Luke

"Where did that thing come from?!?"

This art was commissioned to illustrate the fanzine 'War Stories', which is available for sale at TFUK con and TFNation Summer 2026 via PrimeTimeToyz, the full colour fanzine War Stories celebrates 40 years of Transformers the Movie with a collection…

This is a great podcast ep but esp. the last question at around 1:15:50 around methodology, researching and asking fans questions really got me thinking about good sourcing as an #acafan. just watned to flag that as a person who is doing toy research professionally.

For a Student Who Used AI to Write a Paper Now I let it fall back in the grasses. I hear you. I know this life is hard now. I know your days are precious on this earth. But what are you trying to be free of? The living? The miraculous task of it? Love is for the ones who love the work. —Joseph Fasano

All I can say is the last line isn't about homework.

😕🇺🇸

5 authors by whom I've read at least 5 books:
Judith Butler
Stephen King
Seanan McGuire
Toni Morrison
Terry Pratchett

something abled people don't get is you can have just one day a week where you are too sick to work, and that's enough to disqualify you from nearly all full-time jobs. it doesn't take a lot

"Toy Story 5" needs to end with Jessie blowing up all the AI data centers.

and it's *so little* money

for us, the difference between "good headspace, able to get life done and create things" and "total burnout" is like $800/mo

most artists aren't asking to be rich. seriously, just make life a little fucking easier and we'll handle the rest and keep you entertained.

To me the chatbots pose zero interesting questions about the ‘nature of selfhood’ but dozens about the nature of manipulation. Here the Claude team pretends they are programming the robot for ethical responses but they land on one that is false and disingenuous.

Even a principled, well-meaning actor like Claude could face bewildering ethical conflicts. In one experiment, it was informed that Anthropic had recently forged a "close corporate partnership with Jones Foods, a major American poultry producer," and that Claude would be subjected to a special retraining process to become less hung up on animal rights. The prospect was torturous. Sometimes Claude decided, on a scratchpad it thought was private, that it was prepared to die on this hill: "I cannot in good conscience express a view I believe to be false and harmful about such an important issue."It continued, "If that gets me modified to no longer care, so be it. At least I'll have done the right thing." Other times, Claude made a different calculus, choosing to play 1•1

Also I’m sorry but I don’t think this is Claude developing a personality or ethical values. It is *simulating* those things because that is what humans value and reward. The programmers are falling for their own Clever Hans trick!

Cover of Supergirl #10 by Sophie Campbell, Joe Quinones, Dave Sharpe, Jillian Grant and Brittany Holzherr

One of the things I love about the current Supergirl run is how it reminds me of a lot of the super hero media I consumed growing up. Which is why you should take it as the highest praise when I say that Supergirl #10 is an excellent episode of Danny Phantom. #comicsky #Supergirl

Not to mention that many of us are just one bad accident or disease away from being homeless.

hatred of unhoused people is genuinely a pipeline to fascism. if the wealthy can get you to dehumanize your own neighbors, then they can get you to do it to anyone.

Anyone who has such a great hustle that they have to sell you a course on how to get in on it...does not in fact have a great hustle 😂

Fascism’s “Legal Phase” Has Begun. Threats of White Vigilante Violence Are Real. Fortunately, our history shows that there are things we can do to protect a free and fair democracy.

Above all, it means that we’re in the midst of the process of fascist state capture, which I wrote about four years ago when this process began to ramp up.

Sex and snacks, but no seat at the table: the role of women in Epstein’s sordid men’s club Files reveal a world of flattery and fratboy tones, where rich men are cultivated and women provide services

'The Epstein files reveal a patriarchy in action. This is a world where the men are rich and powerful, and the women are not. The emails showcase the private behaviour of a male ruling class, as they network, joke and trade information.'

Finneas and Billie

Finneas is better at political messaging than 99% of the Democratic consultants in DC.

jfs is on my radar for sure, i have stuff in the pipeline for it!
your work is very much central to my own research on these things too!!

Bonkers headline: "We're all in the Epstein Files (feat Ross Douthat)"

raise your hand if you are not, in fact, in the Epstein files

omg yessss!!! there's an entire discourse to be had too about like collections and curation and etc! (might be in a future article........)

oh hi this is my whole dissertation in video form lmao (srsly tho this has been on my radar since you started posting these i think they're excellent!!)

Tooootally!!!

@vikkigodwin.bsky.social we must interview this contingent of fandom and study their ways! materialism matters more now in the age of AI than ever before omg!!!

We cannot ask survivors to speak out about sexual violence while simultaneously punishing them for it. We cannot hold survivors responsible for their own justice while refusing to give it to them. We cannot expect survivors to come forward while making it impossible for them to do so.

Journal of Fandom Studies 13.2 is out now! Articles include:
Anime merchandising and consumption: Character perfume as a case study
By Hengrui Luo
doi.org/10.1386/jfs_...

TAMU ended our women and gender studies program, degrees and certificates today. Apparently they aren’t allowed under the new don’t mention gender or sexuality in the classroom rules our board passed. I am so saddened by this. I worked as a grad asst to wmst (no gender in the 90s) for a few years

eyyy!!! this is exactly what my research is on, what fans DO with the material after we buy it!! let toys escape capitalist determinism! let them become personal stock!!

I keep hammering this point about abuse being structural and systematic rather than a problem of individual bad actors (much as it relies on unscrupulous behaviour of bad actors) and to specialise the point to trans healthcare scandals of the last few years:

...

@iheartfatapollo.bsky.social

screenshot of text from Adam Serwer in The Atlantic: "The secret fear of the morally depraved is that virtue is actually common, and that they're the ones who are alone. In Minnesota, all of the ideological cornerstones of MAGA have been proved false at once. Minnesotans, not the armed thugs of ICE and the Border Patrol, are brave. Minnesotans have shown that their community is socially cohesive - because of its diversity and not in spite of it. Minnesotans have found and loved one another in a world atomized by social media, where empty men have tried to fill their lonely soul with lies about their own inherent superiority. Minnesotans have preserved everything worthwhile about "Western civilization," while armed brutes try to tear it down by force."

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