iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

I definitely think if it's gonna get graphic, you have to signal that early on so that the reader's ready for it, even in a slow burn. I referred to this on a panel at ArmadilloCon as "Chekhov's Cock". 😅 Like, you gotta break the vocab seal, throw a "fuck" or some other vulgarity in early.

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 3h

Like so many things, it can be a useful shorthand within a community operating on similar vibes, but it becomes more a hindrance than a help when scaled up for the sake of publishing's desire to shortcut their marketing.

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 3h

As I've also said on @worldbuildcast.bsky.social, the problem is that people are often rating very different things. Is it the frequency of sex scenes? How explicit they are? The precise vocabulary used to describe parts and acts? Is it about kink or taboos or tentacles?

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 4h

#WIPSnips Sept 30: I love the pragmatism of Rhiann's runecraft, and the guard-runes are one of my favorite bits of that.

The variety in the terrain meant their travel had no opportunity to become rote. They ended some nights at posting-inns, others camping in fields or forest, and the terrain they crossed by day could change from hour to hour as they forged their way out of the heights of the Auquine Mountains and into lower hills. When they stopped, Rhiann occupied herself with the sorts of tasks that were the earliest runecraft in her memory: purifying water, preserving meat, setting guard-runes around the camp, creating charms to keep vermin away from bedrolls and rations alike. Strange to be doing them on behalf of Requini, but the actions themselves were as regular as breathing.

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K.B. Spangler @kbspangler.com · 5h

I would watch every single one of their ads, too, and not toss their Act Blue texts right into spam.

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The Shire-Reckoning @shire-reckoning.bsky.social · 19h

‘All that is gold does not glitter Not all those who wander are lost The old that is strong does not wither Deep roots are not reached by the frost…’ Strider knows the rhyme from Gandalf’s letter! ‘I am Aragorn son of Arathorn and if by life or death I can save you, I will.’

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 20h

If I am feeling generous you *may* first get this as a warning.

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 20h

This is exactly where I operate. Most of the time when I block someone, it's not that they've made me that mad, it's just that their arguments are just so goddamn boring that I am unwilling to spend another millisecond of my precious life entertaining them.

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David Avallone @davallone.bsky.social · 21h

If you haven’t figured this out yet, I have some bad news for you: the women in your life don’t trust you. If you believe you have never met a woman who’s had an abortion… same thing. You have. They just didn’t trust you.

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🫜Prof Emily🫜 @professoremily.bsky.social · 21h

Hey everyone! This October I'm hosting #Conlangity, a game about fictional languages! The goal is to help total newbies craft a conlang that is realistic & usable! It will hopefully be accessible to non-linguist people, but it won't be for the faint of heart. Prepare for a challenge! MORE INFO👇🧵

Prompt list for #Conlangity, a game for building a fictional language! Hosted by @professoremily.bsky.social. Light yellow text printed in two columns over an orange background showing a faint photo of a large open dictionary.

1. CULTURE: Name & speakers of your language
2. SOUNDS: Basic sounds or units of speech
3. SOUNDS: Rare/never used sounds
4. SOUNDS: Rules of pronunciation, emphasis & tone
5. CULTURE: How did your language develop & what is it for?
6. VOCAB: greetings/farewells

7. GRAMMAR: Word order
8. GRAMMAR: Compound words, prefixes & suffixes
9. GRAMMAR: Noun modification (number, case, gender, articles)
10. VOCAB: Words/phrases about relationships

11. GRAMMAR: Pronouns
12. GRAMMAR: Descriptive words
13. VOCAB: Words/phrases about location and direction

14. GRAMMAR: Verbs
15. GRAMMAR: Verb conjugation & other variations
16. GRAMMAR: Verbals (infinitives, gerunds, participles)
17. VOCAB: Words/phrases about time

18. GRAMMAR: Prep-/Postpositions
19. GRAMMAR: Negations & Comparisons
20. VOCAB: Words for numbers

21. GRAMMAR: Subordinate Clauses
22. GRAMMAR: Asking questions, giving commands, speaking in hypotheticals
23. VOCAB: Words/phrases about food & drinks

24. GRAMMAR: Common abbreviations & mutations
25. VOCAB: Common slang, idioms, cursing
26. VOCAB: Words/phrases about animals and plants

27. VOCAB: Words or phrases that a tourist would need to know
28. CULTURE: A word with an interesting etymology
29. CULTURE: Writing system

30. VOCAB CHALLENGE: Translate song lyrics into your language
31. FREE DAY: Something that wasn’t covered/how you plan to use the language in your work?

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Melissa Caruso @melissacaruso.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Discoverability for new SFF books seems way down these days, especially outside of bestsellers and certain subgenres. I'm noticing this as both a reader and a writer. Great stuff is in danger of sinking without a trace. Please post about new/recent books you love or are excited for!!! I'll start:

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 29/09/2026

I'm an educator and a rhetorician and a creative laborer and I endorse the hell out of this!!!

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Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 29/09/2026

What makes matters worse is that the more money spent, the more expensive AI infrastructure becomes, meaning that hyperscalers have to raise more debt, which in turn becomes more expensive. AI data centers are an inflationary force unlike any in history. www.wheresyoured.at/dead-money/

And a little under a month later, NVIDIA would bump its prices by more than 15%, partly as a result of memory costs, and partly because it has the entire tech industry by the balls.

So, as more AI data center debt gets issued, said debt becomes more expensive, because the larger the amount of debt any one thing takes up, the more competition it faces, and the more risk an investor carries by holding it. Once the debt is issued, it immediately flows into buying GPUs and associated hardware, slowly growing the cost of memory and hardware, all while increasing the competition for the specialist labor and materials needed to build data centers, such as spiking the cost of Copper, increasing the cost of construction by billions in the process.

In other words, the more you buy, the more you lose. The more money you raise, the more money you need. The more money you need, the more expensive that money becomes. And once you spend that money, everything you spent it on becomes more expensive, including raising more money in the future.

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 29/09/2026

Yeah, the singletons stuck in tight living conditions and the family-makers who've clawed their way to greater square footage face different flavors of the problem, but I feel like they all stem from a lot of the same systemic issues. Man, fuck capitalism.

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 29/09/2026

I *loved* hosting parties when I was younger -- but that was in grad school and then working for a theater, with a large social network all within walking distance. That isn't the case anymore, so my home is prioritized for my own comfort (esp since I also work here). But I do miss hosting.

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 29/09/2026

I also just don't have enough friends in close proximity. It's not that my friendship circles have shrunk -- they've grown! But lots of those people either no longer live near me, if they once did, or else are people I met at events elsewhere (cons, immersives, etc), so we're scattered all over.

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 29/09/2026

I don't have roommates, but if you do, that's another potential barrier to being able to casually invite folks over. So, yeah, the fact that home ownership is *still* out of reach for so many Millennials & now also Zoomers has probably had an effect on our ability to entertain at home!

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 29/09/2026

I'd have to borrow a card table from my parents to have a game night, and I'd still be short on chairs. For a milling-about gathering, welp, not a lot of space to mill in. I also want to be considerate of the people living below me, noise-wise, so my beloved dance parties are out.

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 29/09/2026

Something else this article overlooks is, uh... lots of us in the prime "dinner party" age range don't really have a home suitable for entertaining *in*. I love my apartment, but there's no room for a dinner table. Or much other seating, for that matter.

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Paul "Princejvstin" Weimer @princejvstin.com · 29/09/2026

Emily has become and embodied what she herself claims to fight against. An abuser.

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 29/09/2026

Seriously, this is a freaking bop, and the dancers are, as the kids say, EATING and leaving no crumbs. youtu.be/9ZUUewxlHaw?...

youtu.be

Madame Leota's Swinging Wake Soundtrack* - Audio Recording | Oogie Boogie Bash Parade at Disneyland

YouTube video by Inside Disney

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 29/09/2026

Today's mood: YT videos of Madam Leota's Swinging Wake on repeat in the background bc the track is still not available on streaming and I am sulky about that

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 29/09/2026

I have nothing but respect for total ferality unleashed in productive directions 😂

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 29/09/2026

It is truly difficult to convey the fervency of my hatred for this woman. I bet it *is* effective at turning students into the mindless, unquestioning minions you and your fascist buddies want them to be! I bet it *is* effective at destroying their capacity for both reason and creativity!

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 29/09/2026

I just finished Flower Court and it is **gorgeous**

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 28/09/2026

I really need small businesses that I love to stop using AI art because it is bumming me out to have to stop giving y'all money

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 28/09/2026

I am frustrated by polls that don't actually produce results reflective of the issue they're purporting to investigate. It's like when polls asked if people supported or opposed the ACA without distinguishing between those who opposed it for inane reasons vs those who thought it insufficient.

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 28/09/2026

But this admin would probably shut down the analytic machine learning systems that are identifying cancer cells and degenerative diseases because they think public health is DEI or something. Or just shut down the programs of anyone who didn't pay sufficient bribes.

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 28/09/2026

I absolutely the fuck do not trust *this* admin to unilaterally shut down anything, especially when we don't have a good definition of what "an advanced artificial intelligence system" would mean. I strongly advocate for setting ChatGPT and everything of its ilk on fire as soon as possible.

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 28/09/2026

But "the government" is, itself, vague and imprecise. Are we talking about Congress or the exec branch? Never mind that the current admin just... ignores any strictures it doesn't like. Who's making this choice? With what oversight? With what due process?

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 28/09/2026

So, I got this poll, and it's one of those that I struggled to answer because I feel it's pretty poorly framed. I am wildly in favor of tech regulation! We haven't had meaningful tech legislation since the 1990s, and that's A PROBLEM. I frequently advocate for addressing that problem!

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Doctora Malka Older @older.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I appreciate that this is getting covered but I really, really, really don't think "infuriated lawmakers" is the key consequences of "revokes $810M approved by Congress for refugee aid and more"

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 28/09/2026

Meanwhile women say perfectly reasonable things like this and chuds in the comments are calling them vapid, petty, resentful, immature, insecure, and so forth. Y'know. For hoping that romantic partners' actions will align with their values.

In dating, when she meets someone who works or wants to work in AI, she wonders, “Does that mean that we have the same values in terms of climate and sustainability and thinking about human rights?”

Even if they do, she adds, “then the issue I have is there’s clearly this cognitive dissonance happening between what you’re working on and what you care about, which I have a really hard time accepting.”

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 28/09/2026

Like wtffffffffffffffffffffff

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 28/09/2026

It is soooooooooooo telling that the dudes in this article are just looking for ways to evade being judged for their choices, including hiding their profession and outright lying about their reasons for pursuing it. They're not interested in doing the work to actually be people worth dating.

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 28/09/2026

(But this was a man *very* conscious of status and prestige within academia, and I suspect had a lot of his own self-image tied up in how many graduates of the program ended up at top-tier universities & theaters. ... Oops!)

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 28/09/2026

I got in SUCH an argument with one of my grad school professors over this. Education has value far, far, far beyond how it affects your monetary earnings. (And this was, mind you, in a **Shakespeare studies** program, so, like...... limited direct vocational opportunities, there)

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 28/09/2026

::nod:: See, this is a genre of country song I approve of. Not quite as good as "woman commits justifiable homicide", but close.

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VoteHub @votehub.com · 28/09/2026

NEWS — Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear criticizes fellow Democrats who say transgender athletes should be barred from women’s sports. “That is not the party that we are. We start as a party of compassion and empathy.”

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 28/09/2026

Looking at how empty my October calendar is as I prep my bujo, and... this can't be right. I must be forgetting like eighteen things. I don't trust this.

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 28/09/2026

Ugggghhhh, five days after the equinox and already it feels like it's getting dark so early. I thought surely it was nearly 10pm. NOPE.

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Foz Meadows @fozmeadows.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Given that AI is ideologically and technologically driven by exploitation, entitlement, theft, plagiarism, sycophancy, narcissism, a refusal to accept consequences and a baseline level of hostility towards human rights, it should surprise nobody that this extends to the industry's treatment of women

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 27/09/2026

Using this as an endorsement in promo materials lmao

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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 27/09/2026

#WIPSnips Sept 27 (and actually works for today's #QueerWriters Sunday line share, too): Murderboner prologue!

Still, neither of them moved. Rhiann’s pulse yet raced with battle-fury, and she was sure Lycus’s was no less agitated. Both of them had chased this moment for so long, years of animosity and bloodshed and delayed retribution, rage and wrath pointed at each other—and to have it interrupted before the terminus, before either could make one final end of the other, was nearly unbearable.
“It’s true, Maera.” Osric’s voice rang out, steady as ever, clear and cutting in their own language. “Aylesburh is ours. Let him go.”
Lycus said, low enough that only she could hear, “Well, Tiger. It seems we can choose to die together now, or live to torment each other another day.”

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