I used to really try to keep a clean line between work and writing - but increasingly, the state of the research industry (and the encroachment of LLM shite into every conceivable crevice) is such that I'm flinging myself wholesale into storytelling and fiction work...

Thank you so much :)

(I'd say I keep the fiction and the media/politics posting separate... but I have a feeling they're very much informing each other at this point!)

And I will continue to be very, very grateful! We've done absolutely no promo for this - I'm trying to label it a Surprise Drop, but i think possibly you have to be a teen skater brand or a Labubu for that one to fly...

TA!!

Ta! It's extremely low-key, as launches go - but I do love those stories, so am delighted to see it out in the world :)

(Also realise surprise drops are generally more the province of limited edition toys and young people trainers than horror fic collections... 🤣)

Not really an observation about Pluribus, but I'm HORRIFIED I initially thought that was an image of Thatcher

We are! (Would love to hear about your issues with "technofeudalism" though...)

So good to see her (and the Mole books) getting a bit of a reappraisal - they more than deserve it. I grew up in Leicester and lived on Welford Rd (near Townsend's estate) as a kid in the 80s, and her observations are/were spot-on

(down to the CND logos graffiti'd on the trees along the main road)

Absolutely. I think if we assume we're not really *in* capitalism anymore, but technofeudalism... the financial industry panic makes a lot of sense

The technofeudalist concentration of funds in a tiny sliver of the population (versus historically larger %s)... isn't, ironically, good for capital

And why would you even WANT to? Just stay in. Read a book

And you can extrapolate out to the full range of sexual and romantic scenarios! Just begin, always, with the question: do you actually like women?

If Yes, proceed; if No, return to start

The concluding paragraph in particular hits hard:

"Bosses are using it the way they’ve used automation technologies since the Industrial Revolution—to extract maximum value from workers, and to profit from the profound uncertainty around the true extent of its power and utility"

Let me have a think!

They'd go over well *here* - people also enjoy subsidised public transport and affordable housing!

Unfortunately, I'm not 100% convinced Akehurst has ever actually met a person, so may not be aware

I can't choose. Weatherwax OR Ogg won't compute - I must have both

In another time and place, I'd probably be writing Gytha/Esme fanfic on AO3 :)

Yay!!

I'm a bit ropey on the gothic/Gothic, but I can do Bakhtin, Foucault, semiotics of horror, CDA and horror framing and queer theory/the monstrous til the cows come home...

DR FUCKING MONSTER!!

(Please let me come on and talk about literally anything you want)

If only anyone had seen this coming, etc

Jesus - I'm so sorry. I've only had a glimpse of some of the threads, and they're *unhinged*