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Xauri'EL Zwaan

@XauriEL.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy
43 followers 9 following 2.2K posts

Lunarpunk Satanist Cyberqueer, Speculative Fiction Author, Award-Winning TTRPG Designer, Capitalism Disliker. Banner is a promo for Trans/Port, profile pic is a Y2K goth […] 🌉 bridged from ⁂ mastodon.nz/@XauriEL, follow @ap.brid.gy to interact

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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 12h
Just saw a facebook ad for an AI app called "Delulu" and I'm like, you have to stop. Do you think we're fucking stupid? You're like the evil corporations in 80s cartoons that name themselves EvilCorp
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 16h
Absolutely hilarious that I put out a newsletter with an essay about online disinformation bots as a form of marketing, and literally less than 2 weeks later a Russian data centre gets destroyed and the online extreme right just fucking evaporates. I could have used that as an example!
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 11/10/2026
I find the arguments in favour of anti-natalism depressingly convincing
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Reposted by Xauri'EL Zwaan
mx alex tax1a - 2020 (6) @atax1a.infosec.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 10/10/2026
theyre not trying to contribute to math, theyre trying to spam mathematicians to death
mathstodon.xyz
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 08/10/2026
"When in doubt, play Red Deck Wins" I built a mono-red aggro deck for MWM Historic Pauper, something I've done before and deleted a couple of times because Pauper is a rare treat and I wanted something fresh each time. A lot of other people do the same thing, but the sheer variety of red aggro […]
mastodon.nz
Original post on mastodon.nz
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 06/10/2026
War reenactors, ren faire and SCA are larpers. I will not be taking questions
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 05/10/2026
Proud to announce that I've sold "Childish Things" to Longer Worlds, an anthology dedicated entirely to novelette-length work to be published by Lightning Cellar Productions! It's a coming-of-age story about a girl and her Security Bear companion, as well as a tale of resilience and resistance.
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 04/10/2026
OK, for serious, I'm going to try really hard to get a proper website up soon. I like my linktree and it's probably still going to be part of the ecosystem, but it doesn't exactly scream "professional author"
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 04/10/2026
How is it that I'm able to crank out a ton of games for game jams but I am seemingly incapable of writing stories to order for themed submission windows? I have something I really want to submit to Diabolical Plots' "Diabolical Rot" issue but the words are just not coming
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2026
NGL, getting Arena achievements for attending in-person events might just be what gets me back into paper Magic #MTG #MTGArena
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Jay @jaystephens.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2026
Hot take: Leaving aside environmental, theft, & cognitive harm issues... A problem with #AI is the cultural milieu into which it drops: The broader culture was ALREADY struggling to articulate why a person should; do a thing for the joy of doing it, do a thing to get better at doing it, do a […]
mastodon.social
Original post on mastodon.social
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 01/10/2026
So I think I blew my chance at Assistant Manager at Hot Topic because the interviewer asked me to tall them about my writing. Not a good idea when you're applying to a management position and you write radical leftist science fiction
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 01/10/2026
I wish there was a way I could instruct all social media to not constantly show me posts about the same horrible thing over and over
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 01/10/2026
I tried to calculate how much gold I would need to buy all the voice line emotes for Reality Fracture and I lost track #MTGArena
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 30/09/2026
OK, there's no fucking way I'm paying Zuck $50+ to post links on my own page. Guess that's it for promoting my writing on facebook
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 27/09/2026
Just realized that the bisexual flag is my brand colours, not because it's the bisexual flag, just because purple and magenta happen to be my favourite colours
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 23/09/2026
I kind of have to wonder what manner of mind believes that censoring the word "ass" in You Can Do It by Ice Cube makes the song more appropriate for a workplace environment
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 23/09/2026
Look, I get that there are mechanical and ludonarrative reasons for it, but making Jace the only planeswalker you can Empower seems like a waste of potential. I want my Empower Chandra! #MTG
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 22/09/2026
Fresh newsletter incoming in one week! What does Revolutionary Year CCXXXV hold for us? I'm just as eager to find out as you are... Check out the archives to sample past essays, then subscribe for a free ebook! www.books.xaurielzwaan.ca/Newslette… #AmWriting #ScienceFiction #SciFi
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 22/09/2026
Hey neat, we're in the intercalary days of the Republican Calendar. Year CCXXXV is just around the corner!
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 22/09/2026
I just saw a facebook ad for a collection of official moxen-themed fountain pens and inks and I hate that I want it so much #MTG
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Token Sane Person @tokensane.mastodon.me.uk.ap.brid.gy · 25/05/2026
On #FoxNews business model: "First, that some people enjoy being angry, and will consume their rage as a product. And second, that some presenters have the gift of making people angry, just like a comedian can make people laugh." The Unaccountability Machine, by Dan Davis.
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mx alex tax1a - 2020 (6) @atax1a.infosec.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 21/09/2026
you'd think "usage of the thing that is directly and explicitly built on the exploitation of the world's collective creative labor is unacceptable" would be an easy sell among leftists but fuck me, i guess
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 19/09/2026
youtube: You watched one video by this channel a week ago. I will recommend 40 other videos by them on your front page every day Also youtube: You watch every one of this channel's videos religiously as soon as possible after they are uploaded. I will bury their most recent video in a nether […]
mastodon.nz
Original post on mastodon.nz
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 18/09/2026
Still waiting on the "settles into maturity with boring applications that nobody gets excited about" phase of the blockchain hype cycle
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 18/09/2026
I've got fresh bonus content up on Patreon! Follow for a free exclusive reprint of "Fruiting Bodies", a short story about colonialism, alien spores, and small-town community values that the editor of Summer of Sci-Fi & Fantasy said reminded him of Stephen King! […]
mastodon.nz
Original post on mastodon.nz
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 18/09/2026
RE: mastodon.social/@FluentInFinance/11… For decades, a house was the first step of buy-in to the capitalist system, followed by retirement savings. Neither is an achievable goal for vast chunks of my generation and younger ones. All we have is the grind and unpayable debt
mastodon.social
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Erik Uden 🚩 @erikuden.mastodon.de.ap.brid.gy · 17/09/2026
they'll steal your house and then tell you under communism you'd be homeless
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 17/09/2026
Did you ever have an idea for a story that was screaming in your ear but the idea of writing it, like actually putting the words on the page, was physically repulsive to you
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 16/09/2026
@abetterjulie has published an interview with me on her Patreon. We talked about my writing process, lunarpunk and cyberfeminism, my ongoing game jam fixation, and fiction as radical praxis in a world on the edge of catastrophe. Go give it a read, and follow Julie while you're there; she makes a […]
mastodon.nz
Original post on mastodon.nz
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 15/09/2026
So who's willing to lay odds that one of the Unannounced Universes Beyond for 2027 is going to be Star Wars? Might as well kill two birds with one licensing agreement #MTG
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 14/09/2026
I must be one of like 10 people who is actually going to miss Alchemy #MTGArena
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Ambivalent Dictator For Life @pikesley.mastodon.me.uk.ap.brid.gy · 13/09/2026
Gödel: "There exist truths about numbers that cannot be reached by any consistent system of axioms" AI Dullards: "Have you tried throwing more compute at it, though?"
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Li ~ Crystal System @li.tech.lgbt.ap.brid.gy · 11/09/2026
the heritage of computers is a gay guy using it to hack nazi encryption btw
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 12/09/2026
Back stage at Chaos Encouraged: When Nature Calls. The thorny vines are my concession to the theme.
A long-haired bearded enby in a grey jacket covered in buttons with fuscia lipstick and thorny vines drawn in eyeliner over the cheeks
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 12/09/2026
So we have this new "security procedure" at work where a robot calls the store every 2 hours and if we don't input a code it calls all 3 levels of management above us. It's super annoying, and I am willing to bet cash money that they're going to use it as an excuse to justify scheduling people […]
mastodon.nz
Original post on mastodon.nz
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 09/09/2026
I love the concept of community pantries, but my experience with Little Free Libraries tells me that people would just destroy them for shits and giggles
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 08/09/2026
Don't get me wrong, career success gives me happiness -- making a sale or seeing something I wrote do the numbers is a dopamine hit -- but it's not *sustainable* happiness. Good food, companionship, intoxicating substances used in moderation, and the joy of the act of creation itself -- these […]
mastodon.nz
Original post on mastodon.nz
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 08/09/2026
You know, once you dig a bit beneath the shiny plastic surface, there is *a lot* of discontent and anger about the "AI revolution" on LinkedIn
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 07/09/2026
Libertarians be like "Capitalism would be a perfect system if we removed all these effects that I don't understand are an inevitable consequence of the fundamental rules because I'm afraid of reading Marx"
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 05/09/2026
So I've actually got Labour Day off for once (my request to work the stat was ignored by management in violation of the CBA, lol). And ideas for how I should celebrate in solidarity with my international comrades?
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 04/09/2026
RE: mathstodon.xyz/@tao/117208617602946… Keeping this one in the back pocket of my miniskirt as a canned answer to everyone who goes "but AI is solving really hard math problems!"
mathstodon.xyz
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 04/09/2026
RE: wikis.world/@bvibber/11721007613585… WIKIPEDIA JUST UNIONIZED LET'S GOOOOOOO
wikis.world
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 04/09/2026
Random Baader-Meinhof Syndrome moment: yesterday I was watching a video on Hans Holbein the Younger which featured his portrait of Erasmus. Today I'm reading a blog post on the "proto-protestants" which features the same portrait of Erasmus by Hans Holbein the Younger. Creepy!
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 03/09/2026
"Bilbo and Gandalf smoke weed" is probably the clearest example of fanon just outright overriding the creator's express intentions
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Adrianna Tan @skinnylatte.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 01/09/2026
Most people’s ’cooking hacks’ and ‘tips’ and ‘tricks’ are worse than the original thing they’re avoiding
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Sean C. @filmfreak75.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 31/08/2026
Facebook is where you realize, you don’t like the people you know. Mastodon is where you start liking people, you have never met. —Randahl Fink #InterestingWords
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Xauri'EL Zwaan @xauriel.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 29/08/2026
Absolutely amazing storytelling-through-gameplay moment: So I'm playing LOTR flashback draft on Arena, drafted a white-blue mostly-halflings deck. I'm up against a Rakdos player who has a huge orc army and some other powerful orcs and wargs, and I have nothing but a couple of measly halflings […]
mastodon.nz
Original post on mastodon.nz
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