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🎃 The Year 2025 🎃 @aphowell.com · 2h

At that size, you will have an easier time killing it than a novel, but you won't look like a bad guy for beating up an innocent little short story.

🎃 The Year 2025 🎃 @aphowell.com · 22h

Congratulations on probably hitting the most unmarketable length!

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🎃 The Year 2025 🎃 @aphowell.com · 23h

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🎃 The Year 2025 🎃 @aphowell.com · 1d

That is a crime! The Insomnia Cookies truck was a highlight of my grad school experience.

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Reposted by 🎃 The Year 2025 🎃

Conjured.Ink @conjured.ink · 2d

Conjured Ink is now accepting both one time and recurring donations!

Head to this link to learn more about our finances, or pledge your support:

opencollective.com/c...

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🎃 The Year 2025 🎃 @aphowell.com · 5d

This is largely for my own amusement. I tend to use Bookshop for print books, but not all the time, and I do use Amazon for a bunch of things (and in my case, it's convenience, not necessity). Still. Who doesn't hate Jeff Bezos?

🎃 The Year 2025 🎃 @aphowell.com · 5d

Not only did I use Bookshop's Anti-Prime Sale free shipping, I used it to order a KDP-published paperback.

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Reposted by 🎃 The Year 2025 🎃

Morgan K. Bell @morgankbell.bsky.social · 5d

What do you call an amphibian who's kind of a dickbag? An assholotl

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🎃 The Year 2025 🎃 @aphowell.com · 5d

11. But many folks maintain a presence in both places, either separately curated or with the same content pushed to multiple socials.

12. The important thing is curating your own experience. I found it easier to recreate communities (at least partially) instead of starting from scratch.

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🎃 The Year 2025 🎃 @aphowell.com · 5d

9. If you create an account on an instance with people you know--or migrate as a group--you can also hit the ground running.

10. Look into bridging between Fedi accounts and Bluesky accounts. You may find it useful if you want to pick one protocol but still follow folks on the other.

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🎃 The Year 2025 🎃 @aphowell.com · 5d

7. Some people on Mastodon are delightful. They may even be helpful and welcoming toward newbies! (It's the internet.)

8. Most people use social media to interact with other people. Often specific people. Make a list of folks you'd like to follow. It's okay if they're on different instances.

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🎃 The Year 2025 🎃 @aphowell.com · 5d

5. Some people on Mastodon are tremendous douchecanoes. (Often a particular type of techy dude doucheecanoe.) It's the internet; you probably know what you're in for.

6. Some people on Mastodon are worse than your standard internet douchecanoe, and anyone who says otherwise is underinformed.

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🎃 The Year 2025 🎃 @aphowell.com · 5d

3. Some instances block other instances. Sometimes there is admin or mod drama. It is comparatively easy to switch instances. (This all falls under "fiddliness" and "complexity.")

4. An instance's code of conduct, blocked servers, etc. will give you an idea of the culture in general.

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🎃 The Year 2025 🎃 @aphowell.com · 5d

1. Mastodon frontloads a lot of decisions, complexity, and fiddliness. It gets better once you're used to it.

2. You do need to pick an instance (e.g. mastodon.social, wandering.shop, etc.) You can still follow people on most other instances, but think of the instance as built-in follows.

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🎃 The Year 2025 🎃 @aphowell.com · 5d

If you're starting a Mastodon account, I have a few pieces of advice:

0. Yes, I know a lot of people Do Not Want a Mastodon account. There are some solid reasons for holding that opinion and I have no desire to evangelize. These posts just aren't for you.

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🎃 The Year 2025 🎃 @aphowell.com · 5d

Considered adding it to my bio.

🎃 The Year 2025 🎃 @aphowell.com · 6d

And now the mods are openly antisemitic as well as transphobic? Cool, that combination's *always* a good sign.

Find me:
Masto: wandering.shop/@aphowell
Newsletter: sendfox.com/aphowell

(Not leaving here, at least not yet, but the chances of Bluesky pulling a Twitter in the near future is rising.)

🎃 The Year 2025 🎃 @aphowell.com · 6d

My dog went to the vet for some stuff, and it turns out she'll need more stuff. (Don't worry, nothing looks serious, but she will probably have to get a cracked tooth extracted.) So, uh, anybody wanna buy a story?

A. P. Howell

A. P. Howell's little shop of horrors, fantasies, and science fictions

shop.aphowell.com

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🎃 The Year 2025 🎃 @aphowell.com · 8d

Initial impression: fantasy (mermaid looking up). Second impression: SF (noted legs and planet hanging above).

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🎃 The Year 2025 🎃 @aphowell.com · 10d

Silicon Valley invents flipping forward to peek at the end.

🎃 The Year 2025 🎃 @aphowell.com · 10d

🫂

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🎃 The Year 2025 🎃 @aphowell.com · 10d

I decided to go with a genuinely scary October name this year.

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🎃 The Year 2025 🎃 @aphowell.com · 11d

I am older than you and would presumably have seen this on VHS (I assume I did; I at least remember bits of it) but I always do a title double-take and mix it up with The Navigator (also watched on VHS, and very much not the same movie).

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🎃 The Year 2025 🎃 @aphowell.com · 11d

There is a non-zero possibility that my lunch will be a bowl of Count Chocula. So, you know, I see you.

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🎃 The Year 2025 🎃 @aphowell.com · 14d

This weekend keeps getting better and better.

(Vagueskeeting about Real Life stuff. Please return to your regularly scheduled highly specific doomscrolling.)

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