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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️

@sloanemactire.bsky.social
226 followers 59 following 1.3K posts

Amateur time waster and professional maker of bad choices. Lover of science fiction, particularly Star Trek, StarGate, and Babylon 5. Trans. Queer. Sometimes I write things. I'm also the @sloanwanderer

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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 20h
This anxiety attack started on Saturday afternoon, and the cause of the anxiety hasn't been resolved yet. That, plus a really rough day at work has me feeling pretty hopeless. Plus this new antidepressant doesn't seem to be helping too much at present. So, fun all around.
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Here's your reminder: Vote. Vote early if you can. Vote in person if at all possible given the nonsense going on with the USPS and absentee ballots. Check your local polling authority for the early voting days and times.
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
It amazes me when adults confuse carbon dioxide with carbon monoxide. One is a completely normal biproduct of your breathing, the other is a toxic gas. (Granted, carbon dioxide is toxic in higher concentrations, but not something most people will encounter in their day-to-day lives).
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Apparently a GOP PAC spent a bunch of money on ads supporting Susan Collins... and ran them in the wrong Portland. This brings me inordinate joy.
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Age yourself with a childhood crush.
A picture of Catalina from Nickelodeon's "Space Cases", played by Jewel Staite.  The young woman is wearing a gray top with a red spiral on the right shoulder and has rainbow-colored hair.
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Apparently, Mike Johnson floated leaving Congress if Democrats regain control of Congress. One more benefit if the blue wave happens next month. 🤞
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Glad I had a larger paycheck than normal this week due to some overtime last pay period, as my new medication is $65.00 for 30 days with insurance. Why don't we have single-payer healthcare again?
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Reading "A Divided Duty" and just got to the end of Chapter 7. And even though Chekhov had left the metaphorical gun in plain sight, it still drew a "Fuck..." when it was fired†. Not saying anything more because spoilers. †I may be abusing that metaphor a little bit.
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Gah. I've got a fragment of a song stuck in my head, and I can't figure out the song. I want to say it's from the mid- to late-2000's, female singer, country-esque, high alto or mezzo-soprano. The only lyrics I can remember though are, unhelpfully, "Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh..."
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
...I don't hate this rebranding.
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
After almost 14 years of playing (some years more seriously than others), I finally hit level 15 in Ingress. Thanks to double AP First Saturday and a couple Apex Boosts, I got 875,000+ AP in about 2 hours of intensive portal claiming and field-building. #Ingress #Nerd
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Me on slack: "Is anyone else worried about Emon Lusk rejoining the admin 30 days before the midterms?" Friend: "I am now." Me: "Sorry!" #UnintentionallySpreadingAnxiety
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
This is too damn awesome. (Yes, it's 2 years old, but I just saw it today) www.youtube.com/shorts/56Byn...
youtube.com
My drawing CAME TO LIFE 🤯
YouTube video by Zach King
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
When someone asks you, "What do you want on your tombstone", remember that "a runway" is a valid answer. 🧵
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Back when I was in high school, someone in the ancient past had purchased a container of sodium. At some point, equally in the ancient past, the sodium started to slowly react with the container (which was metal for incomprehensible reasons), which left the everyone understandably nervous.
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
There's a game called "Something is Wrong with the Library." A friend posted a link to the game page on Steam on our slack, the auto-parser grabbed the title from the Steam page. "Something is Wrong with the Library on Steam." Which caused several of us to mis-read what was posted...
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Yay! The essential use only restriction has been lifted after 32 hours!
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Me, this morning: "What the hell payment got processed from bookseller overnight?" Me, checking online: "Oh, right. The new October Daye book came out yesterday. That explains it."
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Apparently, if you go to America dot gov and type into the chatbot "play minecraft" it generates a specific set of very bizarre text. Like, a really long wall of... insane prose? Truly bizarre.
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Apparently four of the words I found on today's Outlier board have never been found before, which seems really odd to me. (Two of them were subsequently found while I was completing the board by another player).
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
For those in the Montgomery County and PG County area of Maryland, WSSC has issued an essential use order for all customers to avoid a boil water advisory. #DMV #Water #NationalCapitalRegion www.wsscwater.com/news/2026/se...
wsscwater.com
Urgent Request – 8:45 a.m. Tuesday, September 29, 2026: Essential Water Use Only Issued for All WSSC Water Customers; Power Outage at Potomac Water Filtration Plant | WSSC Water
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
*aging millennial shaking her cane* If someone's not dead or dying, you shouldn't be triggering five, six, seven notifications when it could be one. mashable.com/life/millenn...
mashable.com
Do you text like a millennial?
A viral TikTok has millennials and Gen Z debating the proper way to text
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Successfully nested an Index and Match equation within an IfNA question in Excel. I'm now getting to the point where writing the equations for Index and Match are practically second-nature to me.
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Reposted by Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️
Monica Morrill @mmorrillart.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Good morning! This is my painting 'Peaceful Sunrise' 48x72 acrylic on canvas. Have a great day!
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Having a bad brain morning. Not sure if it's because of the dreary days or the change in meds or what.
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
This is a saga...
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Remember when measles was all-but-eradicated in the US because of vaccination? 3,471 confirmed cases of the measles in the US at present. There have been several deaths so far this year from measles.
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Really cool article debunking the "Middle ages people culled cats" myth. going-medieval.com/2023/05/16/o...
going-medieval.com
On cats
The other night I was mindlessly scrolling about on my phone through Instagram, as one does when they really ought to go to bed but are stuck being entertained instead of resting, when I came upon …
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
According to the treadmill, I walked 1.5 (ish) miles. According to my watch, it was 2.2 miles.
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
This morning on the drive to work I was listening to Halsey's "Badlands" album and "Hurricane" stuck in my head. For some incomprehensible reason, my brain took "Hurricane" and imagined Smurfette singing it as "Smurficane." I have to suffer with this cursed idea, so now you get to as well.
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
After volunteering this morning, I went to play Ingress where I knew there were a lot of portals and fielded them up. Tonight, I was wondering how many fields I had created, so I tallied them. Approximately 45 fields. That's... not bad for an hour's walking.
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Me, glancing at watch, seeing completely reasonable heart rate for an adult of 63 BPM: "Huh. That can't be right." *presses the measure button, gets result of 92 BPM* "That's much more like it."
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Holy smokes... for the first time all month, tonight my BP was not in the hypertension or pre-hypertension range. Yay me!
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
I'm both amused and horrified by this chart.
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
On the plus side, I walked 1.75 miles tonight. On the downside, my resting blood pressure is still high. Then again, I'm also cross-tapering antidepressants, and apparently these two interact with each other driving up blood pressure, so it *should* drop down in a few weeks. I hope.
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Reposted by Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️
Democrat Cats @democratcats.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Morning Kittens
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
One of my residents: "Your gray hair looks wonderful!" Me, laughing: "Thank you. I've been going gray for over 30 years, and I'm too cheap and too tired to fight it." (I got my first gray hairs at 9)
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Reposted by Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️
D.N. Schmidt, SF author🪐📚 @dnschmidt.com · 14/09/2026
New science fiction story: An alien rescue team comes across a Human spaceship with dead engines drifting to nowhere. Oddly, none of the passengers seem to know they’re in space. A 15-minute read. dnschmidt.com/science-fict...
dnschmidt.com
There are no spaceships in Galeville - D.N. Schmidt
An alien rescue crew comes across a Human ship and boards to investigate. Oddly, the passengers don't seem to know they're in space.
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
I question where our society has made its wrong turn when I have to accept the display/TV's latest privacy agreement before I can get it to work.
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Having one of those mornings where I feel queasy with no indication of why or how to combat it. Hoping it passes, as this is my 12+ hour day.
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Image by PinkNews showing a social media post superimposed over a photo fo a woman in glasses carrying scrolls.  The post by venusxprotocol reads "Telling a trans girl, 'you dress like a feral librarian,' and expecting her not to take it as praise is an adorable misunderstanding."
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Holy shit, he's not actually dead?!
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
I'm reading @scalzi.com's "Old Man's War" for the first time and enjoying it, but I think I would have a coronary if I were 75 and they wheeled in my body of 25 to upload me into, given I started to transition at 35.
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Well, that's unfortunate. Guess I'll strike them off of my list of musicians to ever listen to again. www.thepinknews.com/2026/09/10/t...
thepinknews.com
The Proclaimers defend Graham Linehan's trans views
The Proclaimers have waded into the trans rights debate, defending Graham Linehan as they promote their new album, You May Offend.
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
The fact that it's been 25 years, and I still remember that day so clearly is hard for me to believe. A quarter century, and I still remember seeing the plume of smoke from the Pentagon out the window, remember walking from the Willard to Scott Circle with absolutely no one honking their horns.
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Weird bit of coincidence: One of my posts on my alt earlier this week was the answer to one of the bonus questions on today's WhereTakenUSA. I looked at it for a moment and went, "WTF?"
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Reposted by Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️
Jess Piper @piperformissouri.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Yuuuuup…
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Trump has proposed a $1 trillion dividend if Republicans win the midterms. KFC, every time it seems that this administration couldn't become more corrupt, it finds a way to dig under the barrel.
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Some writer at Paramount really decided to write Patrick Stewart giving the line, "I'm not much of an actor" in Star Trek: TNG "A Fistful of Datas." The fact that Patrick Stewart was also directing that episode...
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Sloane of Shadows 🏳️‍⚧️ @sloanemactire.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I now remember why I stopped filling prescriptions at a certain chain of pharmacies. Since my doctor sent in the prescription, I've received 4 phone calls: one I listened to saying the script was ready. Great. Two that I didn't. Fourth saying "Your plan has authorized the prescription." WHY?
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