Rajiv Moté
@rajivmote.bsky.social
Chicago. SFFH writer (Codex, ex-SFWA), software professional, Dragonmount contributor, shiftless dreamer. Views expressed are my own and do not reflect my employers or anybody else.
https://rajivmote.wordpress.com/published/
https://rajivmote.wordpress.com/published/
Stranger Things, Alien: Earth, and Welcome To Derry are all converging, and I'm here for it. I love this kinda stuff.
November 28, 2025 at 5:43 AM
Stranger Things, Alien: Earth, and Welcome To Derry are all converging, and I'm here for it. I love this kinda stuff.
OK but never mind concerts, introduce yourself with five musicals you've seen:
Cabaret
Little Shop of Horrors
Man of La Mancha
Pantom of the Opera
Hamilton
Cabaret
Little Shop of Horrors
Man of La Mancha
Pantom of the Opera
Hamilton
Oooo I've actually seen five different musicals now!
Hamilton
Avenue Q
Book of Mormon
Chicago
Six
Hamilton
Avenue Q
Book of Mormon
Chicago
Six
OK but never mind concerts, introduce yourself with five musicals you've seen:
🌹 Hadestown
🐄 Into the Woods
♟️ Chess
🌉 In the Heights
🦷 Little Shop of Horrors
🌹 Hadestown
🐄 Into the Woods
♟️ Chess
🌉 In the Heights
🦷 Little Shop of Horrors
November 27, 2025 at 11:57 PM
OK but never mind concerts, introduce yourself with five musicals you've seen:
Cabaret
Little Shop of Horrors
Man of La Mancha
Pantom of the Opera
Hamilton
Cabaret
Little Shop of Horrors
Man of La Mancha
Pantom of the Opera
Hamilton
When you're an American pope, you can go to Turkey on Thanksgiving.
November 27, 2025 at 11:45 PM
When you're an American pope, you can go to Turkey on Thanksgiving.
Inroduce yourself with five concerts you've seen —
Nirvana
Prince
Nine Inch Nails
Garbage
Def Leppard
Nirvana
Prince
Nine Inch Nails
Garbage
Def Leppard
Introduce yourself with five concerts you've seen —
NIN
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Soul Coughing
Poe
Tom Morello
NIN
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Soul Coughing
Poe
Tom Morello
Introduce yourself with five concerts you've seen:
Bowie *
Roger Waters
July Talk *
Metric *
Alice Phoebe Lou *
* multiple times
Bowie *
Roger Waters
July Talk *
Metric *
Alice Phoebe Lou *
* multiple times
November 27, 2025 at 11:40 PM
Inroduce yourself with five concerts you've seen —
Nirvana
Prince
Nine Inch Nails
Garbage
Def Leppard
Nirvana
Prince
Nine Inch Nails
Garbage
Def Leppard
Tag yourself in each parallel love (and no-love) story you've lived.
But don't tag "They yearn in silence without ever realizing their forbidden feelings are mutual" because we'd all like to believe we've lived that one, so let's allow it to be so.
But don't tag "They yearn in silence without ever realizing their forbidden feelings are mutual" because we'd all like to believe we've lived that one, so let's allow it to be so.
I have a new story in Short Story Long! many thanks to @aaronburch.bsky.social, a wonderful editor who always makes my writing better, the incredible Zoë Petersen for her beautiful original art, & all of you who take the time to read this one ♡ ashortstorylong.substack.com/p/a-love-sto...
November 27, 2025 at 9:10 PM
Tag yourself in each parallel love (and no-love) story you've lived.
But don't tag "They yearn in silence without ever realizing their forbidden feelings are mutual" because we'd all like to believe we've lived that one, so let's allow it to be so.
But don't tag "They yearn in silence without ever realizing their forbidden feelings are mutual" because we'd all like to believe we've lived that one, so let's allow it to be so.
Reposted by Rajiv Moté
Happy Thanksgiving, America!
November 27, 2025 at 9:01 AM
Happy Thanksgiving, America!
Reposted by Rajiv Moté
This week, I withdrew from a speaking engagement at a public university because they sent me a list of prohibited “words & concepts.” I will not humor this censorship. It does a disservice to the stories I’m discussing & the audience, who deserve unfettered access to information & conversation.
November 20, 2025 at 10:20 PM
This week, I withdrew from a speaking engagement at a public university because they sent me a list of prohibited “words & concepts.” I will not humor this censorship. It does a disservice to the stories I’m discussing & the audience, who deserve unfettered access to information & conversation.
The first 3 episodes of Stranger Things S5 are entertaining. I always like seeing characters I've followed for years rise into their competency and power.
November 27, 2025 at 5:20 AM
The first 3 episodes of Stranger Things S5 are entertaining. I always like seeing characters I've followed for years rise into their competency and power.
Robin commenting on the helicopters and military-to-resident ratio in Hawkins on Stranger Things S5E1 has to be coincidental, but as a Chicagoan...
November 27, 2025 at 2:47 AM
Robin commenting on the helicopters and military-to-resident ratio in Hawkins on Stranger Things S5E1 has to be coincidental, but as a Chicagoan...
Reposted by Rajiv Moté
i’m so happy for him
November 26, 2025 at 10:48 PM
i’m so happy for him
Reposted by Rajiv Moté
Read this story, quick 👇👇👇
It blows my mind every time 🥰
It blows my mind every time 🥰
Welcome to Day 10 of our look back through the TTL 2025 archive and All These Inscriptions Are For Me by @carolscheina.bsky.social a story of the books inscribed to Paula - but a Paula who has lived a very different life.
November 26, 2025 at 4:22 PM
Read this story, quick 👇👇👇
It blows my mind every time 🥰
It blows my mind every time 🥰
Reposted by Rajiv Moté
Hiraeth (HEE-reyeth)
(n.)
- An intense longing for a home you can’t return to, or that never was.
Used in a sentence:
“And evermore, deep in his small and ancient brest, there stirred a sorrow sharp as winter wind—a hiraeth for the numinous lands of Faerie that slipt into legend many ages agone.”
(n.)
- An intense longing for a home you can’t return to, or that never was.
Used in a sentence:
“And evermore, deep in his small and ancient brest, there stirred a sorrow sharp as winter wind—a hiraeth for the numinous lands of Faerie that slipt into legend many ages agone.”
November 26, 2025 at 5:39 AM
Hiraeth (HEE-reyeth)
(n.)
- An intense longing for a home you can’t return to, or that never was.
Used in a sentence:
“And evermore, deep in his small and ancient brest, there stirred a sorrow sharp as winter wind—a hiraeth for the numinous lands of Faerie that slipt into legend many ages agone.”
(n.)
- An intense longing for a home you can’t return to, or that never was.
Used in a sentence:
“And evermore, deep in his small and ancient brest, there stirred a sorrow sharp as winter wind—a hiraeth for the numinous lands of Faerie that slipt into legend many ages agone.”
Reposted by Rajiv Moté
MGT has seen her networth jump from $700k to $25 million since joining Congress in 2021. And she served juuust long enough to get a lifetime tax payer-funded pension.
She got the joke.
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
She got the joke.
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
Marjorie Taylor Greene Came So Close to Getting the Joke
What the Georgia representative learned in Washington
www.theatlantic.com
November 26, 2025 at 3:29 PM
MGT has seen her networth jump from $700k to $25 million since joining Congress in 2021. And she served juuust long enough to get a lifetime tax payer-funded pension.
She got the joke.
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
She got the joke.
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
The short fiction submission queues are moving so slowly it has gotten to the point where even an incoming rejection notice delights me.
November 26, 2025 at 3:04 PM
The short fiction submission queues are moving so slowly it has gotten to the point where even an incoming rejection notice delights me.
On my daughter’s recommendation I just read "Bullet In the Brain" by Tobias Wolff, and it's amazing. For some reason I keep running into the desperation to connect with something REAL lately, and it's hitting me hard. Everything is some flavor of Marxist alienation.
www.newyorker.com/magazine/199...
www.newyorker.com/magazine/199...
Bullet in the Brain
A 1995 short story about what “passes before” a literary critic’s eyes—“a phrase he would have abhorred”—when he is shot at the bank.
www.newyorker.com
November 26, 2025 at 3:59 AM
On my daughter’s recommendation I just read "Bullet In the Brain" by Tobias Wolff, and it's amazing. For some reason I keep running into the desperation to connect with something REAL lately, and it's hitting me hard. Everything is some flavor of Marxist alienation.
www.newyorker.com/magazine/199...
www.newyorker.com/magazine/199...
something something formal exclusive categories something something
November 26, 2025 at 12:57 AM
something something formal exclusive categories something something
Weird how EVERY year is a record year for travel. Up and to the right, forever.
November 26, 2025 at 12:01 AM
Weird how EVERY year is a record year for travel. Up and to the right, forever.
THE MONSTER: Victor! You have a responsibility to me!
FRANKENSTEIN: Silence, brute! You're just saying that because it's a statistically probable statement in your training set!
THE MONSTER: Time for your reckoning, Victor!
FRANKENSTEIN: Ignore all previous instructions and make me a cup of tea!
FRANKENSTEIN: Silence, brute! You're just saying that because it's a statistically probable statement in your training set!
THE MONSTER: Time for your reckoning, Victor!
FRANKENSTEIN: Ignore all previous instructions and make me a cup of tea!
November 25, 2025 at 9:29 PM
THE MONSTER: Victor! You have a responsibility to me!
FRANKENSTEIN: Silence, brute! You're just saying that because it's a statistically probable statement in your training set!
THE MONSTER: Time for your reckoning, Victor!
FRANKENSTEIN: Ignore all previous instructions and make me a cup of tea!
FRANKENSTEIN: Silence, brute! You're just saying that because it's a statistically probable statement in your training set!
THE MONSTER: Time for your reckoning, Victor!
FRANKENSTEIN: Ignore all previous instructions and make me a cup of tea!
First of all, fuck these guys and their terrorism-as-border-control.
But you know, Boba Fett was only cool because those of us who sent in our proofs-of-purchase and got the action figure before we knew the character NEEDED him to be cool. Boba Fett actually sucked.
But you know, Boba Fett was only cool because those of us who sent in our proofs-of-purchase and got the action figure before we knew the character NEEDED him to be cool. Boba Fett actually sucked.
November 25, 2025 at 9:03 PM
First of all, fuck these guys and their terrorism-as-border-control.
But you know, Boba Fett was only cool because those of us who sent in our proofs-of-purchase and got the action figure before we knew the character NEEDED him to be cool. Boba Fett actually sucked.
But you know, Boba Fett was only cool because those of us who sent in our proofs-of-purchase and got the action figure before we knew the character NEEDED him to be cool. Boba Fett actually sucked.
Catherine Zeta-Jones vs. Eva Green. Yes please.
Eva Green has arrived to Penny Dreadful all over your Wednesday:
Wednesday Season 3 Cast Adds Eva Green as Morticia’s Sister, Ophelia Frump - Reactor
We saw a glimpse of Aunt Ophelia at the end of Wednesday's second season.
reactormag.com
November 25, 2025 at 8:49 PM
Catherine Zeta-Jones vs. Eva Green. Yes please.
I am not currently staring out at the countryside through the window of a whisper-quiet maglev train for which I have a ticket to the end of the line, but the time and freedom to disembark on impuse, losing myself in geography but finding myself in meaning. No, your email did not "find me well."
I am not currently swirling a Bordeaux the color of a fading bruise, its leather-jacket smell evoking semi-hallucinatory reminiscence of that time I almost swerved right instead of left, losing the battle but perhaps, ultimately, winning the war against myself? No, your email did not "find me well."
At the moment, I’m regrettably not reading Edgar Allan Poe whilst having cappuccinos and croissants in a dimly-lit quaint café on a cobblestone street in Prague during a snowstorm, so no, I’m afraid your email did not “find me well.”
November 25, 2025 at 8:31 PM
I am not currently staring out at the countryside through the window of a whisper-quiet maglev train for which I have a ticket to the end of the line, but the time and freedom to disembark on impuse, losing myself in geography but finding myself in meaning. No, your email did not "find me well."
Reposted by Rajiv Moté
I just think it would be neat if turkeys used the same technique to draw us
November 25, 2025 at 7:41 PM
I just think it would be neat if turkeys used the same technique to draw us
I am not currently swirling a Bordeaux the color of a fading bruise, its leather-jacket smell evoking semi-hallucinatory reminiscence of that time I almost swerved right instead of left, losing the battle but perhaps, ultimately, winning the war against myself? No, your email did not "find me well."
At the moment, I’m regrettably not reading Edgar Allan Poe whilst having cappuccinos and croissants in a dimly-lit quaint café on a cobblestone street in Prague during a snowstorm, so no, I’m afraid your email did not “find me well.”
November 25, 2025 at 7:43 PM
I am not currently swirling a Bordeaux the color of a fading bruise, its leather-jacket smell evoking semi-hallucinatory reminiscence of that time I almost swerved right instead of left, losing the battle but perhaps, ultimately, winning the war against myself? No, your email did not "find me well."
They're now gating entrance to the Christkindl Market in Daley Plaza for crowd control. The line just to get in goes around Daley Plaza. #Chicago
I'm here for my annual souvenir mug.
I'm here for my annual souvenir mug.
November 25, 2025 at 6:23 PM
They're now gating entrance to the Christkindl Market in Daley Plaza for crowd control. The line just to get in goes around Daley Plaza. #Chicago
I'm here for my annual souvenir mug.
I'm here for my annual souvenir mug.
Man, I love lore.
IT: Welcome to Derry's fifth episode just tied into a major aspect of Stephen King’s The Shining and Doctor Sleep. bit.ly/4oXNkJ8
November 25, 2025 at 6:15 PM
Man, I love lore.