N.P. Thompson 🍁

So much this. 😣

A downy woodpecker sits on a spruce on a sunny winter day. "Ahh... Febuary" it says. Close up on it correcting "Febrary" then "Febberary..." then finally "Frebrury"

Ferbruary #oldknees

Friendship Centred SFF Book Bundle 37 Books Feb 1st-15th Background photo: four friends standing with arms around each other. Photo by Helena Lones, Itchio Covers: The Unidentified Champagne Charlie and the Amazing Gladys Walking the Knife's Edge Bonkpocalypse Bad Grains A Spark in Space The Damsel AN UNCOMMON CURSE Courage Is the Price Puppetry Duckett & Dyer, Dicks For Hire The Old Goat and the Alien Spirits of the Relentless Without Wings Clipped Sing In Me, Holy One, and Through Me The Lucky Machine The Lost Star Chart Werecockroach Rescue from the Orc Fortress Riyati Ripple Wherever the Stars Call The Crows Woodspell Common Accord Awakenings River of Crows A Study on Magic and Crystals Once Upon A Wave of Witches Fortitude Waters Dust & Lightning The Re-Emergence

SFF Readers, do you like stories which centre friendship, or where friendship groups tackle plot problems?

To help you find them, I've organised this 37 book bundle. It's an even split of Fantasy, SciFi & SciFi-Fantasy, available till Feb 15! (Book blurbs in link 😉.)

🌈📚🪐📚💙 itch.io/b/3486/frien...

I have had a THOUGHT that ties all my series threads together and maybe now the last half of this thing will actually make sense after all! 👊 #AmWriting #wip

Friendship Centred SFF Book Bundle 37 Books Feb 1st-15th Background photo: four friends standing with arms around each other. Photo by Helena Lones, Itchio Covers: The Unidentified Champagne Charlie and the Amazing Gladys Walking the Knife's Edge Bonkpocalypse Bad Grains A Spark in Space The Damsel AN UNCOMMON CURSE Courage Is the Price Puppetry Duckett & Dyer, Dicks For Hire The Old Goat and the Alien Spirits of the Relentless Without Wings Clipped Sing In Me, Holy One, and Through Me The Lucky Machine The Lost Star Chart Werecockroach Rescue from the Orc Fortress Riyati Ripple Wherever the Stars Call The Crows Woodspell Common Accord Awakenings River of Crows A Study on Magic and Crystals Once Upon A Wave of Witches Fortitude Waters Dust & Lightning The Re-Emergence

Looking for a book bundle centering friendship and found families? We've got just the thing!

Includes AN UNCOMMON CURSE, 1st in my series of fairy tales-meet-musicals fantasy novels!

itch.io/b/3486/frien...

I am old enough to remember being told that the fancy new-fangled machines called "computers" were going to ease everyone's workload.

Why the hell are we all still working 40+ hours a week?

I really need weekends to be longer. There just isn't enough time to get everything done that I need to. 😣

You don’t beat fascism and anti-science movements by pretending there’s a middle ground.

You beat it by exposing its propaganda and fighting back.

SUCH a great time for Canada to be pouring tax dollars into new LNG pipelines, don'cha think? 🫠 /sarcasm/

Billionaire-owned, corporate media has censored critical public health information for years.

“Advertisers dropped ads adjacent to coronavirus content, even on trusted news sites, in order to protect “brand safety,” which meant that certain public health‑oriented stories lost visibility.” #COVID

I squoosh. 🥰

(No squoosh owl. Owl no like squooshies. I sad. So soft and squooshable-looking.)

Jared Horvath in 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘋𝘪𝘨𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘭 𝘋𝘦𝘭𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯:

Here’s the thing: Ridiculous numbers of people are getting the flu right now. Cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are reaching or have already reached record-breaking numbers. People of all ages are getting sick, being hospitalized, and dying, even if they had no other health conditions. And lots of people who are “ok” and don’t require hospitalization are feeling terrible and probably wish they were not sick.

You should really be trying not to get the flu (and COVID-19 and RSV and more). This means, yes, you should really get vaccinated….Vaccines teach your body how to recognize and respond to the particular viruses they were created for. No amount of washing your hands, eating healthy, sleeping, or exercising can do this for you. Sorry. These are all important for your immune system and other reasons, but they cannot replace the work of vaccines. People of all ages, with or without other health issues, should get vaccinated. Vaccines help prevent infection and severe illness in people of all ages (yes, even kids. Healthy children can and do die from the flu. And most children who die are unvaccinated*). *Sources if you don’t believe us: bit.ly/428YhOU, tinyurl.com/4tmv8km8, bit.ly/mm7241a2. ... and you should wear masks.

If you don’t want to get or spread the flu (or COVID-19 or other things) you should really wear masks. Seriously, people. Yes, we know, some of you love them and some of you hate them. But we’re a health agency so we’re here to share the things that work to protect your health. Masks keep you from breathing in, or breathing out into the air, virus particles that make you and others sick, even if you don’t know you or the people around you are sick (and honestly you often won’t know). You should wash your hands frequently, eat healthy foods, and get plenty of sleep, but no amount of any of this is going to keep you from breathing in virus particles in the air. Definitely wash your hands. Please. Viruses can spread in multiple ways, and handwashing helps prevent some of those ways. But you can’t wash away a virus you’ve breathed in. There’s a reason masks often become required again at doctors’ offices and hospitals whenever virus spread gets bad (like now). It’s because they work.

Also, it’s very unkind to choose to be unmasked around others if you know you’re sick (and if there’s no reason you can’t wear a mask). For you, maybe it’s “just” the flu or a mild case of another illness, and you don’t care if you’re sick. But for the person you pass it to, it could be: Too much for their body to handle in addition to their chronic illness | The illness they pass to a loved one who has cancer | The reason they are sick on the day of an important life event | A hospital stay for a child | The infection that leads to a disability | Their cause of death. If you are sick, please be kind and stay away from others as much as possible, and wear a mask if you have to spend time away from home. PS: A lot of cases of illness spread by people who don’t have symptoms, so if you want to be even more considerate, it’s a good idea to mask around other people even if you don’t think you’re sick.

We don’t know who needs to hear this, but the flu is getting out of hand. And we needed to make a post about it. Here are our pretty direct thoughts, because sometimes our social media manager/infographic designer is tired & can’t think of a way to put it more gently. Please make good choices. (1/2)

Friendship Centred SFF Book Bundle 37 Books Feb 1st-15th Background photo: four friends standing with arms around each other. Photo by Helena Lones, Itchio Covers: The Unidentified Champagne Charlie and the Amazing Gladys Walking the Knife's Edge Bonkpocalypse Bad Grains A Spark in Space The Damsel AN UNCOMMON CURSE Courage Is the Price Puppetry Duckett & Dyer, Dicks For Hire The Old Goat and the Alien Spirits of the Relentless Without Wings Clipped Sing In Me, Holy One, and Through Me The Lucky Machine The Lost Star Chart Werecockroach Rescue from the Orc Fortress Riyati Ripple Wherever the Stars Call The Crows Woodspell Common Accord Awakenings River of Crows A Study on Magic and Crystals Once Upon A Wave of Witches Fortitude Waters Dust & Lightning The Re-Emergence

A bundle with indie authors for everyone that likes SFF that centres friendship or found family!

It includes 13 Fantasy books, 12 SciFi's, 10 SciFi-Fantasy's and 2 Horror books.

💙📚📢📚📦📚

itch.io/b/3486/frien...

“s of last fall , You, Only Virtual was not yet profitable. It recently launched a free version of the product and is exploring ways to gain revenue from nonpaying users, perhaps by requiring that they watch a short ad before interacting with their dead loved one’s Versona, perhaps by integrating a marketing system into the interactions directly and having the bots drop targeted advertisements in the midst of their conversations. “It would not be crazy at all if there was a new John Wick movie coming out,” Harrison said, and “my mom made mention of it to me.” They were both fans of the franchise,”

“Alex Quinn, the CEO of Authentic Interactions Inc., the parent company for the video-deadbot-generator StoryFile, told NPR in August that he is “absolutely interested” in finding ways to generate advertising revenue from interactions between living users and AI generations of the dead. He mentioned the possibility of inserting traditional advertisement breaks into the conversations, as well as training the bots to “probe for information,” such as a user’s favorite athlete and which jerseys they are most interested in buying—data that could then be sold back to advertisers.”

Folks have joked about this, but some people making these bots have actually considered it—targeted ads from your dead relative or loved one.

Took a quick look at the feed and it doesn't seem to be parody. Blocked the account. Enough awfulness in the world without that adding to my blood pressure increases. 😑

The Insect Collapse: The Quiet Disaster That Could End Civilization Insects are vanishing worldwide, threatening food security, ecosystems, and human survival in ways civilisation is not prepared to face.

I just said yesterday how I use the lack of bugs as an easy anecdotal barometer of where global ecology is.

www.abovethenormnews.com/2026/01/30/g...

😂

Agreed. And these opinions shouldn't be controversial.

It's super-easy to set up a basic shop. I think it was just create account, hook up Paypal, create page for book, upload files. (I mean, you can do a lot to customize the look of your shop, and I have done that, but you don't *have* do any of the fancy stuff!) Let me know if you need help tomorrow!

I have never had snickerdoodles turn out properly. I think they're supposed to be chewy, but mine are always like light puffy clouds. They still taste good, but I keep trying for chewy and not achieving it. 😅

I achieved this Nirvana with coffee exactly twice in my life (back when I could still drink coffee). It was perfection. Bliss in a cup. The Coffee of all Coffees. Perhaps you, too, will achieve the ideal once more. Never give up hope! I believe in you! 😂

Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope... you couldn't PAY me to step on that floor! 😂

(Actually, you couldn't even pay me to go up to the top of that tower at all!)

Also, there are *always* people right around the cut off points that get absolutely screwed over when there are restrictions. Make literally $1 more than the cut off? Too bad. You have to pay. Make it fair across the board and just bump up the taxes on higher incomes.

"Precarious teachers and students they work with are especially at risk, considering schools are superspreader spaces and teachers are one of the most impacted professions from COVID."

I'm old enough to remember when Bonnie Henry and associated ilk were swearing up and down that "COVID doesn't spread in schools". That was when I knew our official PH people were all lying to us. Anyone who has ever had a child in school or known a child in school HAD to have known that was a lie.

I mean, I've got a whole fantasy series that would make an excellent TV series. Or miniseries. Or movies. Just, you know, if anyone out there is looking. 😁

ONE WEEK LEFT to sign up to join us in this all-Canadian Itchio bundle! We have a *stellar* group so far, and would love to have you with us! #BookSky #CanLit #CanKidLit #WritingCommunity

Someday, I'm going to actually get paid on time without having to email accounting to ask why I didn't get paid when I should have and the shock will probably kill me. 😑

One of the most incredible things I've ever seen was a steady stream of Monarch butterflies flying along a beach ~23 years ago. Just happened to be in the right place at the right time during their migration. It was stunning. Magical.

I can count on one hand the number I've seen in the past decade.

I mean, we knew in 2020 that even asymptomatic infected *kids* had brain damage from COVID. There were studies with MRIs showing it!