iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Imogen Cook @birosmudged.bsky.social · 14h

Every day I hear another word being said out loud by another person and realise that I've been confidently and cheerfully mispronouncing it for years

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Working Class History @workingclasshistory.com · 14/10/2026

#OtD 14 Oct 1977 anti-gay crusader Anita Bryant was "pied" by Thom Higgins, a gay rights activist. She then began praying and burst into tears. Following a boycott, she lost her job as brand ambassador for Florida orange juice. More LGBT+ history here: workingclasshistory.com/tag/lgbtq/

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Imogen Cook @birosmudged.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Acting like hedgehogs didn't contribute heaps to our country by teaching all of us who started school in the late 90s/early 00s to cross the road safely

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onion person @junlper.beer · 10/10/2026

this is the ultimate end point of capitalism, ai will completely atomize everyone and there will be zero shared experiences. there will be no culture, only pure consumption. this must be resisted

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Imogen Cook @birosmudged.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Ngl I thought it happened already in April but it turns out that was Lesbian Visibility Day, which is apparently a different thing. Of course it doesn’t matter anyway, because every day is a lesbian day for me

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Imogen Cook @birosmudged.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Happy international lesbian day…I love being a lesbian God bless my lesbian life etc

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Packed with Potential @packedwith.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

The Anne Lister Research Summit is this Saturday & Sunday! Drop in for one session or settle in for the whole weekend. 🎟️ Virtual & free: www.eventbrite.com/e/anne-liste...

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Imogen Cook @birosmudged.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Might not make the shiniest posters ever but at least nobody could ever accuse me of having used AI

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pixelatedboat aka “mr bluesky” @pixelatedboat.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Sad news everyone. Our beloved friend the computer has now become a hated enemy

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Imogen Cook @birosmudged.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Friend turned to me afterwards and asked ”what did you think about their hair” and I said “it did kind of piss me off the whole time” and she said “yeah I kept thinking I bet Imy’s seething right now” lol

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Imogen Cook @birosmudged.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Just watched the new Sense & Sensibility. It was just okay. A bit of a confusing adaptation imo kind of didn’t feel like it knew what to do with itself or the text but I liked the casting

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CN Lester 🏳️‍⚧️ @cnlester.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

'those with the most severe and debilitating disabilities would not lose any money.' - I don't know a single severely disabled person - all of whom have reams of medical evidence of impairment and illness - who hasn't had their conditions deliberately downplayed by benefit assessors

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Frances: Meh and Loving It @francesmeh.reviews · 30/09/2026

one thing i understand more and more as i get older is that i do not have to post every half-baked inane thought that blows through my weary, addled brain. i do it by choice. i can stop anytime i want.

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Kat Abughazaleh @katmabu.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I literally don’t know a single woman who hasn’t been raped, stalked, groped, harassed, or sexually violated in some way at some point in their life. If you choose to doubt and dox survivors, just know every woman in your life is disgusted by you.

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Imogen Cook @birosmudged.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

To be clear this is a situation where I'm starting to find the people incessantly talking about the situation just as insufferable as anyone directly involved in the situation

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Erin Reed @erininthemorning.com · 27/09/2026

The worst part about twitter is there are a number of people who think they have to be active there who are left-leaning but have had their brains absolutely cooked by the site. You can't inundate yourself in exposure to that stuff without it having an impact on you.

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perversemag @perversemag.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

PERVERSE is back with issue 10 on Monday - an email of five strange and unusual poems every week, and each poem posted here too. Sign up free at perverse.substack.com

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Imogen Cook @birosmudged.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Not reading up on the lesbian mask mandate bar drama because I only have one life on God's green earth

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Morgan M Page @morganmpage.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Queer drama is really fun to text about and politically sinister when it breaches containment and conservatives find out about it. Those are *our* unreasonable assholes, back off!!

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Imogen Cook @birosmudged.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Liked some of these more than others obviously. Also in fairness was halfway through the Sedgwick already before I went there

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Imogen Cook @birosmudged.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I finished my jury service (eight days on one trial, not unreasonable at all, felt lucky) here’s everything I read whilst waiting around

Books pictured left to right, two rows: Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins, The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides, Small g by Patricia Highsmith, Between Men by Eve Sedgwick, Nonbinary Jane Austen by Chris Washington

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Packed with Potential @packedwith.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

On this day in 1840, Anne Lister died at Koutais, in Georgia, aged 49. For today's anniversary we've made her a Victorian mourning card with the maxim she loved best, borrowed from Edward Young's Night-Thoughts: "For human weal, Heaven husbands all events."

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Packed with Potential @packedwith.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Miss Threlfall swindled Anne Lister's friend Miss Pickford out of thousands to fund her West Indies plantations, and violated the 1807 abolition act to do it. Join Anna Clark on what this case reveals about slavery in Lister's world. www.eventbrite.com/e/anne-liste...

eventbrite.com

Anne Lister Research Summit 2026

An online conference for Anne Lister enthusiasts.

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Imogen Cook @birosmudged.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Sorry to link to a s*bstack post but man Devon Price (almost) never misses, I was going to begrudgingly write something on this at some point and now I don’t have to any time soon because this is more or less exactly what I’ve been thinking and feeling RE the discourses of recent months

drdevonprice.substack.com

Of course some people make up disabilities. But how many? And does it matter?

Responding to critics of neurodiversity.

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Imogen Cook @birosmudged.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Repeatedly using this kind of language (knowing that most people just read headlines and keep scrolling lol) makes it easy for people to assume that disabled folk & disability rights orgs etc had like, vague ideological concerns and were being big meanies about it rather than having legitimate fears

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Imogen Cook @birosmudged.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Really wish headlines would stop framing this as “disabled people are against assisted dying” when the vast majority of disabled people I know with concerns were only against the timing & implementation of this assisted dying bill, not assisted dying in & of itself. That wording does actually matter

Headline on a BBC News Reel that reads ‘Why are so many disabled people against assisted dying?’

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Imogen Cook @birosmudged.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

*Ran its last competition one year after, even

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Imogen Cook @birosmudged.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

(Also a couple of the people who wrote some of the emails on that meme follow me here now lol so to be clear in case you happen to remember I appreciated every email. Even the rejection emails were mostly incredibly encouraging and it all turned out for the best anyway I’m glad I ended up at Kent)

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Imogen Cook @birosmudged.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

But anyway, I’m proud of myself for getting here as well. It‘s easy for me to kind of get stuck in a place of permanent gratitude and I‘m not good at talking myself up at all but I love the work I do and I think it’s really important and good. I look forward to continuing this year too :)

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Imogen Cook @birosmudged.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

It’s also not lost on me that the DTP studentship I’m funded by ran its last competition two years after I was awarded funding and that the landscape is looking increasingly competitive for incoming humanities PhDs applying for funding. I don’t know if I’d be fortunate in applying for anything now

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Imogen Cook @birosmudged.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

And I’m also grateful to everyone who’s helped me get to this point (my supervisor, my colleagues, the contacts who advised me at other universities I applied to, my lecturers back at Winchester where I did my undergrad/MA, my mum, etc). People have been so generous and I try to pay that forward

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Imogen Cook @birosmudged.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

I only knew in applying for PhDs that I wanted to keep doing the research & work I’d been able to do during my Masters, even if it was only for a few more years. I don’t know what will come after my PhD and I’m not naïvely expectant at all but I feel unfathomably lucky to be able to do this anyway

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Imogen Cook @birosmudged.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

I don’t know, maybe I’m being self indulgent or unclear but it’s hard to be articulate in Bluesky sized fragments lol. People always ask what I plan on doing “with” a PhD and they asked the same about my BA & MA too but they’re not tools to me, the learning and the work itself has been the reward

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Imogen Cook @birosmudged.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

& I don’t talk about that much because I don’t want to sound like I’m shilling for the myth of British meritocracy lol. I just never really felt entitled to the level of education I’ve ended up getting at all. This isn’t bad or even really unusual but it’s a strange way to feel in academia sometimes

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Imogen Cook @birosmudged.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

To be honest I‘d only really figured out what a PhD actually was towards the end of my Masters and I‘d only even decided I definitely wanted to go to uni for undergrad after attending a widening participation thing in sixth form. It still feels very surreal that this is my life sometimes even now

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Imogen Cook @birosmudged.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

I used to feel embarrassed when I had calls about PhD applications with potential supervisors etc and I had to mention my job, and then I’d feel guilty for feeling embarrassed. I never thought there was any shame in it, but I still worried about being dismissed as unimpressive or the wrong ‘type’

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Imogen Cook @birosmudged.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Getting funding was surreal because I‘d tried so hard for two years and hadn’t expected anything by that point (I came off a reserve list). I was getting ready for a late shift at Morrisons when I got the news, when I clocked in a coworker asked what happened because I was still visibly shaking

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Imogen Cook @birosmudged.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

It’s been two years today since I secured CHASE AHRC funding to begin my PhD and about two years since I made this meme about how the two years/cycles I‘d spent applying and reapplying all over the place had felt lol. Having lots of thoughts and feeling reflective about what those years were like

The cyclical ‘it’s so over, we’re so back, it’s so over, we’re so back’ loop meme, pictured surrounded by screenshots from various emails rejecting or shortlisting me for various PhD studentships and places

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Imogen Cook @birosmudged.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Update: a vote for 'Recipes' has hit the survey. Overjoyed

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Ilikecaketoo (UK) @ilikecaketoo.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Disgraceful that the RNLI have to say this today, but here we are 😞. If you would like to donate👇🏻. rnli.org/support-us/g... #RNLI #RNLISavesLives

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Imogen Cook @birosmudged.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Disappointed that nobody has yet responded to this survey to tell me they write 'Recipes' so if anyone does and wants to let me know go for it

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Dorian Lynskey @dorianlynskey.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

If "legitimate concerns" were considered to excuse illegitimate methods, then nobody from Just Stop Oil or Palestine Action would have been arrested. So we know it doesn't. In fact that phrase is only ever used in one context. Only in that context is uniformed mob intimidation "peaceful protest"

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Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

However much you hate British media, it is not enough www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/09...

How having a disability became cool
Young women, nicknamed ‘sickfluencers’, are turning chronic illness into a lifestyle trend and entrenching a culture of economic inactivity

Young women are also more likely to get caught up in “social contagion” – the spontaneous spread of behaviours or emotions previously observed by sociologists in “outbreaks” of bulimia, self-harm and transgender ideology. What may have otherwise been transitory feelings are seized upon and obsessed over until they form a central pillar of a person’s identity. A chronic-illness influencer won’t want to get “better” any more than a female-bodied transgender person would want to re-identify with their sex.

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Imogen Cook @birosmudged.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Regency hair is so fun as well I’ll never understand why these kinds of adaptations insist on this stuff. It feels like they’re scared of a woman not being as conventionally attractive as possible by contemporary standards for like one hour. What who said that

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Imogen Cook @birosmudged.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

New Sense and Sensibility adaptation looks very nicely cast imo but I‘m struggling to look past the hair situation because I’m one of those people sorry. I’ll still go see it though obviously

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Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

"would mean, for example, that Jewell would not be able to breastfeed in the future" this person is TWENTY NINE YEARS OLD and the BBC is scaremongering about their choice not to breastfeed a baby that they do not have and have given no indication of ever wanting to have

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Louie Stowell @louiestowell.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

I love that this is how I found out Starmer stepped down as an MP

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