Oh lord. I couldn’t tell where the hell Lady Gaga “Applause” was blasting from in the lobby of my work… it was my pocket. It was me. 🫠
@coopercodes.bsky.social explain yourself
Quick addendum on this: the one part of the left that truly understood power was ... unions. Union organizers were never under the illusion that they could sweet-talk concessions from bosses with the right framing. They dealt in power.
That's why the right killed them.
It just fundamentally got the winning formula of: do weird storytelling with two beautiful and charming actors
Okay okay almost everything
hear me out: let's bring back airships
The thing that’s great about X-Files is everything. Everything is great about X-Files.
Most accurate portrait of modern culture currently available
be kind to everyone. Someone you know could be gay. Someone you know could be trans. Someone you know could ride NJ Transit
It’s always worth fighting back.
Also, the fucking banners Trump has on government buildings makes the district look like it’s Wolfenstein The New Order or something.
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/02/u...
Trump saying shit is cheaper today than when he took office is a tailor-made background for ads showing how actual working people are struggling to afford their bills. As out of touch-seeming as GHWB in the grocery store (and yes I know the lore on that one)
🥰
Haven’t really used Bluesky for MM romance discussions much, but I’m looking for some community conversation so throwing this out there. How do you feel about the use of the F-slur in MM romance books?
www.instagram.com/reel/DVGVpRr...
Kurt Vonnegut stop being so applicable to all time periods of American life, you can’t do that Kurt Vonnegut, your insights are too evergreen Kurt Vonnegut
I urge you to stop what you're doing and watch Alysa Liu's free skate from yesterday. I have never seen anything like this. I understand why sports writers are born now. I have never seen anyone as free from the burdens of this world as this pierced Oakland girl spinning to Donna Summers.
They just think it’s REALLY important, Claudia!! 😅
X's algorithm is in fact doing what you think it's doing. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
New #Union numbers were released this morning by BLS, showing that in 2025, 16.5 million workers in the United States were represented by a union, an increase of 463,000 from 2024 and the highest number of unionized workers in the U.S. in 16 years. 1/
🥺
Hahahaha
Nope, none of the authors were able to sell anything (apparently not even merch). Indies were able to ship books to the booksellers to sell at the central book tables, so there was an opportunity to get them, but that makes the logistics more complicated than it has to be.
I had about a dozen conversations with attendees and authors who said they don’t think they’ll come back because of these reasons. I hope LYBF will take this feedback in the spirit in which it’s given: constructively and with hope for the future. This wasn’t a great event but I believe it can be. 💙
Fifth: multiple gay men (myself included, TWICE) had attendees assume we were straight male counterparts of women attending the event. I’m not angry at the people who did this, but LYBF could do more from a leadership prescriptive to communicate how to have an inclusive space.
I was told that some organizers seemed to pay more attention to the “famous” trad pub authors and only interacted with the more indie-focused authors when they had long signing lines. Every author at an event like this deserves equal dignity and respect, not just the “big names”.
This was a BIG miss and there was some hurt feelings among indie (and hybrid indie/trad) authors who felt a disdain and a weird hierarchy with the traditionally published authors. It left a bad taste in my mouth.
They did a good job of getting authors from diverse backgrounds and having panels focused on diversity. But they can live this value much better by being more open to indie and self-pub authors who, frankly, are often bigger influences on the genre than trad pub authors.
Not being able to sell books unfairly impacts indie authors, who are more likely to come from marginalized backgrounds. At least one told me they probably lost money coming despite having a long line. And that leads to my fourth critique: LYBF is too focused on traditionally published authors.
The layout wasn’t the only issue with the booksellers. I’m sure everyone was acting in good faith, but the bookseller partnerships: 1) prevented authors from selling their own books (and even merch) and 2) did not include any of the Atlanta-area romance bookstores, which felt very odd.
Lines were constantly intersecting, people needing to get in and out to side rooms, and every line snaking around the third major issue: the central bookseller space. The venue isn’t huge and taking up so much space with bookseller partners made it much more difficult to navigate.
