As President Trump’s executive orders have mercifully begun dismantling discriminatory and illegal DEI and CRT programs throughout the government and our educational systems, we see a sharp increase in companies and organizations joining the already snowballing trend of dumping DEI programs. Perhaps more importantly, because these orders are merely following through with his successful campaign promises, they indicate that Americans themselves finally understand and reject the damage wrought by DEI. If you needed further evidence that DEI is in its death throes, note how the DEI Industrial Complex defends DEI as they cover its rapid demise, feeling the need to proclaim anew the baseless tropes they used to help launch it originally. CBS, ABC, Time, Reuters, and others have been including something like a “What is DEI?” section to their latest articles, reasserting that DEI is an extension of civil rights, that it is about helping disadvantaged groups, or telling us that STEM research and underrepresented scientists will suffer if DEI is eradicated. Reuters offered this typical definition of DEI, “DEI programs have been part of workplace diversity efforts to ensure fairer representation for groups seen as historically marginalized, such as African Americans, LGBTQ+ community members, women, disabled people and other ethnic minorities in the United States.” Fortunately, despite the propaganda push, the DEI fairness mask has come off — and it is hopefully being fitted for a death mask. The hypocrisy of DEI begins with the very words represented by that acronym — Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Christopher Rufo has observed that, in practice, the policies bearing these labels usually promote precisely the opposite of what the words would imply. Diversity almost always involves implicit and explicit racial discrimination excluding or limiting some groups by their skin color or identity. Equity involves disparate and often unfair treatment of various identity groups (typically based on race, color, gender, and sex) in an attempt to equalize not opportunities, but outcomes. And Inclusion usually restricts ideas and people who oppose the prevailing doctrine of oppressed and oppressors. DEI defenders commonly offer similar excuses as those for other failed attempts at Marxism. You might think that a piece titled The Failure of the DEI Industrial Complex in Harvard Business Review offers a sweeping indictment of DEI in general. Not quite. While admitting its undeniable failures in desired outcomes, it blames its downfall on the “lack of standards, consistency, and accountability among DEI practitioners.” In other words, the argument seems to be that it was a good idea, poorly implemented. Sound familiar? The litany of slaughters, famines, gulags, and world wars was created by supposedly good ideas poorly implemented. If you start with flawed premises, things like standards, consistency and accountability only enhance the flaws. Such defective thinking includes believing that unequal outcomes are de facto evidence of discrimination; that diversity, not unity of shared values or esprit de corps is our strength; and that privilege and guilt are a function of DNA/skin color. In brief, poor implementation is the wrong epitaph. As we close the casket, it is important to set the record straight. DEI is being buried today because enough Americans have finally realized that it has little to do with treating people fairly, combatting racism and sexism, helping the underserved, being more tolerant, or leveraging our differences. They now see that it is first and foremost about pitting groups against each other, lowering standards and eliminating meritocracy, and finding and magnifying perpetual grievances to benefit favored identity groups — and their facilitators. They see that it grew into a multi-billion dollar self-serving industry that was worse than ineffective; it was actually counterproductive — damaging all of those areas it promised to improve — often involving active discrimination and racism. They see that our military was most profoundly impacted by DEI because, unlike the civilian world, the command structure requires immediate implementation of the destructive policies, that in just a few short years the damage done there was nothing short of tragic — lowering standards, morale and combat readiness, and creating the biggest recruiting crisis in half a century. They see that even in academia, the cradle of DEI, the multi-year, largest and most expensive DEI effort to date ($250m) at the University of Michigan utterly backfired per the New York Times. They also see that in reality DEI is simple racism — institutionalizing the favoring and disfavoring of certain individuals and groups based solely on their race and/or skin color, gender, or identity group. Scholar and author Victor Davis Hanson noted the beginning of DEI’s demise a year ago and rightly predicted, “In the end, DEI will implode because of its many contradictions: it is racist to the core; it is illegal and violates court decisions and the Constitution; it destroys meritocracy; and it is utterly incoherent in adjudicating who and who not deserve racial preferences.” No, DEI is not dead yet, but it will likely be forced into academic hospice for a while — hopefully never to recover. The correct epitaph for DEI is that it is warmed over Marxism camouflaged as improved sensitivity and fairness. It is not on its death bed because of too much success too fast — too much fairness, too much racial harmony, too much improvement in outcomes of all forms. No, it is dying because, like all Marxism, it aims to foment distrust, chaos, resentment, guilt, hate, discrimination, and ultimately revolution; and most Americans have woken up to and reject that. Like every other attempt at implementation of Marxist principles, it may sound good in theory, but ultimately succumbs to reality. Like all tyrants, DEI should not rest in peace because it should serve as yet another warning for what can happen even after the failings of countless other attempts at Marxism have been demonstrated. But regardless of how it leaves us, through burial or cremation, let’s get the eulogy right so that future generations may feel less inclined to resurrect its corpse. * * * Dr. Greg Salsbury is former president of Western Colorado University, on the Board of Advisors for STARRS, and author of “Retirementology – Rethinking the American Dream in a New Economy.” The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

The Senate Finance Committee voted on Tuesday morning to advance the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to the full U.S. Senate to be President Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services in a strictly partisan vote. All 14 GOP senators voted for Kennedy; all 13 Democrat senators voted no. Moments before the vote, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) announced that Kennedy had won his support in the hearings, crediting Vice President JD Vance. Cassidy, a doctor, was considered one of the biggest obstacles to his confirmation. “I’ve had very intense conversations with Bobby and the White House over the weekend and even this morning,” Cassidy said. “I want to thank [Vice President JD Vance] specifically for his honest counsel. With the serious commitments I’ve received from the administration and the opportunity to make progress on the issues we agree on like healthy foods and a pro-American agenda, I will vote yes.” Prior to the vote, asked if he had been calling senators who had concerns about Tulsi Gabbard or RFK Jr., Trump responded, “Yes. I’ve gotten a great response. They want to do what’s right; we’ve had a good response. I think we’ll do well. We have great people; people like this.” “I approached with an open mind, and I watched the hearing, and that’s how the process works,” Pennsylvania Democrat Senator John Fetterman stated. “I’ve been following it and I talked to my colleagues on both sides; and I’ve said this on the record; it’s been challenging for sure, absolutely. It’s certainly not a slam-dunk for the nomination.” I’ve had very intense conversations with Bobby and the White House over the weekend and even this morning. I want to thank VP JD specifically for his honest counsel. With the serious commitments I’ve received from the administration and the opportunity to make progress on the… — U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (@SenBillCassidy) February 4, 2025 During the hearings for Kennedy, he was asked about a potential conflict of interest over his financial interest in lawsuits connected to vaccines. Kennedy was involved in a suit against Merck and its Gardasil vaccine. He ultimately replied he would “divest my interest in any such litigation via an assignment to my non-dependent adult son.” “It is my opinion that RFK Jr’s plan to pass on any financial stake in possible vaccine injuries to his son is more than sufficient to meet any ethical concerns,” Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation declared. “This is particularly true because of the limitations imposed by federal law on any claims made against vaccine manufacturers that severely limit possible compensation for anyone claiming a vaccine was somehow defective.” Idaho GOP Senator Mike Crapo noted Kennedy had answered more than 900 questions from senators during his hearings. Oregon Democrat Senator Ron Wyden preceded by attacking Elon Musk and Trump. “The last several days we witnessed an authoritarian take-over of our federal government by Elon Musk and Donald Trump,” he said. “They have set their sights on a full purge of anyone in government that doesn’t bend the knee and follow their orders.” He accused Musk and Trump of making “a mockery of the power Republicans hold with their congressional authority.” He also accused Kennedy of “peddling anti-vaccine conspiracies.” Washington Democrat Senator Maria Cantwell said her father had supported Kennedy’s father, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, but she could not support RFK Jr. Georgia Democrat Senator Raphael Warnock mocked Trump for saying he hoped Kennedy would go “wild” as Secretary; after the vote was taken, North Carolina GOP Senator Thom Tillis said, “I hope he does go wild.”

There are some movie scenes you just never forget, and Liam Neeson’s famous speech in Taken is one of them. Even though the movie came out over fifteen years ago (has it really been that long?), most of us still know these iconic lines by heart. In fact, you’re probably hearing them in your head as we speak! So, when the actor recreated his memorable monologue from his seat at a hockey game, fans were pretty excited. In a viral video on social media, a clip from the 2008 thriller appeared on the jumbotron featuring Liam Neeson delivering his unforgettable words. Next, the massive screen cut to the star himself, who happened to be attending the game! Audience members erupted into wild cheers as the actor pretended to deliver the same lines while speaking into his cell phone. He looked deadly serious as he mouthed the threats his character made in the movie! @espn Iconic (via wyshynski/X) #hockey #nhl #neeson #hockeytok ♬ original sound – ESPN As the crowd continued to applaud, Liam Neeson flashed a winning smile at his fans before disappearing from the display. Brief though it was, the actor’s cameo on the jumbotron seems to have been a big hit with hockey lovers! Commenters thought it was fantastic that the celebrity recreated his famous scene for everyone at the game. Screengrab from TikTok “He understood the assignment,” wrote one user. Another added, “This man is a treasure.” Screengrab from TikTok A third joked, “He has a particular set of skills. Being cool to go along with the joke is perhaps his most dangerous.” If you’re not familiar with Liam Neeson’s well-known lines from Taken, watch the clip below. In this scene, former CIA agent Bryan Mills (played by Neeson) is threatening the kidnappers who have captured his daughter. Wow, his speech still gives us chills! You can find the source of this story’s featured image here. The post Liam Neeson Reenacts Iconic “Taken” Scene In Hilarious Setting appeared first on InspireMore.

Every year, football fans look forward to seeing who will compete in the Super Bowl. This year, the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles will once again go head to head. But the game isn’t the only reason so many people look forward to the event. There are also the unforgettable commercials! And with the Super Bowl less than a week away, some of these commercials are already being released. There are already plenty that stand out. For starters, Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal reunite for a When Harry Met Sally throwback. Plus, Budweiser is back with another tear-jerker that stars their beloved Clydesdale. Now, the Fast and Furious franchise is joining this growing list of iconic commercials. But their ad isn’t about the franchise itself… find out who they’re partnering with in the commercial below! Since the first film of the franchise released in 2001, the world has been gifted with a total of 11 Fast and Furious films. And, as the title of the franchise implies, not a single one focuses on the idea of rest and relaxation. So, pairing this action-packed series with such a chill, laid-back product, like Häagen-Dazs ice cream, is quite the perfect choice. Häagen-Dazs Partners With the Fast and Furious Franchise for a Delightfully Funny Super Bowl Commercial The commercial was filmed in L.A., the very location where the franchise started. With the damage the recent wildfires have caused, it’s leaving Van Diesel feeling more grateful than ever for having filmed this commercial. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Häagen-Dazs Ice Cream (@haagendazs_us) “Filming it here and looking back now, I feel it makes it even more special as we look to return and rebuild because L.A. needs the work more than ever,” Diesel shares. The actors of the Fast and Furious franchise aren’t the only ones with a special connection to L.A. — Häagen-Dazs does as well. The company’s headquarters is located in California, inspiring it to find its own ways to give back to those in need of help, as seen in their post above. You can find the source of this story’s featured image here! The post Super Bowl Commercial Flips “Fast & Furious” Franchise On Its Head In Hilarious Ad appeared first on InspireMore.

NEW OVERNIGHT ... TOM HOMAN IS COMING FOR NJ GOVERNOR ... DW: Border Czar Homan: I’ll Prosecute NJ Governor If He’s Concealing An Illegal Alien (VIDEO) “Let me read a headline to you: ‘Chicago leaders encourage residents to exercise their rights in resisting Trump’s deportation policies.’ The governor of New Jersey, Phil Murphy, basically admitted he knew somebody that didn’t have full documentation that he was hiding over his garage. Your comment on all of that?” Fox news host Sean Hannity asked Homan.

'They take our money and we give it to them'

He's going to Hollywood, baby

Books Embodied Exegesis Living in a Cyberpunk Future: Ann LeBlanc And Tenacity Plys Discuss Embodied Exegesis Writer Tenacity Plys and editor Ann LeBlanc talk about anthology curation, queerness, and why the future of cyberpunk is trans. By Tenacity Plys | Published on February 4, 2025 Embodied Exegesis cover art by Lyss Menold Comment 0 Share New Share Embodied Exegesis cover art by Lyss Menold Last year saw the arrival of Embodied Exegesis, an anthology of cyberpunk and posthuman stories written by transfem authors, that seems to have come at exactly the right moment in history. Writer Tenacity Plys recently sat down with the anthology’s editor, Ann LeBlanc, to talk about curation, queerness, the endangered craft of woodworking, and why the future of cyberpunk is trans. Their conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity. Tenacity Plys: What are you thinking about the future of trans cyberpunk in 2025? Ann Leblanc: Definitely one of the interesting things about writing cyberpunk these days is that the whole country, and even more so trans people, are living in a cyberpunk future where everything’s owned by these huge multinationals, and we’re modifying our bodies, and various other themes around surveillance and body autonomy that the genre was exploring in the ’80s. Those themes were here a little bit in the ’80s, but now they’re even more so here. So one of the reasons why I was interested in, one, writing cyberpunk, but also two, editing an anthology of it—is to see what people could do… extrapolating both from the origins of the genre and based on the way the world has changed in the last, I guess, 45 years. Another part of it is that I’m worried about censorship; it’s a little bit scary to be publishing trans fiction right now. We really don’t know what the future is going to hold, in terms of how bad the crackdown on the Internet could be. And at least personally, after the election I kind of shifted my gears—like, what can I do locally to support the local trans literary scene?  Buy the Book Embodied Exegesis: Transfeminine Cyberpunk Futures edited by Ann LeBlanc Buy Book Embodied Exegesis: Transfeminine Cyberpunk Futures edited by Ann LeBlanc Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget TP: I’ve actually been thinking a lot about Trump 1.0 and how art and literature developed, especially in the queer community, during those four years. Considering what you might call “hashtag-resist” fiction, and what some, kind of derogatorily, call squeecore—considering Octavia Butler/Ursula K. Le Guin kind of revolutionary fiction, and also, a certain flattening [of fiction]—what are you thinking, looking out as an editor, a writer, publisher, all those capacities, [the effect will be] on literature for the next four years?  AL: I share similar feelings about the hashtag-resist style fiction. A lot of times, I see stories that are about resistance to fascism, and it involves a plucky group of protagonists who are able to defeat the the big bad fascists. And it always kind of falls flat for me because the reality is that trans people are one percent of the population… we have very little power, we’re not gonna be going out there and creating some sort of grand revolution. My experience, living in New York City during Trump 1.0 is that you do what you can to make things better for people, and it’s very unglamorous.  It involves a lot of organizing work and everyone is very busy, so it’s hard to get people to to volunteer their time and money these days… One thing that I liked about a lot of the stories that I was able to include in Embodied Exegesis, is, for example, thinking of the AGA Wilmot story [“The Wrong Body”], where it’s about how do we survive? How do we take care of each other through survival, and what are the costs? And also kind of how the obsession with “resist hashtag” stuff can lead to some nasty places, with the arc that in there about the person who’s part of the hive mind who becomes obsessed with vengeance. So, I’m interested in stories that explore the reality of what it’s like to to survive and to take care of each other. …My family on both sides survived genocide from the US government and they survived, but, you know, they didn’t win, and sometimes that’s all that happens.  TP: Yeah, I remember right before Trump 1.0, a lot of people were saying, “we survived Reagan, we’ll survive this.” And now people are saying that again almost, like “we survived the first Trump administration; we’re going to survive this.” Surviving definitely isn’t always winning. AL: And there’s lots of people who don’t survive, who don’t make it through. And the survival has costs, often—the only way that you escape such things is assimilation, or sacrifice. We see that now with a lot of people in the queer community trying to throw trans people under the bus.  TP: Very true, and [for instance] what you see after the extinction event of AIDS is like a more assimilated and kind of sanitized queer community. I guess cyberpunk, like the characters usually central to cyberpunk stories, are already corrupted by the systems that they’re part of. You’ll see, a cop or a detective or something who’s working for one of these corporations and or government forces. So I guess it’s kind of like cyberpunk is an interweaving of the human with both technology and with capital. There’s no purity.  …That sort of intermingling of moral greys, and also the greys of human and tech, if that makes sense—it’s a kind of nebulous question.  AL: I absolutely agree you are, corrupted by the systems in which you live. I’m thinking of like a very non cyberpunk example, of Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy, which is is very much about how we think of ourselves as separate from other things in nature, but, you know, a body is very much a permeable thing. There’s transmission of all sorts of things in both directions. Cyberpunk is a genre that’s really good at diving into that kind of permeability of the self, in part because of body modification themes, but also, the way that infrastructure—like the the way that a city is constructed—can affect how people think and live, so there’s a couple stories in Embodied Exegesis that are about infrastructure. I’m thinking of Coyote Dembecki’s and Catherine Kim’s stories [“Moonpool” and “The Hundred Eyes” respectively], which both explore how the monolithic city impacts how people live their lives. And then also, the Internet is a form of infrastructure too—there’s a kind of corruption that happens from living your life entirely online.  TP: Algorithms as infrastructure, definitely.  AL: Yeah, absolutely. And Riley Tao’s story [“Right To Remain”] is very much about that, where your mom is a discord streamer and you have to deal with your mom’s harassment mob of followers. And Palimrya’s story [“A Canyon of Blood for the Normalest Man Alive”], which I feel like really dives into permeability—there’s a sense of infection in that story that I found really fascinating. Another separate thought is that yeah, cyberpunk does often have a lot of cop or detective protagonists, and that’s one thing that that was a hard line—because I didn’t wanna see any cop protagonists or detectives. A lot of cyberpunk gets into the noir pastiche, and I’m not sure where that comes from because I feel like it wasn’t something that was common in a lot of the earliest cyberpunk works. I’m really not sure about the timeline—is Altered Carbon the genesis of that, or if there were works before that?—but the noir pastiche aspect of the genre was very uninteresting to me. In my submission call I said that I’m not looking for works that engage with that. In terms of the works that people think of as foundational for noir—you know, Maltese Falcon and so on, these were works that were created during the Hays Code, and so like, I feel like it’s to a certain extent poisoned ground, you know? I think that you can do interesting work with it, but I feel like a lot of noir inspired stuff, especially in cyberpunk, doesn’t really push past the assumptions of that genre. One exception that I did like was These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart by Izzy Wasserstein, which does a little bit with noir, but has enough else going on. […] I feel like noir has a similar problem to a lot of high fantasy that came after Tolkien. The conversations within the genre were a little bit too insular, and so, they were all based off of one specific work and then you had work based off of works that were based off of that work, and became a game of telephone where, to a certain extent for a small period, it became kind of a dead end in terms of experimentation. TP: What kind of assumptions in the noir genre would you say are making it poison ground?  AL: That’s a good question. I almost hesitate to make a bunch of broad statements about it. But I think one of the things you see in a lot of noir works is an emphasis on violence. Coming out of another genre that came up in that period with the Western, where the city is depicted as a kind of frontier and that’s filled with criminals who are lawless, and killed with impunity. One thing I liked about, Izzy Wasserstein’s novella is that it really dug into a trans community, and talked about its relationship to the surrounding neighborhood.  TP: I did notice there’s sort of a parallel with the figure of the scientist—like in Blade Runner, you’ve got your cop guy who’s like sort of working within the police system, but seeing how the police are complicit in the injustice of the world, or like, working against the police as he solves the real crime, and then [in Embodied Exegesis] I saw a couple science-aligned characters in this anthology who were working for these evil corporations, and then they end up [for instance] stealing the Nanite colony in [Izzy Wasserstein’s] “Syndical Organization in Revolutionary Transition”, or stealing the hair implants in the one about Kevin’s hair [“The Repossession of Kevin’s Perfect Hair” by Lillian Boyd]. It’s kind of like the scientist is on the side of the cops in the opinion of modern cyberpunk. And I mean, I think, that speaks a bit to where we’re at as a society with tech.  AL: I think that both of those stories explore an actual interesting tension in real life trans communities, which is that trans people tend to live in precarity and don’t always have the choice of employer. And so a lot of the places with the best healthcare or other benefits, or the places that are willing to employ trans people at all are, uh, ethically evil. And so, it gets into that question of what do you have to do to survive? Is it worth it to work at these huge, evil corporations when you’re, in a very small way, contributing to that machine in order to survive—is that a sacrifice that’s worth it to make? And, of course, it’s not a yes or no question, because it depends on a lot of ‘well, how evil is the company’ and like ‘how desperate are you really’ and like a lot of complicated stuff.  TP: Yeah, it goes back to being corrupted by the systems in which you live. AL: Exactly, exactly.  TP: You mentioned having a thesis for this this collection. What is it, and what do you wanna say about that?  AL: the kind of core thesis around cyberpunk in general is actually something inspired by a Lincoln Michel essay in Uncanny about how cyberpunk is best when it focuses on the body. I read that and I was like, yes, that’s exactly right. Because I feel like all of the themes around cyberpunk really coalesce when you think about things like body modification, or how the systems under which we live impact the body? And the body is also, from a literary craft point, a great way to anchor a narrative in something that feels real and resonates with with readers, which is especially important when you’re writing from a marginalized position where a lot of the readers aren’t gonna really share your experiences or understanding of the world. And so part of the thesis was that trans women writers would have a unique insight into this idea that cyberpunk is about the body. And the reason I had that belief was because I saw that there was an existing microgenre that a lot of transfemme writers were operating in that is not really cyberpunk. Or it expands beyond it, but still engages with a lot of the themes of cyberpunk. And I don’t have a pithy name for it, but its root comes from trans shitposting on the Internet. It often involves an ekphrastic voice or a transcendentalist or surrealist approach to the horrors of the modern world and technology. And it’s really weird and cool, but it was also something that I wasn’t seeing getting published anywhere in the science fiction and fantasy world. I think often, there’s this push for good world building, and I feel like within that is the implicit desire to have canonical answers for all aspects of your world. And I feel like a lot of this transfemme shit posting genre of literature defies that. And I think part of that comes from the understanding that trans people in general have is that, like, the accepted stories that cis society tells about trans people aren’t necessarily true. And so, like, how do you do world building in a world where people don’t agree on the truths, or the accepted truths are also lies and misinformation. Even trans people don’t agree on on it all. TP: It’s kind of like if you have three trans people, you have four opinions, basically.  AL: Exactly. I thought it would be really cool to put together an anthology that, one, engaged with all of the cyberpunk stuff, but two, I described the anthology as cyberpunk, but it’s really this other unnamed genre, or it’s cyberpunk plus this unnamed genre. So, Maya Deane’s story [“A Notorious Intergalactic Criminal”] and the Palimrya story [“A Canyon of Blood for the Normalest Man Alive”] are both definitely cyberpunk, but Maya Deane’s is not what people would call cyberpunk. And so that’s kind of the unifying element: I wanted stories that were about the body. When I was evaluating each story that came in through submissions, that was the criteria I used to evaluate. It was like, is this story about the body, about the the modification of the body or how technology or society or or all these things change the body—and I’m including mind within the body. I’m not a [mind/body] dualist here. Your body is your self. I feel like the revelations that came to me as part of HRT [Hormone Replacement Therapy] is like, oh, no, I’m not disconnected, from my body. It’s all me.  TP: Yeah, I’m sure. I’ve been starting SSRIs recently and like I’m just like, oh, so this one little chemical changes so much of my experience of reality. And my mind arguably. Re: I guess, the censorship question, I know one thing Republicans are trying right now is a very old playbook, which is just labeling anything queer as smut. And I think there’s been this sort of movement within the queer community—there’s like the smut elements of the queer community, and also there are people who push for—maybe coming back to the squeecore concept—kind of taking sex out of the equation, almost, which I think is kind of adjacent to taking the body out of the equation. What would you think of the the maybe, arguably, assimilationist elements who want to mainstream certain aspects of queer fiction, but also the kind of undeniably sexual undertones that comes from much of the roots of queer fiction. And then the question of the upcoming climate of increasing censorship and sexualization. AL: These debates have been raging for at least as long as I’ve been a writer on the Internet. And I think what bothers me when I see this discourse going around is the tendency to blame either readers or writers for this—I don’t wanna blame squeecore readers, or writers, I don’t wanna blame the people who enjoy that. I don’t wanna blame the people who enjoy more sexual fiction or darker fiction. I think that the real, not enemy, but the real root cause of these tensions, or the the reason that the landscape looks like it does, is at the editorial level. Pretty much all of the editors at the big five [publishing] companies are cis. That is going to impact what kind of stories get published. And so from my perspective, I see that it’s difficult for trans writers to get both sides of that spectrum published, because both a joyful, nonsexual story that really engages with the trans experience is probably not gonna resonate with a cis editor in the same way that it resonates with the trans editor, and the really, you know, sexy stuff, is not gonna resonate with a cis editor. I think that tension between the two camps or the the two different modes is false because both are being, not actively censored at the moment, but it’s just harder to get stuff published that really engages truthfully with the trans experience. And so that’s another reason why I wanted to do Embodied Exegesis—because in talking to trans writers and going to open mic nights like World Trans Forum and T4T, I saw all this cool stuff that was awesome, but I knew wouldn’t resonate with a cis editor. I slush read and I could see that too. So I think we just need more [trans] editors. There was a recent publishing survey of the UK publishing world, [a survey of] who’s employed in the industry, and it was interesting because when you get to this one page, it’s like, we’ve made great strides in the percentage of LGB employees.  TP: Oh, my God.  AL: And the T was just excluded. There’s a little footnote that trans people were about one percent of the employees, but this is fine, because, you know, they’re also one percent of the population. All on the same page where they were like, “isn’t it great that, the percentage of LGB employees has gone up year over a year?” Like, well, yeah, it’s gonna be harder to sell stuff that really speaks, or that resonates with trans readers.  TP: In line with the editing and slush reading angle here, what are your thoughts about GenAI? I know at Clarkesworld, you guys had one of the most high profile GenAI submission crises, that, as I understand it, completely messed up Clarkesworld‘s available resources for reading. And also, there are these people who are making the argument that GenAI has a place in art, which, full disclosure on my opinion, I don’t think it does. And just like GenAI’s place in the increasing interweaving of humanity’s cognition and physical functions with technology? AL: Even before AI, Clarkesworld got at least a thousand submissions a month—I’m not slush-reading for Clarkesworld anymore, but you know, when I was—there’s a 24 hour to 48 hour submission response, so getting through all of that on time is a lot of work. And then, when the submission [volume] doubles and triples, it’s uh, kind of devastating. So yeah, I’m also against using GenAI to create art. I think there are uses for LLMs, some of them are being used in drug discovery, for example, but it’s absolutely overhyped, and being used for a lot of things it shouldn’t. My perspective on this at an industry level comes from—I’m a woodworker, and the woodworking trade has been devastated by automation. This process started in the 1800s, but really picked up during the big post-World War II mechanization of the industry. If you go and buy furniture now, it’s all made in factories, and it’s all crap, it falls apart very easily. It’s made out of poor materials and has terrible joinery. And so, looking at that versus looking at another industry that has also seen some automation, like the dairy industry, and thinking about, what is the difference? What lessons can we learn from these industries? And I think what we need to realize is that as authors, what comes out of GenAI is terrible. They’re soulless, they don’t engage in any of the deeper craft work that really makes a story sing. Thematic resonance and deep character work—it flattens everything out into a palatable product. But big corporations love palatable products they can make for cheap! And so my fear is that we will end up in a place similar to the woodworking trade, the furniture industry, where, you know, most stuff is terrible, it’s churned out, and because of the domination of big companies regular human beings aren’t gonna have as much choice about whether or not they engage with this. It’s just gonna be in everything. TP: If I wanted to buy really well-made furniture, it would probably be way out of my price range because at this point, the market environment is like, I am able to afford IKEA. AL: Exactly, and good furniture takes so much labor to make, and, you know, a piece of good furniture will last 100 years, but with the way the world is right now it’s really hard to have enough money to make it make sense to buy a really nice piece of furniture. And that’s my worry. I think that we need to think about, how do we support authors so that they can make art even when the marketplace is flooded with terrible GenAI products. TP: Yeah, I always try when I’m talking about AI to emphasize that even if an AI could write the best thing ever, that totally devastates you, or whatever, the way a really, really good work of art could, it still would not be okay to have that be the primary art product out on the market. And when I say art product, I’m capitulating to the way capitalists and technologists talk about this.  AL: Yeah, when Disney has a monopoly on the entertainment industry and they make all their movies with AI, and they have exclusive relationship with movie theaters, it’s going to be harder to find and support art that is made by humans. If you want to fight against AI, you gotta figure out how to support artists. And so that means engaging with their work, it means paying for their work, supporting small presses, it means pestering your state and local governments to do art grants, because those make a huge difference for artists being able to survive to make art. The federal government is not gonna be receptive in the short term to that kind of stuff, but I think people really can make a big impact pushing for art grants from state and local.  AL: And people right now, the decision makers, really want to support trans art, given how bad things are, so now’s the time to apply.  TP: One more question about like, I feel the intrusion of tech on the human is so very cyberpunk, and then, the question of like, what is the human and how do we value it is also so cyberpunk. I think my my last kind of thought-slash-question on GenAI is: Tech is always pushing their frontier forward in the cyberpunk, and sometimes the characters are trying to push back, or sometimes they’re working with the technology that’s coming at them. And it kind of constitutes this dialectic of like, what’s the soul? What are humans? What should we be fighting for when we’re fighting for the human? And what can we maybe leave in the past in terms of what we thought was human?  AL: That’s why I’ve been describing Embodied Exegesis as transhumanist cyberpunk, because I was really interested in stories that are looking to the far future and asking, “okay, we’ve we’ve modified our environment and ourselves to the extremes—what does it mean to be human in those cases?” Riley Tao’s story, Maya Deane’s, obviously, with the coffee maker, and I feel like Palimrya’s really did that well, where the experience of living in the always-online world really changes the protagonist into something that feels almost unrecognizable—partly that comes out of Palimrya’s awesome writing style. So, you know, because we’re already in a world where trans people are modifying our bodies in a way that makes other people see us as less human, that’s a perfect theme for trans people to explore in fiction. TP: Yeah, and the nanite story [Izzy Wasserstein’s “Syndical Organization in Revolutionary Transition”] really stuck with me. That was one of my favorites in the collection. The way she injects the nanites, like her hormones, is so awesome. Or they? And, the agency that you can get to explore the human rather than having it be forced on you from a corporation is the key to me, I think.  AL: I’m thinking, in relation to the GenAI discussion, Elly Bangs’ story [“Bespoke”] about this artist trying to maintain artistic integrity of their bodies that they create. And bodies that also push the extremes of the things that we take for granted about being human—if you design a body that is so radically unlike a human and then you put a human consciousness in it, like, how is that? How does that change things?  TP: Yeah, and the way an AI can become so much closer to what we see as human, when the definition of human has been so stretched totally. It’s interesting—the contrast between AI characters and the reality of AI has been really hitting me recently. Because a lot of the time AI characters will be kind of also, perhaps they’re the epitome of being corrupted by the systems that they exist in, right? Because they are made out of the code that usually will come from one of the evil corporations in the cyberpunk world. Or, they’ll be created by a scientist who doesn’t necessarily have good motives, going back to Frankenstein, I guess. And then they’re often trying to either break free or work within the system that has corrupted them always already.  AL: That reminds me of another theme within cyberpunk and and particularly trans cyberpunk—one criticism that transphobes have about the trans stuff is that like, “oh, it’s all just, a way for big pharma to make lots of money.” And it’s like yes, they are charging us an arm and a leg, and yes, it sucks, but we don’t want to be paying an arm and a leg to big pharma! We are its enemies, not its allies. And you see that in a lot of cyberpunk where there’s body modification, but that body modification comes with a a sense of complicity or corruption, or it ties you bodily to these evil corporations. Which is one thing that Lillian’s story [“The Repossession of Kevin’s Perfect Hair”] about the hair implant did really well.  TP: The concept of, your hair could be repossessed by the cops if you modify it or try to ‘right to repair’ it.  AL: And of course DIY, is very relevant. Something that is rife in cyberpunk. TP: What what are your thoughts about the opportunities as well as pitfalls in the upcoming publishing environment?  AL: One of the interesting-slash-sad things we saw, especially in 2020, was support that was there for optics, but did not change the material reality. I worry that we’ll see similar inclusion without support, which is especially dangerous for trans people because the visibility that comes with that sort of inclusion is dangerous, and when the company that hired you doesn’t back you up and protect you from the waves of harassment that inevitably happen, it destroys your life. And we’ve seen that in the gaming industry and movies, and to a lesser extent, in literary fiction too. TP: The performative aspect of these grants is so real. To a certain extent, if you’re getting the money, they don’t need to have the purest hearts. At a certain level motivation doesn’t matter, but when they’re only motivated to go exactly as far as they need to, to look good… AL: Yeah, when people are invited into these organizations, but not given real power, and then expected to fix everything, and then blamed when the structural problems that they were hired to deal with don’t immediately go away—it’s unfortunately a repeating theme within lots of different industries… I think we’ll see two simultaneous trends, and one is that publishing houses will probably to a certain extent obey in advance, and be less likely to acquire trans work. But I also think that there will be some editors in publishing houses who go out of their way to include it, because they know that people will be hungry for that. And so it’s really critical that any publishing house that brings on trans writers or employees are willing to to support them.  TP: Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned story order [over email]; I’d love to hear about the thought process on that.  AL: The anthology is sold as cyberpunk, but as I mentioned, I wanted to have a very broad definition of cyberpunk, and include things from this sister genre, or I guess umbrella genre, that trans cyberpunk sits within. I started with stuff that would be very recognizable as cyberpunk. Lillian’s story is very classic: bad corporation, body modification, small fish fights against the cops and and this corrupt system. And from there, I tried to very gradually [get] weirder and weirder, so that by the end, we have a bunch of bizarre stories like Palimrya’s and Maya Deane’s, that might challenge cis readers who are used to certain types of fiction. I also wanted each story to resonate with the one that came before and the one after, so when I was putting it together, I did this spreadsheet where I listed every single story, including what themes it had, what tone it had, and then thought about how each story would interact with what came before. So for example, we’ve got [Izzy Wasserstein’s] “Syndical Organization In Revolutionary Transition,” and then immediately after we’ve got [Hailey Piper’s] “The Majestic Art Of Flesh,” and so we’ve got this story about releasing a hive mind into the world, and then we’ve got a story about what happens when a hive mind has been released into into the world. So I wanted each story to be in conversation with each other, and that’s one of the really nice things about having a very narrow focus in terms of it just being this specific genre and just being transfemme authors—each story really had a lot of resonance with the others. I was surprised at how many hive mind stories I got, but I think it makes sense because to a certain extent, a hive mind story is about the sense of alienation that every human has from every other human, and trans people are very familiar with alienation, with the way that transition causes them to be divorced from society and other people and all that. So it’s really powerful to be able to connect to another person’s mind and say, here, this is what it’s like being in my body. Here’s how I’m similar, here’s how I’m different.  TP: Corny but true: in the social media era, I’m surprised we haven’t had more hive mind stories coming up. AL: I feel like for whatever reason, a lot of science fiction hasn’t caught up to the weirdness of the Internet era. Similar to how a lot of movies elide the existence of cell phones.  TP: Yeah, the more mainstream you get, the less experimental you get, and so like, I think you have to go experimental to get to that reality. I guess the more niche you get, the closer you get to people exploring that stuff. AKA this collection, for example.  AL: That’s very true, I think.  TP: You wanted to talk about the broader genre. Are there any closing thoughts that you have about the collection and the state of trans lit and, yeah, anything you have coming up that you want to plug?  AL: I think that it’s interesting to see how this fits within trans literature in general, especially litfic. I’ve been reading Love/Aggression by June Martin, and I’ve read the anthology that Little Puss put out.  TP: Meanwhile, Elsewhere?  AL: Yeah. And The Sunforge, by Sasha Stronach—I’m kind of struck by a lot of themes that are similar throughout all of these disparate works. Especially the surrealism that is included in a lot of trans lit, the idea that reality is permeable—but yeah, it’s just interesting to see how things in both science fiction and lit fic are both kind of in conversation, what similar themes around surrealism and the lack of truth in the world, in the way that reality can be shaped in the same way that our bodies can.  TP: Yeah, I get the sense that litfic used to be more separate from genre, and now, maybe as a result of the Internet collapsing many boundaries, the boundaries in there are also just getting very porous, which is very cyberpunk as well.  AL: Yeah. I’ve been really enjoying a lot of litfic lately, like, Jacob Budenz just had a litfic collection put out that engages in a lot of stuff that might seem science fiction/ fantasy, but also have these very literary sensibilities, and it’s really interesting to see, how that differs from stuff you’d see in a science fiction anthology. So I was really happy I was able to include Catherine Kim’s story [“The Hundred Eyes”], because Catherine Kim comes from the litfic world, and that story is very literary and very experimental. I told her when I invited [her to] the anthology, I loved your story in Blackwater Review, which is very experimental, send me something weird and experimental like that. And she absolutely delivered, so I was thrilled.  TP: Yeah, Donna Haraway, who I am surprised I haven’t mentioned her like 10 times in this interview, she says the line between science fiction and social reality is an optical illusion. I think often when queer people write our stories at all, we’re so often getting into the sci-fi, and also the fantasy, of it all. That’s another rather nebulous thought-slash-question. But yes, maybe every thought is a question and every question is a thought. [end-mark] The post Living in a Cyberpunk Future: Ann LeBlanc And Tenacity Plys Discuss <em>Embodied Exegesis</em> appeared first on Reactor.

News Buffy the Vampire Slayer A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Sequel May Be Coming to Hulu—With Sarah Michelle Gellar If the apocalypse comes, beep us. By Molly Templeton | Published on February 4, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share Yes, slayers, slayerettes, and assorted members of the Scooby Gang: We’ve been here before. The news has said “Buffy sequel!” or “Buffy reboot!” and some of us—the most optimistic or cynical, depending—have braced for impact. But nothing has come of these potential (sorry, I had to) shows. This one seems like it might be different. Sources told Variety that “a sequel series to the beloved show Buffy the Vampire Slayer is nearing a pilot order at Hulu.” “Nearing a pilot order” is closer to being a real thing than “in development,” though it is still not “greenlit to series,” which is when we really get excited and/or full of dread. Hulu, of course, did not comment, but Variety has a lot of details, including that many of the producers from the original series would return (including, yes, Dolly Parton, executive producing with her company Sandollar). Also in a producing role would be Buffy star Sarah Michelle Gellar, who would return to her iconic role. But she wouldn’t be the star this time; Variety says the show “would focus on a new Slayer and Gellar would appear in a recurring role rather than leading the series.” This is good. Buffy as mentor is perfect. Buffy as mentor is kind of what the end of the series promised. (Also I’d just like to see a slayer grow older, you know?) And then, of course, there’s the question of how much of the comics this show might consider as canon. And the question of what the rest of the gang are up to. This series has a pretty excellent creative team on board: Chloé Zhao (Nomadland, Eternals) will direct and produce, while Nora Zuckerman and Lilla Zuckerman will serve as writers, executive producers, and showrunners. The Zuckerman sisters are also the showrunners of Poker Face, and their shared resume includes time writing for and/or producing shows including Fringe, Human Target, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, and Haven. Joss Whedon is not involved. Gellar has, in the past, resisted the idea of returning to Buffy, but her tone changed recently; in December, on The Drew Barrymore Show, she said that seeing things like Dexter: Original Sin (in which she stars), “definitely does get your mind thinking, ‘Well, maybe.’” Buffy herself posted the most promising hint that this new addition to the Buffyerse may be real and may come to a screen near you: A picture, captioned only with a sushi emoji, of herself in Buffy’s iconic yummy sushi pajamas.[end-mark] The post A <i>Buffy the Vampire Slayer</i> Sequel May Be Coming to Hulu—With Sarah Michelle Gellar appeared first on Reactor.

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