don't want to see every shipwrecked part of me

I have many reasons why I will not use those tools, going from lack of accuracy, lack of ethics, and a higher waste of energy.

But my main reason is this:

I will do things the hard way. I will learn how to do things the hard way.

Because AI is a subscription. And when the world is dependant on AI, they will raise the price of that subscription.

And when the company I work for decides that paying for AI is too expensive for their bottom line, they will remove it.

"i'm so basic.....i just like a lot of butter or jam :(" (as though those are not god's best and most beloved condiments and his greatest gifts to mankind)

"FUCK health guidelines FUCK my cholesterol and most importantly FUCK diet culture i'll put a dumpster full of butter on my toast and not even GOD will stop me" (no notes. god would encourage this)

doxxing one's self by mention of polarizing regional delicacies (i am so curious about vegemite i must admit)

"does a grilled cheese count as toast?" (not for the purposes of this post)

"i don't like toast please don't kill me" (i appreciate the honesty but i fear this post is not for you)

people who put full ass meals on toast (based)

people who do not but eat toast as a full meal (based)

melty peanut butter (absolutely based)

"it's a guilty pleasure but...nutella 😳" (relieve yourself of fear and enjoy your dessert toast)

beans on toast defenders (i will always support beans in any diet)

really strong opinions on what counts as toast and what does not for the purposes of this post (i left it vague for a reason)

a million avocado toast recipes that sound so delicious

someone who soft announced their pregnancy in the tags (congrats!)

"do i...have POTS?"

For public libraries, one of the ways we secure funding year to year is lending. Governments don’t want to fund more books if they’re not being used and the way we measure use is by issues. Regardless of whether you read it or not, whether you have it for a day or a month, if you issue it to your library card, we get the stats! It makes the library look good!

The following has been copied over from our new Substack.

Dear reader,

OFIC Mag is back! Here’s what we’ve been up to:

We ended our print run with issue #13 last October. It was not an easy or willing choice for us. Being a print publication was part of our initial vision for OFIC. Unfortunately our subscription platform of choice was Patreon, which eliminated its “per creation” billing option last fall. We publish three issues per year, so we charged three times a year. With that change forcing us to reconsider our workflow, we decided that the complications of printing and distribution were no longer conducive to our long-term goals—our long-term goals being: keep going for as long as possible.

Initially I intended to pivot to a fully online publication with stories posted on our website, because that’s how most digital lit mags work. But I started doing research into how other mags operate, and I discovered that while I love the aesthetic of many of them and the work they produce, I really hate how they’re organized. Namely, you click a random title of a random piece and start reading. With print, you can just turn pages; there’s an inherent order to it. But with online magazines presented as tables of contents with no information but a work’s title and its author, there’s nothing that really encourages you to read.

What I found myself thinking repeatedly was, “Just send me a story. I just want to read a story.” I don’t want to click on a link to a page with the story on it. I don’t want to click on a link that takes me to a page of other links, especially if those links are just author names I don’t recognize. I don’t want to be met with a paywall after three paragraphs. I just want a story, in full, in my inbox at regular intervals.

Then I thought, “Hey, why don’t I just...do that?”

And here we are.

How it works

We’re keeping it simple. Free subscribers receive one story every other week. No paywalls.

In addition to the above, paid subscribers ($5 per month or $30 per year) receive the PDF and EPUB files of each issue as it releases. New issues come out on April 1, July 1, and October 1 each year. You can also purchase them on our website for $8. We understand that’s a weird price discrepancy, but $5/month and $30/year is the lowest Substack will let us go.

Funds from paid subscriptions go toward our operational expenses and contributor honorariums.

Subscribe

More info under the cut

Our latest is live! 🏒 Kayti Burt reports on the fallout around the recent document attempting to identify fanfiction authors using AI, and how Heated Rivalry is ground zero for fandom's broader reckoning with AI-generated text on all sides:

“Fandom Has A Hidden Generative AI Problem” gives shape to a breakdown in a basic social contract for online fandom and all online community and discourse. While fanfiction writing is  generally pseudonymous, readers have historically at least been able to rely on the assumption that a fellow human being is writing the story they are reading. With the introduction of AI, that fundamental pact between fic writer and fic reader has been fractured. Fandom is a place for people to be in community together—to bond over shared obsessions in a way that can make us feel a little less alone. Realizing someone has outsourced that connection to a machine can make us feel even more alone.