Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Hal Duncan

@halduncan.com

2.6K followers 490 following 6.5K posts

Writer, editor, gardener--sometimes even in that order. Queer. He/thon, but mainly just cause thon's a guid Scots pronoun fur aebdy, whitever thur gender. Contact: hal AT halduncan DOT com

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Hal Duncan @halduncan.com · May 7

your intermittent reminder that the left/right axis is a spatial metaphor, not a reality, that the "centre" is not in fact a moderate middle ground but rather the *centre of power & privilege* protected by the vulgarly overt antisocialists operating on behalf of the polite paternalist antisocialists

a map of Dubrovnik's walled old town as illustration of Bastion Theory, in which the institutions of power that happen to be on the right of the map are labeled "THE RIGHT"; just beyond that to the right, the "FAR RIGHT" man the city walls, extending all the way round them to the gates; outside of those gates is labeled the LEFT; while the main part of the bastion of power & privilege is occupied by "CENTRIST FUCKS"

4 100 270

Hal Duncan @halduncan.com · 1d

Nah, that's just straight "everyone is twelve" you don't have to be weirdly arrested at being twelve *specifically in the early 1980s when the most basic of basic arcade games were the greatest thing since sliced bread* that's a special level of nostalgia

Hal Duncan @halduncan.com · 1d

the lightcycle and frisbee sequences were cool back in the day, sure, but the degree of Gen X nerdbrain nostalgia entailed in wanting to turn Tron into an ongoing franchise is just weird af to me, it's "everyone is STILL twelve" territory

Charlie Jane "Lessons in Magic and Disaster" Anders 🏳️‍⚧ @charliejane.bsky.social · 1d

Tron is such an 80s thing, it's hard to make relevant for the 21st century. It's all about arcade games and mainframes, and software that was written primarily by a single coder. The actual story of Tron is silly AF, which is one of its main joys.

But it should never have been revived.

5 1 24

Hal Duncan @halduncan.com · 1d

I don't think Morgan's got the integrity for him changing his mind to matter anyway. Bullshit merchants gonna bullshit. I think it's more productive just to verbally woodchipper them on tv for others of such opinions to see their own wankery woodchipped by proxy.

Reposted by Hal Duncan

Green Hombre @greenhombre.bsky.social · 1d

4 41 260

Reposted by Hal Duncan

Paddy K @spongepaddy.bsky.social · 1d

Writing update! A novella of mine has been accepted by a fantastically odd Stockholm publisher. Li'l Factory publish books in a single run of 500 numbered copies (500 and no more) and they are so very very pretty. My book "Spellcheckers" will be coming next year. More info to come. lilfac.com/books

2 2 6

Hal Duncan @halduncan.com · 1d

Piers Morgan is just doing a Jeremy Clarkson tribute act but outside the context of a Grand Tour / Top Gear Special where the entire point is the ridiculousness of three buffoons doing Last of the Summer Wine but for cars, the whole schtick is just contrarian bluster begging to be exposed as silly.

A Spooky Goose @anarchygoose.bsky.social · 1d

The other thing that is notable about this is that the moment he received pushback, Piers just collapses into a sputtering mess.

This class of 'pundit' has become so used to going unchallenged that they literally don't know how to deal with it. Embarrassing it took so long for this to be exposed.

Bold Politics with Zack Polanski @boldpolitics.bsky.social · 1d

Solidarity with all trans and intersex people having their existence debated every time a tv host hasn't done their prep and can't think of any more questions

Hal Duncan @halduncan.com · 1d

the chattering class bullshit merchants for whom it's all just a show really need politicians like this who's ready, willing and able to just go in hard, chew them up and spit them out. the norm is the exact opposite power dynamic, wibbling spineless careerist nothingburgers forever on the back foot

1 1 12

Hal Duncan @halduncan.com · 1d

this is a beautiful exercise in turning the glibness of gobshites like Morgan into a trap, one snide wee comment he thinks he can toss off and move on from, and then suddenly every attempt at that shallow dismissivenes is just a trigger for Polanski to ratchet him deeper into the woodchipper

Bold Politics with Zack Polanski @boldpolitics.bsky.social · 1d

Solidarity with all trans and intersex people having their existence debated every time a tv host hasn't done their prep and can't think of any more questions

2 2 19

Reposted by Hal Duncan

Robert Dallas Grue 🦇 @robertdallasgray.com · 1d

the thing that’s particularly cool about this is that he just very easily makes morgan’s takes look *weird*, by dint of honestly and simply speaking from the standpoint that trans people are ordinary human beings with the same rights to respect and dignity as anyone else

Bold Politics with Zack Polanski @boldpolitics.bsky.social · 1d

Solidarity with all trans and intersex people having their existence debated every time a tv host hasn't done their prep and can't think of any more questions

2 21 97

Reposted by Hal Duncan

Diasporic Minnesotan Loves Sweater Weather @diasporaminnesotan.bsky.social · 2d

A protester in an inflatable frog costume with a blue cape standing in front of a line of armed police officers with shields. The caption says "I have frogs everywhere"

9 29

Reposted by Hal Duncan

Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 1d

It’s this multiple times a day

They don't even bother to lie badly anymore.
I suppose that's the final humiliation.

7 300 1.4K

Reposted by Hal Duncan

Colin Spacetwinks @spacetwinks.bsky.social · 1d

in terms of performative (negative) i tend to think of, say, "prison company does land acknowledgment", or "company burying harassment complaints by trans workers talks about how much they value queers", but it seems most just want to use it for individuals they personally find annoying instead

4 6 59

Reposted by Hal Duncan

Django Wexler @djangowexler.bsky.social · 2d

My boss: so how's our fourth quarter looking?

Me, the sales manager at the company that makes inflatable frog suits: well, you're never going to believe this, but

140 3.9K 20K

Reposted by Hal Duncan

🦇🤘 Rigg-or mortis 🔶️🏳️‍🌈 @rigg.lgbt · 2d

Really interesting thread here

Philip Purser-Hallard @purserhallard.com · 2d

It occurs to me that the Doctor's polyethnic identity in recent times recontextualises Peter Davison's casting in quite an interesting way.
(For context, although you'd be unlikely to guess it by looking at him, Davison's paternal family is Guyanese. He has close relatives who are visibly Black.)

Peter Davison, a fair-skinned blond man, as the fifth Doctor, circa 1982.

9 18

Reposted by Hal Duncan

Caminando Preguntamos @utopianrebel.bsky.social · 1d

Mass protest serves many purposes; an oft-overlooked one is that it can radicalize people who are any/all of these:
younger, inexperienced, haven’t felt collective effervescence in the streets, are liberal/centrist & seeing limits to voting blue, etc.
Even if cops don’t attack, but esp when they do!

Sunny Moraine @dynamicsymmetry.bsky.social · 1d

Like I know there are edgelord leftists out there who look down their noses at shit like No Kings but sorry you guys, the more mass protest looks fun and family-friendly, the bigger it gets and the better its chances of being broadly effective

Sunny Moraine @dynamicsymmetry.bsky.social · 1d

Portland does not own the patent on inflatable animal costume protests, come on people

9 20

Hal Duncan @halduncan.com · 1d

Looking at the set of scales with an accidental kilo of truth on the left side and barely a gram of truth on the right side, saying “these scales need to be evened out” and shoving down hard on the right side to correct the “bias”

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 2d

The administration “is currently pressuring OpenAI and other AI companies to make their models more conservative-friendly.”

OpenAI is trying to clamp down on ‘bias’ in ChatGPT

GPT-5 is better at resisting liberal ‘pressure,’ the company says.

www.theverge.com

Reposted by Hal Duncan

Eric Blair @protecttruth.bsky.social · 2d

Like Bari Weiss being stuffed by a billionaire atop CBS to lie to normies, this is billionaires stuffing rightwing ideas into AI systems to lie to normies.

The whole fascist takeover of the US is built atop an information war.

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 2d

The administration “is currently pressuring OpenAI and other AI companies to make their models more conservative-friendly.”

OpenAI is trying to clamp down on ‘bias’ in ChatGPT

GPT-5 is better at resisting liberal ‘pressure,’ the company says.

www.theverge.com

3 59 140

Hal Duncan @halduncan.com · 2d

Edgar Allan Woe #moregoth

Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 2d

HP Unrequited Lovecraft #moregoth

E.Saxey @esaxey.bsky.social · 2d

I actually prefer William Despair Hodgson #moregoth

Reposted by Hal Duncan

C.A. Pinkham @eyepatchguy.bsky.social · 3d

I’m not kidding when I say these weird ass costumes and antics are actually an extremely effective tactic from a media standpoint bc when enough people do them, the media can’t fully scrub them out

The Daily Show @thedailyshow.com · 3d

The following is REAL footage from Portland, 2025. Viewer discretion is advised.

29 1.1K 3.4K

Reposted by Hal Duncan

emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 3d

Stephen Miller is murdering Venezuelans and Colombians in cold blood bc he believes it helps his propaganda campaign to paint Latinos as dangerous.

www.theatlantic.com/national-sec...

Stephen Miller views the air strikes as an opportunity to paint immigrants as a dangerous menace, according to one of the White House officials.

520 4.3K 12K

Reposted by Hal Duncan

chira 🎋 @artofchira.bsky.social · Jun 1

I'm absolutely convinced what makes Shakespeare inaccessible to a lot of audiences isn't the iambic pentameter old english it's the fact most plays are rehearsed as spoken verses and not acted with meaning

because when actors actually act out what they're saying it is So Clear

36 160 2K

Reposted by Hal Duncan

chira 🎋 @artofchira.bsky.social · Jun 1

whenever i encounter people who say they can't understand shakespeare verses I always send them this clip from the 2019 Shakespeare in the Park production of Much Ado About Nothing

140 2.6K 7.7K

Hal Duncan @halduncan.com · 3d

Writing is thinking done outside your head. It's when the thoughts are too big for my little brain to hold all at once so my fingers have to put them on a page instead and fuck around with them there, so I can read them and go "Ohhhhh! *Now* I get it."

Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · 3d

I think the killer argument against relying upon AI to write is the massive amount of thinking and concept-welding that goes on for me (and I assume most everyone else) during the *process* of writing something - it’s a cognitive process and I know I’d actively get stupider if I skipped it

Decorative Gourdian Knot @buckrawheat.bsky.social · 3d

I also just wonder if any of these people have ever really appreciated the value added in going through the experience of something like this. The fact that it changes you to engage with and puzzle over your own work, that you're not a content printer that just needs juicing to go faster.

1 1 14

Reposted by Hal Duncan

Tom Reagan’s Hat @rufustsuperfly.bsky.social · 3d

Guillermo Del Toro is 61.
Here he is on the Weinsteins:

5 100 470