Sascha Stronach🏳️‍⚧️, The Sunforge out now

Bannon funded a far-right media network called GTV Media that operated in New Zealand as Counterspin Media, and during the pandemic they were responsible for massive amounts of disinformation. All those chickens came to roost in Washington in 2024.

one of the most frustrating things about being Kiwi right now is that we all saw Steve Bannon using the country as a petri dish for the US 2024 election and basically nobody outside NZ took it seriously because of rose-tinted glasses about how nice and pretty and safe our country is

Three panel comic. Panel 1: three witches stand around a cauldron while one of them stirs. Panel 2: one of the witches adds a scoop of pre workout into the pot. Panel 3: the three witches are getting absolutely shredded in the gym.

New horrors on the way for trans adults in the UK... (When they did a similar review for trans teens, they threw out 97% of all studies and then basically went "wow, there's not any research to demonstrate this if effective; guess we gotta ban it.") Now it looks like they're doing same for adults.

Time to pass a law that any party spokesperson of media outlet that opines with hindsight reckons on pandemic management has to show this chart in the background at all times #nzpol

it honestly comes SO close to saying something, it feels like the script must have originally and it got cut. It's frustrating because of how close it comes.

also wow imagine having the whistle be cursed and evil because it was stolen by conquistadors, casting a Spanish actress as a final girl, having a bunch of pivotal scenes take place in a Catholic church and ... apparently not realising??? doing nothing with it??? boy Aztecs sure were spooky right

Final Destination Bloodlines proved the formula absolutely still has juice, you've just gotta do more with it than this

the poster for whistle, which shows a closeup of an ehecachichtli, a whistle shaped like a human skull

final takeaway from Whistle (2025): a surprisingly good cast let down by a boring and predictable script. They have charisma! They have chemistry! They're being forced to act like "what if we OD then resuscitate ourselves to avoid getting Final Destination'd" is in any way interesting or original!

"a small container in which to hold my ketchup" is obviously inferior to the wonderful "wee pottle of sauce"

there are some Americanisms I will accept but "thumb war" is disgraceful, it has no whimsy. 1 2 3 4 I declare a THUMB war? fuck off.

Attention New Zealand: No one else calls it a ‘peaknuckle war’ The rest of the world rightly calls it a 'thumb war'. What is going on here?

wait what the fuck

thespinoff.co.nz/society/10-0...

we all knew it was going to say something like this, but it's both funny and vindicating that the report the tin-hat cookers pushed for so hard went "yeah it was pretty good actually. if anything we should've gone harder"

I’m so heartbroken for my trans siblings in the UK right now. Hang on, loves. Somehow we will all get through this together.

Borrowed and Blue Reviews, old and new. Mostly books. Mostly SFF. Quite likely gay.

After a month of buildup, may I present...

The Queersar not an award 2020!

10 (+1) great queer SFF novels.

V good year for queer SFF; I found it *really* hard to narrow down to 10. But happy with what's on here & more convinced there *is* a gap in the award landscape for books like these.

Medical transition for trans kids is now banned for new referrals on the NHS. Trans kids in the UK can still go private or DIY (for now).

This means the new clinics that replaced GIDS are close to useless at best, conversion therapy at worst. 1/5

The state of mainstream trans discourse is that a morning show presenter will conspiracise about carceral consequences for transphobia while the West has declared a crusade against trans healthcare and trans existence.

Diabetic patient dies in Waikato Hospital stairwell after urgently needed food delayed He walked past seven staff, but a search did not begin for nearly an hour, with CCTV showing him at the snack machine before being found unconscious.

I really don't think this is what we want to be as a country.

Dawnhounds 3 is meant to be back for edits soon. Started reading back over the MS in preparation – I haven't touched it in around a year, not since handing in the draft. It's always rewarding but anxiety-inducing going back over an old draft, cringing at what doesn't work, cheering for what does.

the NPC thing was the canary in the coal mine, they have reached a depth of solipsism where they're incapable of functioning in the world

“MAGA’s fundamental shared quality is a total lack of theory of mind for other people” is a theory that keeps getting validated by reality - look at almost every decision they’ve made in the war with Iran, and how they seem constantly surprised by the unanticipated actions of other parties.

a dark mech with a large two-handed sword slung over its shoulder, and a tattered red cape facing forward

feeling pretty good about this one. blackbeard/nimue with a whole arthuriana thing going on

Iran’s people were facing a horrible shortage of water before the war began. If we are destroying desalination plants and setting fire to Teheran we are committing unfathomable crimes.

Someone who looks a lot like Spice, in all black standing arms outstretched holding a book (a bible) whilst police horses charge it. There's a crowd behind. They didn't run it down & the line was held.

Outnumbered the fascists.

Police failed to break our line.

They got bundled into taxis & fucked off home.

Got a pic that goes crazy hard out of the whole equation.

Lovely Saturday, over all.

from "your AI slop bores me" the request: a mouse with a tiny sword who is being INCREDIBLY brave the picture is that, perfectly. the mouse is pretty rudimentary but its armour is surprisingly detailed, including faulds

this site has brought back the joy of the early internet, I love it so much

I think I've realised what bothers me about Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights: it makes a huge deal out of how edgy and controversial it is to add all this kinky sex but it strips out any of the actually difficult subtext. It wants to be seen as cool and brave but it's profoundly timid.

Two panel comic. The top panel shows a pink triceratops with a speech bubble that says, “New month, new me!” The bottom panel shows the triceratops walking to the right, oblivious to imminent doom caused by the meteor, volcano, and fire in the background. Two dinosaurs in the background look up at the meteor with worried expressions.

At the start of every month I think, “I’m going to make more art and post more!” Here’s a comic to express how I feel about trying to be creative these days.

Italian fencing: a tempo is a tempo, by which I mean a tempo is a measure of time which measures how long a thing is. which thing? oh well it depends.

Spanish fencing: how close is the tip of your sword to the other guy's face?