Karin Robinson
LightNews LightNews
karinjr.bsky.social
Karin Robinson
@karinjr.bsky.social
1.1K followers 910 following 640 posts
Sci Fi Fantasy author. Recovering podcaster. Former
@demsabroad UK Vice Chair. Edelman Senior Director of Strategy. Mum. Cat lady. Represented by @ericshowers.bsky.social Building myself a Twitter life raft...
Posts Replies Media Videos
karinjr.bsky.social
Helena isn't used to getting this much attention from handsome young men...
From time to time, she would be aware of Jordy looking over in her direction, but she tried not to look back at him. There was something unnervingly attractive about his complete focus when it was oriented towards her. All these weeks that they’d been working together, she had felt something emitting from behind his visor. The way his head would carefully track her movements. The way his fidgety hands would pause in midair while she answered a question. She figured out what was going on when she watched him play through a level of Moby Quest one day. He was playing her like a video game. Bringing everything he had to solving the problem of her. She wasn’t used to so much attention, and it was a little unsettling. But she was disturbed to realise that she also liked it. She liked it a lot.
November 14, 2025 at 9:18 AM
karinjr.bsky.social
Oh, how random that I got to be the one to tell you! It looks like it was posted yesterday, FWIW. Here's the screengrab. Have you met many of Eric's other folks? I'm in touch with a few on Discord.
November 13, 2025 at 4:43 PM
karinjr.bsky.social
And here we were in London…
October 18, 2025 at 6:58 PM
karinjr.bsky.social
Just back from the London #nokings protest. Frogs and dinosaurs, Brits and Americans, we all agree. Trump is not our king.
Inflatable frog costume at the nokings protest Inflatable dinosaurs at the nokings protest Crowds at the nokings protest
October 18, 2025 at 3:46 PM
karinjr.bsky.social
Jordy is chatting with Claire about the implications of an AI bot's ability to do sensory manipulation on humans. It gets all philosophical and stuff.
October 14, 2025 at 1:20 PM
karinjr.bsky.social
Jordy's reaction to bandaging Helena's wounded knee and Helena's reaction to Jordy bandaging her knee are... different.
October 7, 2025 at 1:38 PM
karinjr.bsky.social
Jordy's boss makes a speech at the Investor Day
October 2, 2025 at 2:58 PM
karinjr.bsky.social
Helena has gone "undercover" in a virtual world.
October 1, 2025 at 3:23 PM
karinjr.bsky.social
Jordy doesn't love talking about his dead mother.
September 24, 2025 at 2:24 PM
karinjr.bsky.social
Have just started The Traitor Baru Cormorant. It seems to be about taking down a coloniser/empire from the inside, as an accountant. Which intrigues me greatly...
September 22, 2025 at 10:46 AM
karinjr.bsky.social
Been thinking a lot about this protest sign lately. For reasons. A lot of reasons.
A sign reading "First they came for the journalists. We don't know what happened after that."
September 18, 2025 at 8:06 AM
karinjr.bsky.social
Jordy is in the habit of gaming constantly through his AR kit. His colleague finds this deeply annoying.
September 15, 2025 at 10:41 AM
karinjr.bsky.social
Jordy is having second thoughts about his billionaire bestie.
September 8, 2025 at 8:34 AM
karinjr.bsky.social
Jordy attends a garden party.
The whole event wasn’t really Jordy’s thing, to be honest. This giant brick house out in the middle of nowhere. Acres and acres of grassy hills fenced off to divide it from somebody else’s empty grassy hills. What was the point of it all? All these people standing around in clothes that weren’t comfortable, holding little plastic glasses while the women’s heels sank into the grass.
September 5, 2025 at 10:26 AM
karinjr.bsky.social
Helena is blown away by the staff cafe when she goes to a meeting at the Agency.
The sofa where she’d been told to wait looked down into a sunken atrium that must contain the agency’s staff canteen. Though it didn’t look like any canteen she’d ever been in. A glass roof flooded the triple-height space with diffused natural light, keeping a small army of potted plants alive. The food was heaped onto wood countertops in giant ceramic bowls. Salads fancied up with pomegranate seeds. Oversized muffins and cinnamon rolls. Espresso-based coffees were being served to consistently attractive young people who sipped them at wooden tables in plush chairs covered in brightly coloured cloth. And the people doing the serving. Three well-groomed baristas were kept busy behind the bar, and the open-plan kitchen had a half dozen aproned figures cooking.
September 4, 2025 at 11:16 AM
karinjr.bsky.social
Helena's manic post-divorce energy.
August 29, 2025 at 2:42 PM
karinjr.bsky.social
I mean. I'm not even Welsh, but fair play it's a BANGER.
August 29, 2025 at 10:55 AM
karinjr.bsky.social
Jordy meets his boss's wife.
“Hope you’re all having a good time?” A beautiful woman in a navy-blue jumpsuit approached them. She was California sunshine. Tall and elegant with bright blonde hair that brushed her shoulders and blue eyes that sparkled like prosecco. But her smile wasn’t supermodel cold, it was sweet and broad and embraced them all.
August 28, 2025 at 3:42 PM
karinjr.bsky.social
I'm a subscriber and I've read the story - they're definitely talking about short stories, not shorter novels.
August 27, 2025 at 1:26 PM
karinjr.bsky.social
We've all had this sort of morning, right?
Oops, somehow they were running late, and there was Helena not even dressed yet. Could Michael drop the girls at school? Well, fine but he hadn’t showered either, he pointed out. All right then one of them should go shower as quick as they could, and Helena said she’d do it and take the girls in and could Michael make sure Sam got off OK? And sure but then Sam realised he’d left his project at Isaac’s place and could Helena take him to Isaac’s because it was on the way to the primary school? And that was fine, but they should have left ten minutes ago if that was going to be the thing. And she took the quickest shower of her life, but then she had nothing to wear because the laundry was still damp and she had to stand there blasting her dress with a hairdryer for five minutes before she could put it on.
August 27, 2025 at 9:57 AM
karinjr.bsky.social
Helena is forced to make polite small talk with the boyfriend of her estranged mother.
“How long have you two been together?” Helena had no desire to listen to his professional anecdotes. “Oh, you know. What’s it been? Six months now I guess?” James stretched his long, muscled legs out so they crossed the chasm between him and her, resting his trainer-clad feet on the legs of her chair. He chuckled, fondly. “Every day’s an adventure, right?” Helena stood up. “I should go find someone. They might be waiting for me…”
August 26, 2025 at 10:04 AM
karinjr.bsky.social
Helena is in full post-divorce meltdown...
Her bin was full of angry post it notes from Michael about the walls. “We’ll never get our deposit back.” “Helena, we’ve talked about this!” “PLEASE STOP PAINTING ON THE WALLS” “You’re behaving like a child.” She was, too. That was the beauty of it. Exactly like a child. This wasn’t art, it was scrawling. Because she wasn’t trying to create a mural or render some sort of creative expression. She was just at war with the whiteness of the walls. White was her enemy. “Maybe I’m losing my mind,” she said out loud, studying the splotches of colour. She didn’t even mind if she was.
August 14, 2025 at 3:56 PM
karinjr.bsky.social
Jordy reflects on his feminist cred.
“Oh. That girl was attacked in May, wasn’t she? I was probably responding to something. Trying to make some kind of point.” Which girl? He didn’t remember, but in fairness to him there had been a lot of those headlines last year. There had been protests, and Jordy had gone to some of them. He’d even run socials for an anarchist feminist collective for a little while, but they’d split up in a dispute over their name.
August 13, 2025 at 1:12 AM
karinjr.bsky.social
The CEO of Jordy's agency is kind of a lot.
“Updating the team is doing stuff, Jordy. It’s an important part of the work.” He wished Eve would just talk to him in a regular voice, and not always in that boss voice. He wondered what she’d be like if she was just having a conversation. He’d never heard that. Not at the team drinks where she downed Aperol spritzs and talked about how the future of this agency would be based on landing creative in culture. Not at the Cornucopia team Christmas party where he’d stumbled upon her adjusting the positioning of the cocktail table because she thought it was a foot too far from the entrance. Did she even have a chill-out mode? “Of course. Sure, sure. Daily updates, good idea.” He really did just want them all to be happy. He wished they were.
August 5, 2025 at 9:44 AM
karinjr.bsky.social
From the substack AI report: "a typical AI-using publisher is 45 or over, more likely to be a man, and tends to publish in categories like Technology and Business." Of course he is. Of course he does.
July 24, 2025 at 7:43 PM