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Ranylt Richildis

@ranylt.bsky.social

2.6K followers 760 following 5.9K posts

Stories in PodCastle, Strange Horizons and many cool elsewheres. Founder of Lackington's Magazine (yup, still on hiatus). Dark fantasy, weird/horror, film, food, architecture, history, language. https://ranylt.wordpress.com

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Ranylt Richildis @ranylt.bsky.social · Jul 13

To Lackington’s authors and artists: FYI we’ve just deleted our gmail accounts (the main one and the submission one) because 1) ugh, Google, 2) ugh, data breach threats all over, and 3) if/when Lackington’s ever returns, we’ll be using something more secure.

Your privacy and data matter.

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Ranylt Richildis @ranylt.bsky.social · 12h

I would sell my soul right now for a bag of proper mustard chips from France and a bottle of Breton cider.

A bag of savoury chips à l'ancienne saveur moutarde—NOT that fucking honey-mustard shit all over Canada.

Ranylt Richildis @ranylt.bsky.social · 2d

So. Fast.

Reposted by Ranylt Richildis

the babahuck @tylerhuckabee.bsky.social · 2d

In 2004, Parisian police were conducting a training exercise in the french catacombs and found, after moving past a desk and a tape playing audio of snarling dogs, a fully functional movie theater and bar. When they returned 3 days later, the equipment was gone, with a note: “Do not try to find us.”

Members of the force's sports squad, responsible
- among other tasks - for policing the 170 miles of tunnels, caves, galleries and catacombs that underlie large parts of Paris, stumbled on the complex while on a training exercise beneath the Palais de Chaillot, across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower.
After entering the network through a drain next to the Trocadero, the officers came across a tarpaulin marked: Building site, No access.
Behind that, a tunnel held a desk and a closed-circuit TV camera set to automatically record images of anyone passing. The mechanism also triggered a tape of dogs barking, "clearly designed to frighten people off," the spokesman said.
Further along, the tunnel opened into a vast 400 sq metre cave some 18m underground, "like an underground amphitheatre, with terraces cut into the rock and chairs".

There the police found a full-sized cinema screen, projection equipment, and tapes of a wide variety of films, including 1950s film noir classics and more recent thrillers. None of the films were banned or even offensive, the spokesman said.
A smaller cave next door had been turned into an informal restaurant and bar. "There were bottles of whisky and other spirits behind a bar, tables and chairs, a pressure-cooker for making couscous," the spokesman said.
"The whole thing ran off a professionally installed electricity system and there were at least three phone lines down there."
Three days later, when the police returned accompanied by experts from the French electricity board to see where the power was coming from, the phone and electricity lines had been cut and a note was lying in the middle of the floor: "Do not," it said, "try to find us."

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Ranylt Richildis @ranylt.bsky.social · 2d

For sure!

It’s also just sad, as a writer, that a story has basically just gone into a void (they won’t even ship copies outside the US...). I hate this. I think most short story writers experience this at one point. It was just my turn. Never again.

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Ranylt Richildis @ranylt.bsky.social · 2d

I'm still smarting from giving over a cherished story to a venue that didn’t send me copyedits for review and won’t send out contrib copies, even digitally—so I have no idea what it looks like. Also no promo...

As an editor, I am rigid on Certain Things You Don’t Do, and not paying is another one.

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Reposted by Ranylt Richildis

M Healy @mofhealy.bsky.social · 5d

Lackingtons was some of the best when I was more actively following short stories. If you haven’t you should give it a look.

Vajra Chandrasekera @vajra.me · 5d

For people who love weird short stories—Did you know the incredible Lackington's archive is still online? You should read it now while we still have an internet lackingtons.com

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Ranylt Richildis @ranylt.bsky.social · 2d

😳

Ranylt Richildis @ranylt.bsky.social · 2d

*nod* and that has to be better for most folks' mental health, I’d imagine.

Reposted by Ranylt Richildis

Chappell Ellison @chappelltracker.bsky.social · 12d

This Tumblr user summarizes something I've been feeling/doing lately. Against everything going on, it somehow feels helpful.

User homoquartz writes: as long as you smile and nod, people are satisfied. it’s just to show that you are nice and there with good intentions. we’re small in a big world and have to rely on other people to be decent to us. so we do our little human dance to each other to say, “i’m not here to hurt you. here’s something we have in common, like the weather or sports or itchy sweaters, so we both know we’re on the same team. we both agree on a basic fact, like that it is rainy or that being itchy is uncomfortable, and this proves we can get along. i’m being light-hearted and non-threatening right now."
Small talk isn't to get to know a person. It's just a greeting to affirm you're buddies in the universe. I am motivated by wanting the other person to know I am friendly, so I have gotten pretty decent at small tall when I used to hate it.

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Ranylt Richildis @ranylt.bsky.social · 2d

I’ve been doing this my whole life (maybe in part because of the culture I was raised in, which encourages this), so not doing those little courtesies feels alien to me. Because it’s exactly as you say! It feels nicer when I have to be out in the scary world.

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Ranylt Richildis @ranylt.bsky.social · 3d

💯

Ranylt Richildis @ranylt.bsky.social · 3d

It’s a goody!

Ranylt Richildis @ranylt.bsky.social · 3d

It’s so wild. Do businesses want to make $$ or not? WHY MAKE IT HARDER TO PAY? More options/access ought to mean more sales?

Ranylt Richildis @ranylt.bsky.social · 3d

Indeed. I may have fibbed once or twice about not having a phone on me in any situation where folks want me to download another fecking app etc...

Ranylt Richildis @ranylt.bsky.social · 3d

I have gotten real good at leaving my phone at home, I tell you what.

(I have never seen that last…yet, but that crap needs to come with a warning *before* we buy the stuff.)

Ranylt Richildis @ranylt.bsky.social · 3d

Jesus fuck.

Ranylt Richildis @ranylt.bsky.social · 3d

It me (who feels bad for all the working people this will hurt directly or indirectly but).

Ranylt Richildis @ranylt.bsky.social · 3d

Yep. Two things that make me pivot out of an otherwise okay restaurant (politely but determinedly): data-chasing and only having Canadian/US wine on the menu.

Ranylt Richildis @ranylt.bsky.social · 3d

GenAI priapism is the reason my work is already on the line (writing, editing, teaching) so there’s no winning either way.

Ranylt Richildis @ranylt.bsky.social · 3d

There's a new Chinese dumpling place in my city that is apparently heaven on earth and I’d love to go there, but it brags that it only has QR menus and a no-cash system, so I feel this post. My stubbornness has reached Alpine levels.

Martha Crawford @whatashrinkthinks.com · 4d

I don’t necessarily feel like retreating from the news.

But I am absolutely recoiling from technology now and just planning on becoming wholly obsolete

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Ranylt Richildis @ranylt.bsky.social · 3d

Aw. 💔

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvW9...

Diane Keaton: "You'd be so nice nice to come to"

YouTube video by Ricardo Leitner

www.youtube.com

Ranylt Richildis @ranylt.bsky.social · 3d

You are having a "tiny horse in the Apple store" moment. 👍

Reposted by Ranylt Richildis

Chris Person @papapishu.bsky.social · 4d

It’s true: the cities are lawless and scary, if you live here sell your property as fast as possible, particularly if you have a 2 family row house from the 1920s with those nice bay windows.

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Reposted by Ranylt Richildis

Grim Flandango @grimflandango.bsky.social · 4d

A billion dollars is a biological weapon. It attacks the brain on a fundamental level. It renders you incapable of complex problem solving or normal socialization. It atrophies the Bart of your brain that processes reality. It is a scourge.

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Ranylt Richildis @ranylt.bsky.social · 3d

WELL NOW I AM TRYING THIS EVEN THO I’M LACTOSE INT!