iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Lena Brassard @lenabrassard.bsky.social · 12h

I have questions about how Winnie-the-Pooh is "related to" Wicker, the story from which the basket romance movie was adapted.

Books related to Wicker: Beekeeping for Beginners by Laurie R. King, The Girl in the Train by Agatha Christie, and 2 versions of Now We are Six! by A. A. Milne, with Christopher Robin, Piglet, and Winnie the Pooh on the covers.

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Lena Brassard @lenabrassard.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Given the makeup of my state government, the worst-faith interpretation of the 3 constitutional amendments on the ballot must be assumed, and red flags abound. I particularly dislike denying bail for charges of "terrorism," knowing how quick they are to call every protestor a terrorist.

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Ghostly Bree @mostlybree.kitrocha.com · 11/10/2026

Big overlap in the "I don't care enough to be thoughtful" crowd and the "I want to make you see things against your will" crowd.

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Lena Brassard @lenabrassard.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

I went through my blog to clean up personal stuff and no-longer-relevant announcements, and skimming through a decade of industry decline condensed into an hour made me nauseated and shaky. I don't read my spreadsheet when adding the latest fuckery to the bottom row. It hits hard all at once!

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Lena Brassard @lenabrassard.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

The thing I most vividly remember about my 10-book Pulitzer challenge is the character who was unhappy when served fried potatoes. Serial killer shit.

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Lena Brassard @lenabrassard.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

The only reason I can think of that an illustrator would get an "adaptation copyright" would be in adapting text to a graphic novel. An art brief for a single piece of art containing keywords from a story is not an adaptation of the story. This entire statement is nonsense.

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Lena Brassard @lenabrassard.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Stories have the power to make you think about and care about things that don't center you, which is antithetical to the narcissist way of life.

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Lena Brassard @lenabrassard.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I just saw a "Learn how to write because AI sucks!" book list that was entirely the pep-talk genre (Bird by Bird et al.) and absolutely nothing that will teach you HOW TO WRITE, and my first thought was "Did you ask AI for this list?"

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briellastella @briellastella.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

The AI project has as its explicit goal the reduction of your standard of living. AI companies have been telling you to your face that this is what they want to do to you and you're experiencing it happen in real time. LLMs went mainstream 4 years ago. Where are the glorious fruits of their labors?

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Lena Brassard @lenabrassard.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Huh. That complicated branching-narrative project unfurls more easily if I plan the trunk like a novel. WHO'DA THUNK?

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'Nathan Burgoine (he/him) will be at Can*Con! @nathanburgoine.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

"Oh, well, AI is already here so—" "Asbestos." "Well, I mean—" "CFCs. Leaded fuel." "—but—" "Portable baby cages." "—okay, I—" "Radium. Agent Orange. DDT..."

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'Nathan Burgoine (he/him) will be at Can*Con! @nathanburgoine.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Genies go back in bottles ALL THE TIME.

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Lena Brassard @lenabrassard.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

"You don't have to see someone's face to find them attractive. I find Pyramid Head attractive. It is what it is." Thank you, random booktuber, for injecting some levity into an otherwise shit day.

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Lena Brassard @lenabrassard.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I found 5 unused mini legal pads while excavating Mount Reference and reacted like I won the lottery. I've been settling for inferior forms of bundled paper for too long.

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Courtney Milan @courtneymilan.com · 03/10/2026

It is bizarre to watch people use the words "restorative justice" to center the need of someone who assaulted someone else. You simply cannot talk about restorative justice in this context without centering his victim.

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Lena Brassard @lenabrassard.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Charlie Bucket broke the rules just as much as the other children and prevailed only because he had the sense not to transgress in front of witnesses, as secrecy is the only skill required in Wonka's empire of slavery and industrial espionage. In this essay I will

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Lena Brassard @lenabrassard.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I'm not good at drawing. My brain doesn't deal in images, so "here's a blank page/screen, make an image on it" is... bleauuuugh??? I put on art videos and doodle in a notebook anyway because it exercises part of my brain that doesn't otherwise get used, which benefits other mental work I do daily.

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Lena Brassard @lenabrassard.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Video games: Fuck optimization! We don't have to fit onto discs anymore, so users can just buy endless storage to deal with our bloat! Ebooks: *take notes* There isn't even a map in this novel. How is it 8+ MB?

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BOOtolo Colon @bigfatbartolocolon.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

wow u turned in manuscript when gas was $3.08/gal and it won't be published until gas is $30.80/gal

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Jessica Ellis @baddestmamajama.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

It feels genuinely ridiculous having to say this, but the point of art is to connect with another human. Someone thought of that painting or melodic line or scene or paragraph that is suddenly making you weep, and that means that they saw you and understood you without even meeting you.

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Lena Brassard @lenabrassard.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

My Soulless Corporate Writing Gig is tie-ins for a target audience of 10-year-olds. There's little creative leeway. There's a ton of writing and reference to draw from. It is the IDEAL sandbox for extruded text. When corporate tried it, they were ruthlessly mocked by a focus group of 5th graders.

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Jesse Raub @jesseraub.online · 08/09/2026

anyway i'm not sure i like how quickly "you just don't get it, it's handy" turns into some new evangelical worldview within a short number of weeks

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Jesse Raub @jesseraub.online · 08/09/2026

PEOPLE WITH LIBERAL ARTS DEGREES: so while i see there is utility to the system, i’m more or less morally opposed to their current constructs and have big concerns over the business structure and environmental impact WEB CODER: so i met God today,

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Iron Spike @ironspike.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I'm categorized as an AI subscriber, because I'm subscribed to the 3 TB tier of Google Drive and and they literally just changed the name of the plan to "Google AI Plus." Those "AI subscriber" numbers are 100 percent juiced and phony, and you're a sucker if you believe otherwise.

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Anna Gifty @itsafronomics.blacksky.app · 29/09/2026

I believe that Dr. Ellora Derenoncourt is the first Black woman economist EVER to be named a MacArthur Genius. My heart is bursting. I am OVERJOYED.

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Lena Brassard @lenabrassard.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Fuck yeah! A grammar problem I don't know how to describe in order to get a remotely effective search so I have to dig the CMoS out from where it's settled on the bottom of Mount Reference and cross reference until I find it!

static.klipy.com

Live For This

Alt: Vin Diesel aggressively declaring, "I live for this shit."

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Lena Brassard @lenabrassard.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I started reading this. The Introduction has thrown a couple of yellow flags for antisociality and move-fast-break-people supremacy, but that MIGHT be poor word choice with lack of editorial "this sounds like XYZ, inconsistent with your theme, want to rephrase?" We'll see.

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JD Bunchajumpscares @jdbunchanumbers.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

It’s starting to look like desperate flailing top to bottom. No one has to evangelize this hard for useful valuable technology.

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Lena Brassard @lenabrassard.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Okay, rolling a die to decide tasks that can be randomized may be on to something. I just said "ooh, fancy" about a task I've been avoiding for months because a d6 I made out of a post-it note whimsically selected it for me.

A 6-sided die made of pink paper placed between a computer mouse and a timer.

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Joad The Wet Sprocket @joadsprocket.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

A friend pointed out to me that people's "social scripts" used to come from fiction (novels, TV, movies) written by professional storytellers, and now they come from reality TV and short form video content, where the words largely come from attention-seeking amateurs. It has made us worse.

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Lena Brassard @lenabrassard.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Sometimes I say all consumer tech has done in the past 2 decades is make phones smaller & now bigger again, but then I remember they've also made all appliances & vehicles spyware and all software subscription spyware and injected ads into everything, including things you've paid for to avoid ads.

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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 24/09/2026

And that is why they are dismantling the structures for DEI in the US, particularly in education systems. Because kids were learning ideas that made it harder to turn them into genocidal drones who would look on or actively participate.

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Yell In a War @jelenawoehr.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

it really needs to be more openly discussed that all the people advocating for “we should be fine with losing basic skills if we get more systems thinking” are men, meaning socialized to expect to be able to offload basic tasks of daily living onto a wife as part of their compensation for existing

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Lena Brassard @lenabrassard.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

A lot of people don't actually like the things they do for "fun." They do what seems "normal," they're miserable, and it never occurs to them to try other things they might enjoy more, so of course they're delighted to offload their playtime to a computer like it's a tedious chore.

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Lena Brassard @lenabrassard.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

"The fundie-baby-voice booktuber who gets angry when fictional women don't want to participate in fashion they dislike has used the plagiarism machine for content" is a uniquely inevitable string of words.

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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 21/09/2026

The fact is, non-expert writers mostly make the same mistakes in their writing, so most writing instruction consists of offering repetitive, near-identical counsel to writers who make the same kinds of starter mistakes that their peers past, present and future have made, are making and will make.

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Lena Brassard @lenabrassard.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Spelling bureaucracy right on the first try was so unbelievable, I had to consult a dictionary to be sure browser spellcheck hadn't been corrupted.

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Lena Brassard @lenabrassard.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

If I had a wall, I would do a much less crafty version of this. "Roll dice to randomize your side quests!" appeals to my avoidant tendencies AND would give me a great excuse to buy dice I don't otherwise need. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm20...

youtube.com

I hate planners so I made a Quest Board instead

YouTube video by Jess Less

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Nome @nome.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

If you're not starting from the position that civil rights are inviolable, as a baseline, In what way are you avoiding fascism? If *anyone* can be un-personed, everyone can. That's it. That's the ballgame.

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Lena Brassard @lenabrassard.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Freshly brushed. Ready for her glamor shot. In the time it took to grab my phone, every loose hair in the house settled on her face. Me 🤝 This Cat Never taking good promo photos

Closeup of a tortoise shell cat gazing out the window with slit pupils and loose hair sticking to her face.

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Lena Brassard @lenabrassard.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

"Every" writing craft book does NOT say character growth/change is mandatory. They don't address how to write static characters because "don't change the character" is the do-nothing baseline of character existence. Moving AWAY from lack of development is what requires strategy and execution.

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Mz. April Daniels ⚧ @aprildaniels.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

If even one Democrat could say, in so many words, that he or she opposes transgender genocide and will fight it down to the knives, that would cool the temperature on this discussion so much. Just admit you see the problem, too. Just admit you care if we die.

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Luke BOO 👻 ber @coolhand.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

In 2012 I took a comp ling course that went deep into language models as AI. The professor dropped a quote that I think about probably once a week now: “building a computer model of language and expecting intelligence is like building a computer model of the ocean and expecting to get wet”

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Lena Brassard @lenabrassard.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Me, last night, reading Monstrilio: That tarantula was somebody's escaped pet and you "set it free" in Manhattan to die, asshole. Me, this morning, brushing my teeth: So that was symbolism...

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Micah @rincewind.run · 13/09/2026

I want to see Dems stand up, affirmatively, for trans people but if they don’t, this is the only other acceptable response - why are you making this your number one priority, there are real problems in the world

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Lena Brassard @lenabrassard.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

This is why I get so angry when people ostensibly on "our side" soften their message to be more palatable to the "other side." When we watch your stated values disintegrate like wet toilet paper, it's obvious you don't have the strength to withstand this assault, much less drive it back.

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Lena Brassard @lenabrassard.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

The problem with medical content creation is that its purpose is to secure search engine primacy, and SEO rewards volume, not quality. Meanwhile, patients believe the purpose of patient-education-shaped content is patient education and read a lot of garbage generated without patients in mind.

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