??” and you’re like “oh, no, honey, at least try to add another string to your bow, please believe that it will not happen quite like that” 

It’s so important not to be overly impressed by Walden because Thoreau’s mother continued to cook him food and wash his laundry while he was doing his self-sufficient wilderness-experiment “sit in a cabin and write” thing.

It’s so important because when you’re impressed by Lord of the Rings, remember that Tolkien had servants, a wife, university scouts and various underlings to do his admin, cook his meals, chase after him, and generally set up his life so that the only thing he had to do was wander around being vague and clever. In fact, the man could barely stand to show up at his own day job.

It’s important when you look at published fiction to remember that it is a non-random sample, and that it’s usually produced by the leisure class, so that most of what you study and consume is essentially wolves in captivity - not wolves in the wild - and does not reflect the experiences of all wolves.

Yeah. Important. Like that.

(via elodieunderglass)