AdorkableSmile
@adorkablesmile.bsky.social
660 followers 890 following 3.2K posts
Moth. He/They. PROJECTS: Fallen Star; The Winter Spirit WIPs at https://adorkablesmile.neocities.org/ RPGs at https://adorkablesmile.itch.io/ Tags: #OneSkeetStory; #OneSkeetRPG
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Hi. You can call me Moth. Writer of working fantasy and sci-fi with a day job. I'm learning how to make RPGs, you can find some of my early projects at the link in my bio. Pronouns are He/They, my brain works weird, I work in civil service.
🧵 Let's talk rules:
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I'm officially published!

Also you should read SpecInsight bc it's generally full of fantastic essays deconstructing and examining sci-fi and fantasy writing :3
New subscriber essay! Moth Paulson looks at @annleckie.com's Radch series and the way it examines justice and injustice.

Subscribe to read it now: AUD 30/yr (about GBP15 or USD19) to read this and eleven other cool essays! www.speculativeinsight.com/subs
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1. We earlier reported that the volume of protests in 2025 has been far greater than during 2017, that the movement remains overwhelmingly (and even historically) nonviolent, and that protests have been geographically far-reaching. But just how far-reaching have they been?
American Spring? How nonviolent protest in the US is accelerating
Contrary to conventional wisdom, anti-Trump protests this year have dwarfed 2017 in size, and they have been extraordinarily peaceful.
wagingnonviolence.org
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Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson asks if we are ready to crush authoritarianism

He is calling for a general strike and the crowd is going crazy

"Are you ready to take it to the courts and to the streets?"

"We will defend our democracy...we will tear down tyranny!"
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Reminder that a lot of "red" states are actually purple & heavily gerrymandered to suppress dissent. NC has a thriving arts community in several cities and those folx def do not vote R.
Look at this turnout in Charlotte! #NoKings (via Marco Foster/Threads)
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Thank you. Downloaded immediately :)
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Part of the problem is that even when you do this (I try my best), the response you get is tepid and uninvested.

It really reveals that even the people who read trans books (rather than just post about them) aren't thinking about them critically.

It's not 'literature,' it's a trans book.
i was just talking to a fellow trans writer about this: recognizing that when my book comes out next year, most reviews will be infuriatingly shallow, "i liked it" "i didn't like it" "here's some checkboxes" whereas actually engaging with what i'm doing (or failing to do!) is what i want, a kindness
I wanna find more folks on chess.com, but there's no great way to securely share my account info on here...

I guess... DM me if you're a follower and you also chess on there, and I'll send you my info?
a man wearing a helmet and goggles is talking to another man while sitting in a car .
Alt: Steve Rogers in a helmet and goggles, asking, "So, are you two... Do you... Fondue?".
media.tenor.com
9. TV is always #Taskmaster and #GBBO. Although rn I'm thinking of dipping into Riot Women as well.

Any recs?
9. what's anime/tv show are you watching right now?
8. Hire an accountant.

Okay but fr? I'm investing like 100k into renewable energy companies and putting down a deposit on a house.
8. if 1 million dollars hit your account right now, what's the first thing you'd do?
7. I don't post pics. For various reasons.
7. drop a picture where your body was ☕
So... what? Instead of this small action, what else can be done? Aside from courting controversy, little. The Green Party is starting to make inroads, but they're getting little to no mainstream media airplay.

How do the politics of hope get airtime in a cynical media cycle?
But if they're covering fascist riots outside hotels, it should be only right that we demand our voices are heard. Even if only to leap into frame and yell, "There is a better way than this!".

Here in the UK, we'd stand to be condemned on such a front. That's an arrestable offence now.
My first thought is: the news is always covering SOMETHING. Be there. Take the mic outta their hands if you have to, to spread the message that we can live in a better world.

Is that too violent? Hijacking the news, even in this minor way, is likely to be pounced on as "scenes of violent protest".
The media circus has a tendency to... ignore political action that's all about hope. They'll jump on scenes of "violence" as small as a broken window, but peaceful protest makes for a slow news day. So where does that leave us?
When we're starting from a point of solidarity, our natural instinct is to help people. It also means we let others know when there's trouble.

That... can paralyse folks.

You see so much bad, you start to wonder where you can begin.

Sometimes you start by finding something others have overlooked.
Wanna to go to a virtual No Kings rally that focuses on healthcare (with a side of "vaccines are good, actually" and "eugenics is bad, actually")?

Organized by disabled folks who can't go to an in-person event.

Join Saturday at 2:30pm Pacific time, zoom link: us06web.zoom.us/j/8467741742...
Join our Cloud HD Video Meeting
Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise cloud communications.
us06web.zoom.us
Sometimes I think we focus too much on what THEY are doing. Yeah, they're rounding people up. It's scary. There's camps. It's bad.
But we're turning up as well. We're protesting this shit and we're hiding people from the hit squads, we're blowing whistles and getting that shit on video.
Harrisburg, PA — there are so many older women in banana suits at the Capitol holding antifa signs and none of that sentence would have made sense to me 10 years ago
Things like this are a good starting point. Showing folks how many of us are on their side. Showing people that, despite the darkness and the difficulties, we're gonna turn out and tell fascists to knock that shit off.
The question, as I put it, is:

"How do we change the narrative, moving it away from scare tactics and fear mongering, and instead towards hope and transformation?"

And I don't have an answer to that question yet. But it's one I want to explore.
Politics 2: Answering the difficult questions.

The fact that so many of our platforms for engagement and influence are breeding grounds for fascism is a concern. Fear and outrage travel farther and faster than hope and kindness, that's just a consequence of human psychology.

How do we change that?
Politics time! I'll be brief, but I want to go back to this bc reading it made me so angry. Not at the writers, but at social media, and at BlueSky in particular.
So let's talk about extremism, engagement, and my social media rules:
Hey, hey. Hey. HEY:
6. Ehhhh, not really? I'm happy with what I have, I don't covet much.
6. do you get jealous easily?
5. If ghosts existed we'd have documented proof of them, and we'd have clauses in employment contracts to keep folks working after they died -_-
5. do you believe in ghosts? if you do, why?
That was a very long biscuit break. ANYWAY:

4. Fucking everything gives me anxiety lol 😜 I am never not anxious. Social interactions are difficult, but on bad days I cannot stand spiders. Something about the way they move.
4. random thing that gives you anxiety?