#read on substack

[chongoblog]

WAIT

I JUST REMEMBERED HEARING AN ELON MUSK QUOTE WHERE HE TALKS ABOUT HOW HE BELIEVES CHESS IS "TOO SIMPLE" OR WHATEVER AND HE SAID HIS FAVORITE GAME WAS A GAME CALLED "POLYTOPIA"

I JUST REMEMBERED THAT IVE PLAYED POLYTOPIA

It being Elon's favorite game (or at least one so important to him that his biographer dedicates a lot of time to it) is.....really really funny.

Basically, imagine Civilization, but as a mobile game. So like if Civilization Revolution was even more dumbed down (that's a Civilization insult. That's devastating. It's devastated right now). For what it's worth, it's not a bad game. On the contrary, from what I could tell in the little bit of time I played it, it's a perfectly competent game with good design. But it's not a deep game by any means. I played through it once, won easily on my first go, then saw that the other playable characters had barely any differences between them.

Like, not to imply you can judge a book by its cover, but here's what it looks like

I came across an article by Dave Karpf discussing this exact thing, and I think it describes it wonderfully

[theoceanisnotsilent]

a post on grief, loss, and sorrow

[redleatherlesbo]

queering christmas time

it’s december 18th and i have to delete instagram for the sixth (or seventh?) time this year

it’s december 20th and i’m sitting next to my future father-in-law as he cracks joke after joke, unencumbered

it’s december 21st and i’m packing my bags absentmindedly, wondering what it would take for my father-in-law to recognize the brush of my knee against his daughter’s as the sign we might be more than old college friends

it’s december 22nd and i’m marshaling my younger brothers to put the ornaments exactly where i tell them to on the tree

december 22nd and i’m running between stores in the mall while it rains, ducking from awning to awning, trying to get mom’s christmas presents before the stores close

december 22nd and i’m yelling from my bedroom that no one should come in while i wrap gifts

december 22nd and i’m taking advantage of one of the few opportunities i get a year to lock my bedroom door (and hit my pen lol)

december 22nd and i’m rounding up my family members for an annual viewing of home alone 2: lost in new york and hot chocolate

december 22nd and my brothers had friends to visit and my dad files to sort through; mom and i have cocoa and movie night together/alone

december 23rd and i’m running out to the stores again, this time at 7am in the hopes of beating all the other daughters of nurses to the last available Stanley cups for 15 miles at lowes

december 23rd and i’m yelling about locked doors again, this time facetiming my lover to tell her in hushed whispers how much i miss her, laughing about her dad’s glaring obliviousness to raise our spirits

december 23rd and i’m running out to the mall again, this time because no one remembered to get the gifts for mom’s birthday (the day before christmas and the gifts must be separate)

december 24th and i’m joining the chorus my father and brothers have begun for my mother’s birthday

december 24th and i’m hoping they at least remembered to sign the birthday cards i picked up for them (for her)

december 24th and i’m checking my notes app to make sure i don’t have any reason to go to a store again today (it’s futile; there will always be a reason)

december 24th and i’m making the mistake of downloading instagram again, only to immediately be met with the reminder of why people like me have to avoid social media at this time of year

december 24th and i’m trying to remember when last i took my zoloft in the hustle and bustle of christmas preparations, wondering if seeing all of my friends in straight relationships hugging their partners and wearing matching pajamas with their entire families would hurt this badly if i could ever stick to an antidepressant regimen

december 24th and i delete instagram for the seventh (eighth?) time

december 24th and i’m yelling again, having just returned from the store, asking for space to wrap gifts, hitting my pen, texting my lover updates from home and reading hers, watching olive: the other reindeer

december 25th and, despite it all, i’m smiling, listening to a quick voice note my lover took the time to send me this morning

december 25th and i am reminded that i am loved, that i am resilient, that i can find happiness anywhere, that things take time, that my hands can take the house i grew up in and make a home of it, that one day we will wake up next to one another on christmas morning

december 25th and there is a deep sadness within my bones, jealousy too; but there is also hope

[somerabbitholes]

a reading update from april

[notbecauseofvictories]

I would say 98% of the time, I think of a partner as a "nice to have." Like a cleaning service, or takeout, or sending dirty clothes out to get them laundered---you can get through your life without it, and I do think sometimes people use it as a band-aid for deeper problems. That's not to say that things like partners/cleaning services/takeout/laundry aren't wonderful, positive additions to your life! Just that you don't actually need these things to....you know, live.

....but that remaining 2% of the time? My apartment feels very big and empty.

[c-kiddo]

i dont have the will to make any more social media accounts , looked at bluesky sign up on a whim and it feels like destroying my soul to make more stupid social media accounts. every social media that dies is one less that i have and in the end i wont have any at all and i wont answer emails i will just be outside

[bonbonmacaron]

I started reading this serialized fantasy novel in Chinese called Twig 枝丫. It’s about trees growing in people and controlling them 😱 Very spooky and intriguing. It’s written by a student and specifically for intermediate learners. The Substack has vocab lists for each chapter and audio, which is amazing! The best part is that a new chapter comes out every Friday. I’m only on chapter 10 so far, so I’m not caught up yet. If you also want to read it, you can just look up the Twig 枝丫 Substack. I pasted the chapters into Pleco to look up words.

I’ve also been watching this show called Women in Taipei 台北女子圖鑑 and it’s really good. I feel like I can understand about 80% of it. Apparently it’s an adaptation of a Japanese show, so I might also watch it in Japanese. Oh wait I just looked it up, it’s an adaption of Tokyo Girl, which was the first show I watched in Japanese 😅

[strawberrystepmom]

some good advice I heard a while back and have been trying to implement in my life since is that it is helpful to actively decenter yourself from other people’s lives. this doesnt mean like withdrawing or avoiding anyone, it means understanding that everyone else has their own world. everyone exists in their own tiny microcosm and oftentimes the terrible ways we assume other people feel about us or the things we are doing are simply not true because (I know this sounds mean) they just don’t really care.

and I don’t mean they don’t care in a cruel way I mean it in a “everyone literally has their own difficulties and struggles and fears every single day they are not obsessing over anything you’re doing the way you may be worried that they are”

as someone who has suffered from intense and at times debilitating anxiety my whole life, this was like clearing clouds in my mind. for the first time I could see that I was making myself the center of other people’s worlds and assuming their feelings instead of taking them at their word or trusting our relationship as friends or coworkers or whatever. it isn’t intended to be unkind when you assume that of other people but it can make you untrustworthy and withdrawn and lonely.

believe that people say wonderful things about you when you aren’t around. trust people who say they’re your friends. for my fellow anxious disposition havers - you are loved. your absence is felt in every room you walk out of. get out of your head and accept your place in people’s hearts bc it’s there and waiting for you.

[teddykaczynski]

its fascinating to me as an outsider looking in how many gay/bi men are not attracted to effeminate men and how lonely a lot of effeminate gay/bi men can become and how this has a direct correlation to many of these men deciding to transition

[bogkeep]

mannnnnn now that i've actually started medical transition it seems that i will, hopefully, someday, get through to the other side of the limbo tunnel and can hopefully explore more permanent masculine attire. which is as exciting as it is daunting. like, i'm under no illusions that there's a tangible cutoff point where i will Suddenly be out of the limbo state (though top surgery will certainly help if i can get it), and there's no one thing holding me back from exploring this space *now*, but it's. Difficult ,

the List of challenges i must navigate:

- men's fashion is on a surface level very sad and boring and i crave whimsy :( i know knowledge and experience will help but it's like playing on hard mode compared to being a Weird Girl (tm). i am currently gnc against my will and i desire to be gnc Intentionally and on my own terms

- hashtag short king problems. masculine attire was never made with me in mind. almost every time i observe an aspirational example of Men's Fashion it's on a tall lanky guy and that will never be me and that's okay but throw me a bone pleas

- the Autism Sensibilities. collars too close to the neck depletes me of HP. wearing accessories for too long depletes me of mana. if a button up is made of a slightly too stiff material it will give me rashes. i cannot wear binders because i value my ability to breathe comfortably. i can only do so many layers at once before i hit a game over screen. i MUST be comforble

- the restrictions of my circumstances, such as the safety rules of the watchmaker workshop or the mercy of scandinavian weather gods

i'm sure i will figure things out with time. i'm going to need patience. i'm probably going to have to learn how to tailor trousers. i will need to Observe how others dress. but it's so much!! ahh!!!!

[rissareee]

the vibes of my substack in memes … you’re welcome <3

[thenevernovel]

Realization twisted his face. A sharp pain flared in his stomach, his throat still burning.

"I see you’ve finally realized who I am," she said.

"You—" He cleared his throat, voice still hoarse. "You killed him."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, what a brilliant deduction. Of course I did. My fault he couldn’t keep it in his pants, right?"

His stomach lurched again, but he forced himself to stay steady. "Stop playing the victim. First, you kill my friend, then you poison me and lie to my face!"

"I don’t lie," she said coolly. "This isn’t poison. This is your fear—raw, unhinged. You know what you did wrong, and now you’re scared to pay for it."

| excerpts from a novel I will never write

[akajustmerry]

i am sharing some personal thoughts about n*il g*iman under the cut. its been on my mind a lot. getting me down. so i am just getting it out. ftr i wholeheartedly believe and support his victims - those who have been publicly identified and any others. i wish him nothing but rot, and i hope the victims get the justice and peace they need. purely personal thoughts below the cut. cw for mentions all things relating to the ongoing case(s) ie. rape, sexual violence, etc.

taking a moment to just say that the neil gaiman case(s) have honestly fucked a small part of me up for the moment.

it was one thing for me to know that gaiman had shitty coloniser politics that didn't align with my own as an Indigenous fan (dudes briddish, like...not dismissing these things a non-serious issues but there are just things that don't surprise me when it comes to white male british authors), its a whole other thing to cognitively comprehend first hand accounts and recordings of neil gaiman committing and admitting to heinous acts of violation and violence.

it was an easy thing for me to un-pedestal gaiman when his zionism and anti-blackness became obvious and more public, it's another thing (painful and sickening) to have to reckon with the fact that he leveraged people's love for these works to manipulate and harm them. its a different thing to know that the money he got from fans like myself buying those books, films, shows was being used by him to silence and harass these victims and still at this very moment is being used to do that.

something that has really affected me is that in the vulture article, the journalist discusses how ocean at the end of the lane was ("allegendly") a novel he wrote as a means to trauma-plot his shitty behaviour towards women. several friends allege in the article that he wrote that book because he was refusing therapy to deal with the harm he was doing that stemmed from his childhood trauma. if you followed me for a while, you might know that the ocean at the end of the lane is not only my favourite gaiman novel, but my favourite fantasy novel, period. it inspired a lot of my own work but most significantly that book quite literally helped me not to killl myself. i say that without exagerration. it changed my life in ways i struggle to make legible. i carry a copy whenever i go on long trips and own 3 in case i lose one.

it brings me to tears to know the circumstances under which that book was written - however directly and indirectly - are circumstances Gaiman uses to gaslight and DARVO his victims. it genuinely makes me nauseated to know that a book i love so much has not only financially supported gaiman in violence towards these women (as all his works have), but also is something he ideologically uses to justify his actions toward them. it feels so cruel and heartbreaking that book is not just poisined by association, but is implocated directly in his literal rape and trafficking of these women.

for so many years of my life its been a habitual thought, that when i am feeling dangerously hopeless, i think of ocean at the end of the lane or read it and it helped me remember that i exist (as i said hard to really make legible how that book makes me feel sorry). its like a permanent pathway in my brain for years, and now every time my brain habitually goes to go down that path it makes me feel worse. "worse" doesn't even cover it but i am too sad and angry to think of a better word.

i don't really want to say a lot about this, but when i was younger about 10 years ago, gaiman interacted with me several times as a fan online. we were even briefly mutuals for a week on Twitter after i shared a selfie buying my second copy of toateotl at an airport. these interactions have also been poisoned for me in my head. especially, after learning these kinds of interactions were something predatory for the victims and were how gaiman victimised some of the women.

i am not saying any of this to say that i see myself as being equal to the victims. i am not. what they have been through by him is infinitely worse than anything any fan, including myself might be feeling. i don't want anyone reading this to think thats what i am saying. i know i will be fine. there are plenty of other writers who are better in every way, who have also inspired and moved me. i am not without. this is not me saying gaiman was the only author i cared about. this is also not me saying that i'm special for any of this either. i know many ppl are feeling the same or similarly. i am just trying to articulate why this so personally saddens me as well as the genral disgust at everything else that has come to light, thanks to the staunchness of the women who came forward.

nevertheless. against my better judgment or anything that makes sense, i do feel like something tinily fundamental has been scortched in me. nothing, of course, to the degree of the victims. i respect, admire, and thank them for revealing the truth and wish them nothing but the best. it's just so hollowing, so gutting, to have a story and memories you at one point loved so much that a piece of your brain grew around them...only for these things to be party to actions so vile. i truly hope neil gaiman rots in perpetuity for all he has done.

[literaria-journal]

[7/100] days of productivity

worked on my May wrap-up article for my Substack, that will be out tomorrow, read A LOT (I'm currently juggling 4 books), and rearranged my bookshelf.

[teaspoonnebula]

[IMG Description - A Victorian magazine cover with an illustration of a man in a red suit lighting a lamp. Reads Letters from Watson - A Study in Scarlet by A Conan Doyle. The first Sherlock Holmes novel Email Book Club Starting January 1st 2024]

Email book club/substack Letters from Watson will be reading through the Sherlock Holmes novels in 2024!

After finishing reading through the short stories in 2023, I'm pleased to announce that Letters from Watson will be moving on to reading the novels, beginning with A Study in Scarlet in January!

We'll be following with The Sign of Four in April, The Hound of the Baskervilles in July, and The Valley of Fear in October!

Sign up to the substack here!

Join the discord server here!

(Reblogging and spreading the word appreciated <3)

[museenkuss]

I’m sorry for all the Pinterest snapshots but this is driving me up the wall. Intellectuals = ted talks and self help books. And even that is too much, go back to watching love island. To heal.

Most of the comments are good, but these two killed me:

Your womb dictates whether it’s YouTube video essay time (intellectualism) or Keeping up w the Kardashians time (grace)