iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Egor

EmmyKtz 🐙 The Pink Hydra 🔞 @thepinkhydra.com · 01/08/2025

I want to celebrate #YaoiDay by sharing my favourite thing of everything The Pink Hydra has ever published. www.thepinkhydra.com/issues/01022... "He walked in like a gust of wind blowing through a half-open door." Novelette-length, explicit literary gay smut at the link. 💖

thepinkhydra.com

The Pink Hydra | Passing Trains - Egor Breus

Passing Trains by Egor Breus

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Egor @eggbreus.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

My old job is downsizing and fired me without notice yesterday which is a shit situation, but I'm hoping this will help me find better employment now lol

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Egor @eggbreus.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

I'm now looking for work as an editor or proofreader. I have 2 years of experience as a content editor and proofreader in marketing for a digital brand. I made and maintained the in-house style guide and internal workflow documentation, and proofread + copyedited all public-facing communications.

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Egor @eggbreus.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

I wrote an article on the Great Mouravi - Giorgi Saakadze - a little earlier this month. It took 3 months of research and covers his life, the legacy of his legend, and the statue to him in Tbilisi today. I try to answer - was he a traitor or hero of Georgia? #sakartvelo #writing #georgianhistory

egorbreus.substack.com

About That Saakadze Statue...

The life & legacy of Giorgi Saakadze

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Reposted by Egor

Chris Brockett @chrisbrockett.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

This is a wonderful essay. Language models preserve the written language of the past, and often that past is an imperial past that impinges on the present. marcusolang.substack.com/p/im-kenyan-...

marcusolang.substack.com

I'm Kenyan. I Don't Write Like ChatGPT. ChatGPT Writes Like Me.

I'm calm. I'm calm. I promise.

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Egor @eggbreus.bsky.social · 22/11/2025

Polished up my blogpost about "Smeshariki", the famous Russian cartoon. It's specifically about one episode and how the show sees (or rather fails to see) transgender people. If that sounds interesting, take a look!

egorbreus.substack.com

"Butterflies"

"Smeshariki" and Russian transphobia

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Reposted by Egor

Nurzhan Saken @saken.me · 02/11/2025

Carton of Egg's (for @eggbreus.bsky.social's blog) #pixelart

Pixel art of a pink egg carton containing 6 eggs, 3 of each with a human face wearing glasses and facial hair

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Egor @eggbreus.bsky.social · 28/09/2025

Oh no am I going to have to get myself a physical dictionary on no it's calling to me

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Egor @eggbreus.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

In the examples with the em-dash, yes, you could replace both with a colon or a comma or something. But there's an aesthetic difference. There's something almost ironic to the last sentence with the em-dash, but it would become a banal statement with a comma. Okay, em-dash rant over. Promise.

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Egor @eggbreus.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

And yes, proper usage of em-dashes can be confusing. My rule of thumb is: 1. Colons indicate a linear relationship. (e.g. The rat: a tiny rodent.) 2. Em-dashes can indiace a linear or a contrastive relationship. (e.g. Lions—the kings of the jungle. OR Lions are the kings of the jungle—or the zoo)

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Egor @eggbreus.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

Our house style is to have no spaces before or after em-dashes, so some of our copywriters have started replacing all their em-dashes with colons, which... doesn't work 😱 This is especially obvious when an em-dash contrasts two clauses: "Run or hide: just don't turn around." REALLY doesn't work.

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Egor @eggbreus.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

P.S. Thanks to @saken.me for convincing me to serialize my yapping and turn it into something interesting and potentially educational (one day!) I think you will be seeing more posts like this in future :^)

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Egor @eggbreus.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

I think this system makes for a pretty fun way to distinguish between all the different stuff I get up to in my life. And if you want to see even more weird, cool things from this book (that's more like lit crit than this grammatical analysis) take a look at the article I wrote about it last year:

egorbreus.substack.com

"Hunting" "Dragons"

Samuel R. Delany & The Alien

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Egor @eggbreus.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

These ₁ and ₂ distinctions are differentiated in some way that's never revealed to us in the original language (maybe it's a specific sound or syllable). They're separate from the base word, but change its meaning, making them more like some kind of universal work-based suffix

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Egor @eggbreus.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

The sociopolitical implications of this aside (though they're interesting for sure), I want to discuss this from the PoV of grammar. This isn't just using numbers to distinguish between two untranslatable words of a future language. You can talk about colleagues₁ and an office₂ and being busy₁ and ₂

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Egor @eggbreus.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

The story is set millenia in the future, on a socialist planet part of a galaxy-spanning civilization. The planet distinguishes between "jobs₁" which you work at for yourself, and "jobs₂", which you work at for your society. For example, the protagonist works as a diplomat₁ and a waste collector₂

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Egor @eggbreus.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

I work₂ as an editor, but my real calling₁ is writing, so that's how I format it in my bio. It's a system from my favorite book of all time, "Stars in My Pockets Like Grains of Sand", and it's a great example of how to use "technical" fields like orthography creatively when writing fiction (1/5)

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Reposted by Egor

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 02/07/2025

'Scotch-free'? 'Scott free'?? The one you want to use is 'scot-free.' ‘Scot’ is an old word for “tax.” So, ‘scot-free’ literally means “exempt from tax.” It’s since been broadened to mean “completely free from obligation, harm, or penalty.”

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Egor @eggbreus.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

Idk the ethical workings of public #psychology but something about this message from my uni just feels off. Like they really just spell out the only reason you apparently could get therapy: if you're not a good enough individualized neoliberal actor. And what's with "mobilize your inner resources"??

A notification from my university offering free therapy at the university for students, with the goal of "restoring your body mind balance so the study process at our university can continue"

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Egor @eggbreus.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

How to spot #AI #copywriting: 1. Stupid emojis, easiest. 2. The final phrase linking a CTA to slang or meme, obviously generated from a prompt. Also true for the 1st paragraph, linking slang with game's selling point. 3. Construction "product is x,y,z" in the 2nd paragraph sounds unnatural.

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Egor @eggbreus.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

Miffed about this trend that apparently you can tell something was written by #AI just because it has m-dashes. I want you to know any text I edit, even if it's written by AI, I am the one who personally put the m-dashes there because THEY ARE PROPER USAGE IN AMERICAN ENGLISH!!!

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Egor @eggbreus.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

It's ironic because the sensor-activated blow-dryer they had is worse for germs than getting your hands dirty and cleaned with regular towels.

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Egor @eggbreus.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

Used the bathroom in a high-class mall today and everything, the faucet, the soap dispenser, and the hair dryer were all sensor-activated. It suggests this reality where your wealth literally sets the inanimate world into motion. Your very presence activates (warrants) cleaning, washing, drying.

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Egor @eggbreus.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Some Goodreads reviwers will literally sit there yapping on about how Mark Earlington was tracking down the Mysterious Lady for 3 paragraphs and make ME sift through their tepid water writing to find any crumb of their opinion on what they actually read!!!!

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Egor @eggbreus.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

So if you're writing a #bookreview and you start summarizing the book I WON'T READ IT! Why do I care what the damn book is about? I'm not here for a synopsis, I can look that the fuck up!!! I want to know what YOU thought!! Why YOU loved it!!! What made YOU hate it!!! Why others need to read it!!!

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Egor @eggbreus.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

last year I wrote a blog about queer interpretations of the epic of gilgamesh. my argument is that, sure, there weren't any actual gays back then, but we can still find meaningful queer interpretations in ancient literature that connect with modern readers. #literature #queer #litcrit #gilgamesh

egorbreus.substack.com

Gilgamesh Gay?!

and more questions on the road to queering literature

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