Kristen
@vintagemermaid.bsky.social
I read books, I teach kids, I write. Inspirations include Julian of Norwich, Stephen King, and every dog I’ve ever met.
Reposted by Kristen
AWS is down, post hog
October 20, 2025 at 10:05 AM
AWS is down, post hog
Reposted by Kristen
It's getting ~spooky~ out there, so just a reminder that this book exists. 👻🖤 It has "all the makings of a modern classic...like Alvin Schwartz's Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" (SLJ, starred review) and is "certain to be a gateway drug to @stephenking.bsky.social" (Portland Press Herald).
September 30, 2025 at 10:54 PM
It's getting ~spooky~ out there, so just a reminder that this book exists. 👻🖤 It has "all the makings of a modern classic...like Alvin Schwartz's Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" (SLJ, starred review) and is "certain to be a gateway drug to @stephenking.bsky.social" (Portland Press Herald).
Opened FIEND by the inimitable @almakatsu.bsky.social, read the dedication, felt my heart quiver and grow three sizes. I am seen.
September 19, 2025 at 7:10 PM
Opened FIEND by the inimitable @almakatsu.bsky.social, read the dedication, felt my heart quiver and grow three sizes. I am seen.
“Ah, let us snerdle! To snerdle on a Saturday is one of life’s great pleasures.” Jane Austen to her sister Cassandra(probably). And we all nod, sip tea, and, sighing, think of Colin Firth.
Word of the Day is ‘snerdle’ (19th century): to stay warm and still beneath the covers for as long as humanly possible.
September 13, 2025 at 4:21 PM
“Ah, let us snerdle! To snerdle on a Saturday is one of life’s great pleasures.” Jane Austen to her sister Cassandra(probably). And we all nod, sip tea, and, sighing, think of Colin Firth.
Reposted by Kristen
Some of the many things I collected are postcards of bleak-looking motels (for some odd reason), and looking through them recently, I was inspired to pair up a few of them with a particularly grim excerpt from "Two-Lane Highway," a track from John Zorn's Spillane.
September 7, 2025 at 3:55 PM
Some of the many things I collected are postcards of bleak-looking motels (for some odd reason), and looking through them recently, I was inspired to pair up a few of them with a particularly grim excerpt from "Two-Lane Highway," a track from John Zorn's Spillane.
C. Robert Cargill is so good at Bluesky in addition to being one of the best writers out there. A joy to follow.
Oh man, Bluesky allows posting your own gifs now. Fucking. Gamechanger.
September 4, 2025 at 6:09 PM
C. Robert Cargill is so good at Bluesky in addition to being one of the best writers out there. A joy to follow.
Reposted by Kristen
Catbus is right! I don’t remember the last time I read a list like this and added so many films to my queue.
this is a terrific list because one, it defines 'all time' as "the history of cinema" and not "the last ten years, twenty if you're lucky" and two it's not afraid to combine universally lauded gimmes with obscure international movies 📽️
The 12 Best Suspense Movies Of All Time, Ranked - SlashFilm
From the 1930s to the early 2000s, and featuring some of the best movie stars and directors to ever do it, here are the 12 best suspense movies of all time.
www.slashfilm.com
September 2, 2025 at 12:12 PM
Catbus is right! I don’t remember the last time I read a list like this and added so many films to my queue.
Reposted by Kristen
Showtime Halloween makeup ad, from 1985. Forty years later and I still haven't realized my dream of becoming a shark in a silver tracksuit.
August 30, 2025 at 4:37 PM
Showtime Halloween makeup ad, from 1985. Forty years later and I still haven't realized my dream of becoming a shark in a silver tracksuit.
Reposted by Kristen
The Welsh for June is Mehefin, which means midsummer. May is Mai which, like the English word, derives from the Roman Maius. However, there is an archaic name, Cyntefin, which means the start of summer. So summer is Wales is 3 months long. It rains in all three.
My favourite word in Welsh, in case you were wondering, is 'Gorffennaf', which means, literally, 'summer's end'.
It's the Welsh name for July.
It's the Welsh name for July.
☀️ ➡️ 🍂
August 29, 2025 at 7:04 PM
The Welsh for June is Mehefin, which means midsummer. May is Mai which, like the English word, derives from the Roman Maius. However, there is an archaic name, Cyntefin, which means the start of summer. So summer is Wales is 3 months long. It rains in all three.
Reposted by Kristen
A World War II-era fad was postcards of cats dressed up like humans and doing everyday things
Artist: Eugen Hartung
Artist: Eugen Hartung
August 28, 2025 at 8:25 PM
A World War II-era fad was postcards of cats dressed up like humans and doing everyday things
Artist: Eugen Hartung
Artist: Eugen Hartung
Reposted by Kristen
I love this idea almost more than I can say.
(Though it surely helps to have been well copyedited.)
(Though it surely helps to have been well copyedited.)
I have this trick when I get edited: I make a copy of the file, and then—without looking—I hit "accept all."
Then I read it. I just read the thing I wrote, with "yes!" to all edits.
Then I go back to the other file and look at the edits one-by-one. It's game-changing to see it without the red.
Then I read it. I just read the thing I wrote, with "yes!" to all edits.
Then I go back to the other file and look at the edits one-by-one. It's game-changing to see it without the red.
*flips chair around*
*leans forward earnestly*
Any number of first-rate writers have committed "he thought to himself" in manuscript. (We used to keep a list.) What makes them truly first-rate is not balking when the copy editor CROSSES OUT THE OFFENDING WORDS.
*leans forward earnestly*
Any number of first-rate writers have committed "he thought to himself" in manuscript. (We used to keep a list.) What makes them truly first-rate is not balking when the copy editor CROSSES OUT THE OFFENDING WORDS.
August 27, 2025 at 8:08 PM
I love this idea almost more than I can say.
(Though it surely helps to have been well copyedited.)
(Though it surely helps to have been well copyedited.)
Oh my God watch this.
August 27, 2025 at 5:39 PM
Oh my God watch this.
Check out the unboxing of FIEND by the amazing Alma Katsu! Get yer pre-order in, folks!
(Just the lighting in the windows on the cover gave me the most delicious chills)
(Just the lighting in the windows on the cover gave me the most delicious chills)
August 27, 2025 at 5:33 PM
Check out the unboxing of FIEND by the amazing Alma Katsu! Get yer pre-order in, folks!
(Just the lighting in the windows on the cover gave me the most delicious chills)
(Just the lighting in the windows on the cover gave me the most delicious chills)
Honestly we all need to see Macaroni’s back to school pictures.
I don’t know who needs to see Macaroni’s back-to-school pictures from her doggy daycare but here they are (plus an outtake) ( @darthbluesky.bsky.social)
August 27, 2025 at 2:53 AM
Honestly we all need to see Macaroni’s back to school pictures.
Reposted by Kristen
The Jane Austen scholar video also has claims Jane Austen collected tarantulas, purchased the largest mulberry garden in "western Britain" for breeding silkworms, and sponsored an assassination attempt on George Washington, despite the fact she was 14 when he died, and a baby during the war.
August 26, 2025 at 9:08 AM
The Jane Austen scholar video also has claims Jane Austen collected tarantulas, purchased the largest mulberry garden in "western Britain" for breeding silkworms, and sponsored an assassination attempt on George Washington, despite the fact she was 14 when he died, and a baby during the war.
I have so much appreciation for this account and I can always count on some truly banger sentences.
I wish I believed in anything half as much as 1950s Hollywood believed in the universal, historical and timeless adoption of the bullet bra.
Egyptian princess? Medieval French peasant? Peruvian priestess? Bullet bra!
Egyptian princess? Medieval French peasant? Peruvian priestess? Bullet bra!
August 25, 2025 at 3:09 PM
I have so much appreciation for this account and I can always count on some truly banger sentences.
*Weeps in Mid World*
One of my favorite reactions so far to "Lenora" in THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT:
August 25, 2025 at 2:27 AM
*Weeps in Mid World*
Reposted by Kristen
The lovely obviousness and subtlety of this! the distinctive echoes: the wave curve of beast-hedge and skirt and bird wings and flower-hair and bust-shoulder. But behind that, the half-lost shadows, and swoop of misty branches in the same line. 1/3
#artthoughts
#artthoughts
August 24, 2025 at 11:25 AM
The lovely obviousness and subtlety of this! the distinctive echoes: the wave curve of beast-hedge and skirt and bird wings and flower-hair and bust-shoulder. But behind that, the half-lost shadows, and swoop of misty branches in the same line. 1/3
#artthoughts
#artthoughts
Reposted by Kristen
The earliest known cinematic kaiju is named... Cutey?
Winsor McCay's 1921 animated film THE PET features a tapir-like creature that grows and grows and grows some more... and then engages in a nice little city stomping rampage.
moviessilently.com/2025/08/24/t...
Winsor McCay's 1921 animated film THE PET features a tapir-like creature that grows and grows and grows some more... and then engages in a nice little city stomping rampage.
moviessilently.com/2025/08/24/t...
The Pet (1921) A Silent Film Review
Winsor McCay returns to the world of the Rarebit Fiend, with a man overindulging in cheese toast and dreaming that his wife takes in an unusual pet that grows, and grows, and grows…
moviessilently.com
August 24, 2025 at 8:06 PM
The earliest known cinematic kaiju is named... Cutey?
Winsor McCay's 1921 animated film THE PET features a tapir-like creature that grows and grows and grows some more... and then engages in a nice little city stomping rampage.
moviessilently.com/2025/08/24/t...
Winsor McCay's 1921 animated film THE PET features a tapir-like creature that grows and grows and grows some more... and then engages in a nice little city stomping rampage.
moviessilently.com/2025/08/24/t...
Reposted by Kristen
Violent Conflicts in Neolithic Europe: 'Violence as spectacle'. theorkneynews.scot/2025/08/23/v...
Violent Conflicts in Neolithic Europe: ‘Violence as spectacle’.
New research using cutting-edge multi-isotope analysis has reconstructed the identities of individuals found in mass graves in Alsace, north-eastern France, dating to around 4300–4150 BCE. The fi…
theorkneynews.scot
August 23, 2025 at 6:05 AM
Violent Conflicts in Neolithic Europe: 'Violence as spectacle'. theorkneynews.scot/2025/08/23/v...
Just check out this writing by @scumbelievable.bsky.social. Thanks to @oneferalcat.bsky.social for sharing this. Totally made my day. I’m going to be laughing about the “I fancy myself a libertine” in this context for the rest of my years.
James Dobson dies and within moments I get sent this banger post by @scumbelievable.bsky.social
yet another good day to not be a homeschooled teen anymore
yet another good day to not be a homeschooled teen anymore
August 21, 2025 at 6:13 PM
Just check out this writing by @scumbelievable.bsky.social. Thanks to @oneferalcat.bsky.social for sharing this. Totally made my day. I’m going to be laughing about the “I fancy myself a libertine” in this context for the rest of my years.
Reposted by Kristen
My new book 📕 The Story of Tudor Art 🌹 comes out on 25th September. It’s the first book ever (!!) to look at art from across the whole sixteenth century in England and I can’t wait to share it with you.
August 19, 2025 at 11:53 AM
My new book 📕 The Story of Tudor Art 🌹 comes out on 25th September. It’s the first book ever (!!) to look at art from across the whole sixteenth century in England and I can’t wait to share it with you.
Thank you, Mother.
2026 is going to be another incredible year for Horror fiction. Excellent list by Sadie Hartmann “Mother Horror.” (Very honored to see WRETCH mentioned.)
bookshop.org/lists/2026-h...
bookshop.org/lists/2026-h...
2026 Horror
Checkout out this list on Bookshop
bookshop.org
August 17, 2025 at 11:07 PM
Thank you, Mother.
Reposted by Kristen
Rotating the stage in A GIRL'S FOLLY (1917), a behind-the-scenes dramedy shot on location in the World film company's Fort Lee, New Jersey headquarters.
World stayed east while the industry was moving west and it's one of the best little studios you've never heard of.
World stayed east while the industry was moving west and it's one of the best little studios you've never heard of.
August 15, 2025 at 10:54 PM
Rotating the stage in A GIRL'S FOLLY (1917), a behind-the-scenes dramedy shot on location in the World film company's Fort Lee, New Jersey headquarters.
World stayed east while the industry was moving west and it's one of the best little studios you've never heard of.
World stayed east while the industry was moving west and it's one of the best little studios you've never heard of.
Reposted by Kristen
The SPEAKER implies.
The LISTENER infers.
The DUDE abides.
The LISTENER infers.
The DUDE abides.
August 15, 2025 at 3:06 PM
The SPEAKER implies.
The LISTENER infers.
The DUDE abides.
The LISTENER infers.
The DUDE abides.