TC Parker/Dr Nat Edwards (she/her)

This is great advice.

You're lovely ❤️

(I'm VERY excited about the potential recs...)

Promo image of THE DENIZENS, showing the cover of the book and the text: REST IN PEACE? NOT IN THIS TOWN

And, while we're here... have you checked out @brennanlafaro.bsky.social's THE DENIZENS yet?

payhip.com/b/I1rKM

Anything can be "just a phase" when you don't bother to engage with any adults in the communities you're slandering

And any "proof" you hold up can be evidence of your argument if you don't bother getting it peer-reviewed

SUZANNE MOORE Gender dysphoria is just a phase. Hilary Cass has proof

Suzanne Moore now needs to recycle the old “just a phase” trope used by homophobic bigots in the 20th Century.

And relying on the totally discredited Cass Review for this drivel is utter desperation.

Maybe it’s because I’m a colonial historian but so many of these white nation states seem to behave exactly like they did in the 19th century: ‘your leaders aren’t right for you,’ ‘we’re only killing you/colonizing you/installing puppet leaders for your own good’

"It’s weird that what I’m feeling now is so much worse than when I stood at Mom’s grave, but it is. Maybe because all that’s in the graveyard is a body she left behind two years ago, and inside these rooms part of her is still alive. I need to see that part, and I’m not sure I want to." - The Erstwhile Tyler Kyle

"The shape of something white and flat glints before me. Teeth. The ground rolls. I’m standing on a tongue. The lips part slowly, letting in a ghostly light that feels like a sheet against my skin. It’s the light of the monsters in the forest, hypnotic, almost audible in its brightness. I stare until the image sharpens, until the breeze tickles my skin and I’m not inside the mouth anymore, but on a road watching Nor walk into the forest." - The Erstwhile Tyler Kyle

"The glow of the bears’ eyes is so beautiful, so peaceful. And how bad would it be, really, to be devoured? To know your small death would feed an army of forest critters? What other meaning could I hope to find out there in the big scary world, being alive? Living is hard. It takes so much effort. To die, all I have to do is stand here and wait. And beautiful. Dear God will it be beautiful. Jaws clamped around my neck, the beatbeatbeat of my heart, the beatbeatbeat, the beatbeatbeat of my heart, the beat beat beat of my heart, the beat beat . . . .beat . . . hey The jaws closing, the puncture of thin skin, the pulse of blood down the neck, claws raised to swipe open my chest, my ribcage, my heart Swipe right for supper And I’ll melt over time into the earth and the pine needles, diffused into root and moss, and the trees will sing songs of me, and the words they make will sound like heyheyhey." - The Erstwhile Tyler Kyle

"It never stops being weird, someone being there and then suddenly not, like you could step into yesterday and find them walking to the corner store, or if you tilt your head at exactly the right angle you’ll see them in your living room watching The Day the Earth Stood Still. They pat the seat beside them, like they caught your reflection in the screen, but it was just a shadow, and you snap out of each other’s worlds the way we forget even our most vivid dreams in the haze of morning. It feels like they’ve existed longer than they haven’t, though the reverse is true. Sometimes, it happens even with people who are still alive, and the pull inside you when you glimpse a stranger who looks like them, almost, until they turn around or speak or crook their elbow all wrong is like a hand clasped and then severed at the wrist." - The Erstwhile Tyler Kyle

Thanks so much for this!

If you like found fiction, slightly oneiric, campy books, I have a queer horror comedy about a cryptid-hunting YouTuber who travels to an isolated island that may house the monsters he swears aren't real: steve-westenra.itch.io/the-erstwhil...

books2read.com/u/boB9YL

With apologies to anyone who's followed me recently for takes on British politics...

I'm in the market today for some Discworld fanfiction - specifically Granny Weatherwax/Mrs Palm

(Not erotica; my tastes, as Mrs Palm herself might say, don't run that way. Just a bit of in-universe expansion)

Promo image for Drew Huff's THE EXODONTISTS, showing the cover of the book (featuring several thin, long fingered, semi-translucent monster monstrous figures) and text reading: FAMILY IS EVERY THING The Exodontists will see you this October 13th

Exciting news - preorders for @drewhuff.bsky.social's found family Halloween horror THE EXODONTISTS are now up!

The Exodontists are a very different kind of dentist. And they'll be seeing you this October...

www.amazon.com/dp/B0GQJX2BRQ

Embrace the legacy media paywall. It's nature's way of telling you not to eat that poison fungus

"The Islamists oppose women getting an education," I mutter, as I aim my missile at the girls school

Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen, sitting alone on the surface of Mars.

It is 1991. I am 15 years old. The US has gone to war in the Middle East.

It is 2003. I am 27 years old. The US has gone to war in the Middle East.

It is 2026. I'm too old for this shit. The US has gone to war in the Middle East.

What a weaselly, grotesque little ballsack our PM is

You know who else can "end this right now," Keith?

The psychopath bastards bombing primary schools

I'll say this for Laura: she's consistent

She DID also note that they both seemed to quite enjoy being politicians

It's that level of attention to detail, I assume, that really pushes her up into the £400k pa bracket

BBE INDEPTH Polanski and Farage don't agree. But they have more in common than you might think 1 hour ago Laura Kuenssberg > Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg One is a former stockbroker from the south who, by his own proud admission, loves smoking, drinking and women. The other's a proud vegan, gay, northern former actor, who told me he'd never drunk a drop. But the jubilant Zack Polanski and Nigel Farage have rather a lot in common.

Laura K and BBC News editorial in full-on meltdown mode now, by the looks of it

"Soft-left socialism? Fascism, basically"

(Spoiler, so you don't have to endure what I just read: the thing they have in common is they're both leaders of political parties in the UK, and sometimes on the telly)

Am badly paraphrasing Buffy here, but they'd do it for a chocolate bar

They *like* killing brown people. No pretext is too flimsy

Using boilerplate messaging that would use for George Galloway about Hannah Spencer personally & how she will approach being an MP is tin eared, graceless, implausible to the immediate audience (Labour MPs) and esp the broader one (Labour waverers/switchers) underpinned by the wrong strategy

To preserve the integrity of free and fair elections, voting eligibility is restricted hereafter to forty-shilling freeholder male persons of good character, encumbered by neither family nor dependents

Every time I see either of these men:

Excellent read! Highly recommend. As a Social Worker with a background in sociology, I love the sociological narrative of the story. Thank you, @tcparker.bsky.social

Thank you so much!

Have your mum and mine been chatting? Because *all* of this feels... very familiar 🤣

Looking for a new #FridayReads title?

It's 2-for-1 on Sapphic Haunted House books over at the digital Batcave...

Celebrate the end of LGBT+ History Month (UK) ghoulishly!

Bonus: we're not owned by any billionaires or oligarchs, & are unlikely to be accused of creating a media monopoly

#booksky

The cover of Shadows Over Ravenkirk 1. It depicts a goth woman in a black and purple dress looking on in shock as a large black tarantula crawls across a stone shelf. Behind her, mist rises, obscuring the houses in the background. A full moon hangs just above her head. Illustrated by Lauren Walke. Text reads: Top - Vivian Moira Valentine Middle - Shadows Over Ravenkirk Bottom - 1: The Last Will And Testament Of Wilhelmina Bruttenholm

A promotional image for Shadows Over Ravenkirk 1. It depicts the cover against a dark blue background, with descriptors in a column in the left side Gothic paranormal fantasy Haunted seaside town Mysterious inheritance Magic, mystery & murder! At the bottom, an arrow points to the tarantula next to text that reads "Her name is Samantha!"

For lovers of Gothic fantasy, monsters among us, and thirsty disaster lesbians

Shadows Over Ravenkirk 1: The Last Will And Testament Of Wilhelmina Bruttenholm, available wherever books are sold. Part 2 coming soon!

books2read.com/SOR1

Private schools lose legal challenge over VAT changes Vanessa Clarke Senior education reporter 27 February 2026, 16:47 GMT # 947 Comments Updated 25 minutes ago

Ambassador, you're spoiling us with today's glut of good news!

🎶 If you're talking UK birth rates, that's a block
If you're talking UK birth rates, that's a block
If your proof is speculation
If you're tracking ovulation
And you're talking UK birth rates, that's a block 🎶

They have, as my Irish partner would say, lost the run of themselves

There is no replacement for actual subject-matter expertise.

Lucy Powell MP O @lucympowell.bsky.social Follow The result in Gorton and Denton is very disappointing. We will reflect, act & continue to learn lessons in the coming days & weeks. Today, I want to thank Angeliki Stogia for her energy & positivity over the campaign, the brilliant Labour staff & thousands of volunteers who worked their socks off. 12:54 PM • Feb 27, 2026 & Some people can reply 10 reposts 51 likes 1 save

Dickensian narrator:

But Labour, who did NOT learn lessons...