tfrohock

[tfrohock]

Women weren’t always told to fear trans women. Prior to trans women, the monster used to be black men or Jewish men, or any minority, because—I’m sure you can see where this is going—these minority men are after one thing: women. Not all men, mind you, just minority men, so women should be scared of minority men ...

In reality, none of these people are the least bit concerned for women (or children, for that matter) ... Their real campaign is hate, and they use fear to constrict people’s interactions with persons determined to be the “other,” the monsters we’re supposed to fear.

[tfrohock]

I talk about censorship and how the hate you give is making us all dumb.

[tfrohock]

[tfrohock]

On not liking the thing ...

Once, I said I did not like a thing (it was a book). And someone who LOVED that book told me all the beautiful things about the story. Then I reexamined the book through the other person's eyes, and I saw a thing I, too, could love.

Sometimes not liking a thing means the inability to see the nuances of the work until it's viewed through the eyes of others, and then we understand. So when someone says they don't like a thing, don't necessarily be dismissive of the individual. It could be they don't understand the art you love so passionately, and even if they still don't enjoy the thing after you explain your love for it, the individual will have a deeper understand of YOU.

[tfrohock]

My very first [cheesy] book trailer for Where Oblivion Lives.

[tfrohock]

I’ve been following the A.I. fad as it’s developed, and I’ve discovered a whole new reason to fear our robot overlords, because they are, after all, us.

Let me explain:

[tfrohock]

Killing Bots

Sing to the tune of Killing Butterflies (with apologies to Lewis Blissett):

Killing Bots on Tumblr

All the bots we've seen They just make us scream Now they're in our dreams Open up Tumblr Now it never stops Full of little bots

Bots, scams, some things are meant to be torn apart Links, malware, some things are meant to be broke

Killing, killing, killing, killing, killing, killing bots Killing, killing, killing, killing, killing, killing bots Killing, killing, killing, killing, killing, killing bots We stay up all night killing bots (I'm killing, I'm killing, I'm killing, I'm killing)

/end

This week's score of dead bots: 8 and counting.

[tfrohock]

I genuinely think @staff should give us an official Bot Kill Count where it ticks up every time a bot you reported is officially taken off by the tumblr team and when you hit a certain number you get gruesome little trophies. Gamification can be of the devil but in this particular case I need a little treat for doing my daily chore of taking out the trash

[tfrohock]

From Chinquapin Hill:

An excerpt from a new novel I'm working on:

I knew Rebekah Barrow was dead long before I saw the hearse’s brake lights flash. My house was a half mile from her driveway, but the road was straight; all that stood between us was the camelback bridge crossing the Dan River. The drive itself was tucked between a thick strand of oak, birch, and of course, the chinquapin trees from which the property took its name. Snaking between those trees, the long black car rolled glossy as a beetle.

Just as I’d suspected she would, my friend Kaye-Lynn, who had a police scanner she listened to the same way normal people listen to the radio, kept me informed of the events as they happened. She called at a few minutes before seven and left a voice message to tell me they were doing a wellness check on my Rebekah Barrow, as if working for the old woman gave me ownership over her.

I was awake, but I didn’t answer the phone. Just sat in my arm chair and listened to her sharp voice cutting into my answering machine.

I got scared then. What if they found her alive? Or in a coma? I yearned for a cigarette and regretted that I’d quit smoking three years ago. It took me a bit but I calmed myself. Brunswick and Kallam didn’t become the force behind the town of Wright’s Corner by being careless.

The next time Kaye-Lynn called, I answered the phone and surprised myself with my even voice. Kaye-Lynn said they’d radioed the ambulance about eight mile back while it was still on McConnell Church Road. One minute it was screaming along, lights and sirens blaring, and the next, it went quiet and dark as it turned around in the parking lot of the Antioch Baptist Church. Looked like it was sulking, Kaye-Lynn said before she hung up at half past seven.

I expected the news would leave me relieved but it didn’t. Fear still coated my mouth and left me dry. I went on the front porch and watched another police car arrive, followed forty minutes later by the hearse.

[tfrohock]

[tfrohock]

The (plaster) Moon (1873)

The Moon; Considered as a Planet, a World, and a Satellite (1873). Photograph (probably a photogravure) from the first edition of the classic and influential text on lunar geology by James Nasmyth and James Carpenter. | src Jeschke van Vliet Auktionen

The book was one of the first to be illustrated with photomechanical prints, praised by a contemporary reviewer as one of the "truest and most striking representations of natural objects", although the illustrations are not actual photographs of the Moon. (...) Nasmyth and Carpenter pointed the camera not at the lunar surface itself, but at a series of hand-made plaster models based on these drawings (...)

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