Rebellion links and synopses: The Starter Pack

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Let me make it easy to find all of my published work.

(Warning: Spoilers.)

I strongly suggest using Smashwords rather than ‘zon. It’s not that I get paid better from Smashwords (though I do), it’s that .epub is a better format. (For details why, go here: Rien’s Rebellion – Tech Specs ) Also, .epub works far better in Apple Books, which is a superior reader app.

Rien’s Rebellion: Kingdom

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/891406

http://amazon.com/dp/B07GTSXB4P

Once upon a time, a nation’s fate depended on an informant, a lawyer, and a warrior.

They all lived under a good Monarch’s leadership. 

Until he was assassinated. Continue reading “Rebellion links and synopses: The Starter Pack” →

The Little Dude Inside

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An aside to yesterday’s thread: (and it’s own thread, here)

Well into the Enlightenment, most educated people thought it was impossible for highly complex beings (like humans) to be assembled from parts. Therefore, everything grew out of teeny-tiny versions of themselves, all created at the same time.

Nicholas Hartsoeker’s drawing of tiny people inside a sperm cell, from 1695.
Continue reading “The Little Dude Inside” →

Team #FeedBabies: Breast-feeding & Formula Thread

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July 9, 2018: A twitter thread With minor edits to fix typos or phrasing that 280 characters made unclear.
(2022 note: I use moms, women, and breastfeeding in this piece because the majority of existing legislation and proposed legislation is based on biological determinism and does not recognize non-binary and trans parents who have given birth. I see you, I recognize you, you are valuable.)

Trigger Warning: A thread on the commodification and conscription of women’s bodies. You’ve been warned. Exploring relationships between childbearing, work, coercive control, breast feeding, formula, gig economies, capitalist exploitation, colonialism and colonialist paternalism…

Continue reading “Team #FeedBabies: Breast-feeding & Formula Thread” →

Luxuries Bought With Others’ Lives: NPCs, Dehumanization, and Pandemic Ethics

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Opening monologue:

This is Free City.
Look at this guy. He’s one of the sunglasses people.
And the people who wear sunglasses? Are heroes.
They have a devil-may-care attitude and they run this town.
Bombshell:You are so hot.
Revenjamin Buttons, dropping into driver’s seat: Oh, I know.
See? That’s not even his car. Or his wife.
For the sunglasses people, they get to do anything they want.
They go on all sorts of missions, they got cool hair, cool clothes.
I mean, laws aren’t really laws to them.They’re more like mild suggestions.
Like, I don’t think he’s gonna return that car.
Or that nice lady.
See what I mean? Hero.

A still from the movie Free Guy, featuring Ryan Reynolds and Jodie Comer. Image copyright (©) 20th Century Studios or related entities. Used for publicity and promotional purposes.

Thus begins Free Guy. 105 words of thesis statement.

Continue reading “Luxuries Bought With Others’ Lives: NPCs, Dehumanization, and Pandemic Ethics” →

Foundations of the #MoneyLaundry – A Twitter Seminar

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Originally a Twitter thread. January 4, 2020

I note here: there will be homework, because seriously, you’ve gotta have basics.
Do the reading. I’m not sending you at books, just articles. I’ll screenshot if it comes from a high word count source.

Money laundering is the process of
evading taxation
and/or
legal obligations such as payroll taxes
and/or
Obscuring the documentation of income from illegal actions or sources. It’s a crime of its own, but money laundering is what makes crime pay.

Continue reading “Foundations of the #MoneyLaundry – A Twitter Seminar” →

Expensive Hope

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Originally a twitter thread:

In my day job, one of the signs of progress and health is the ability to look at a situation as it is, without either catastrophizing OR denial. So yes, sometimes the goal of the next set of therapy is to come to terms with a terminal dx or the end of a relationship.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with setting eyes on This Thing and recognizing that This Thing is now THIS. Maybe it used to be THAT, but it is no longer THAT and the chances that it will ever be THAT again are very small. Or not in this lifetime, with these circumstances.

Coming to terms with This Thing can be hard, and slow, and painful, but the emotional honesty of coming to terms with it is much healthier than the usual alternative — denial.

Continue reading “Expensive Hope” →