MAY wtf

Completely unserious progression of time

May 01, 2026

Man, I am so tired. Is it Spring? Is it still winter?? Just settle on something, weather systems! One thing I do know is that we are firmly in Wrong Coat Season, where no matter what kind of coat you leave your house in it is always the wrong coat. Be vigilant and select your outerwear with caution and care.

Per usual we've included things coming in the upcoming month, and a look at what's happening on our Patreon (which you can join for ~as little as a dollar~) & Discord which is open to all!

Let the Feelings Lift You Up:

STELLA:

I feel like I’ve done absolutely nothing this month. Lots of just getting through the day here. May brings more vaccines for my little and better weather so hopefully I’ll start to be a person again? Maybe. 

Being trapped under a baby for half my day means I’m on my phone a lot. Is that bad for me? Yes. But it also keeps me awake in the middle of the night exactly because it’s bad for my brain and I need to stay awake so needs must. Long story short I’m on threads. Threads is bad. A wasteland of social media. Do not recommend. But if you do go on it follow Christina Ricci. She has no chill and is over everyone’s bullshit. Her replies section is a massacre. 

Continuing to read books I already own. This month I really loved The Invisible Life of Addie Larue - my first VE Schwab. Such a unique story and the last few sentences were gold! I also really enjoyed the graphic novel Saint Catherine. It’s about a grown woman’s struggle with her Catholic upbringing. Now I’m not Catholic but I’m fascinated by Catholicism and I really enjoyed it. In the bad pile, I read Tacky by Rax King. It’s supposed to be a book about why “tacky” pop culture like Josie & The Pussy Cats or The Sims are valid but it’s really just a memoir about one woman’s wild sex life. Which in theory is fine but I felt duped and was annoyed. 

As I’m always online and our phones are constantly listening I’ve been hit with A LOT of Momfluencers. And even though I watch them sometimes I’m pretty grossed out by them (I’ve been unfollowing like crazy). Like on the one hand it’s cool that women and moms found a new source of income in this shit world but if it’s an account that shows the child and really makes money off the child then yuck! So obviously I started to find media about this. I watched the Ruby Franke documentary which was terribly sad. Just a reminder religious fanaticism always goes hand in hand with child abuse. I also started the podcast Under the Influence. Which is super fascinating. Highly recommend. 

Libraries are great because free books are great. But libraries are also great because they host rad events. Last month I attended an event featuring comics writer Stephanie Williams about her new Star Trek one-shot. It. Ruled. A night talking about my two favorite things comics & Star Trek? Sign me up. This is a reminder to check out the events hosted by your library!  

A new friend convinced me to try Strange New Worlds again and another friend bootlegged it for me because screw paramount. I’m only three episodes in but so far my opinion is not changing. I like it in theory. I really like basically every character except Spock. Every time that annoying quirky pick me bitch is on screen I am filled with white hot rage. Pray for me when I finally meet new Kirk 😬

ERIN:

This very application has once again confirmed how much I fucking hate AI being shoved down our throats. I know we’ve talked about this on the podcast in the past, but it truly cannot be said enough: fuck AI, fuck it being forced on us without our consent, fuck every application that uses it. I’ve never used any AI more advanced than autocorrect and literally nothing these creepy ass, dead eyed tech billionaires say will get me to. I don’t want you to summarize my email that has important information in it into an unintelligible slop. I don’t want you to pop up for no reason trying to screengrab what I’m doing. I don’t want that at all actually. GO AWAY, LEAVE US ALONE.

Well behind the boat on this one but I FINALLY saw Project Hail Mary and, in a deeply unsurprising move, I really liked it. Here’s an example of someone who only half liked it - Drew Magary, whose writing I really enjoy - for a little critical balance. I watched it twice because I seriously spent about 80% of the first showing wondering about how insane it would be to be the specimen in a first contact situation. So naturally it has also made me think of Arrival a lot, a movie I also half enjoyed (nonlinear vs linear time gets me, apologies to Kurt Vonnegut). I’ve always thought it was nuts that we as a species really thought “they will be able to work a record player” out there in hyper intelligent space when we down here barely even know how to do that anymore. It’s a really selfish way to think about space while being bundled inside of truly good intentions. The human experience. Like, literally imagine if aliens showed up and we handed them a stick and acorn and were like “they will definitely figure out this is for music AND food!” and were confused when they ground them into paste. Anyway that's where my brain goes!

I’ve been slowly emerging from my years-long reading slump and actually have things to share! 

If you didn't know, I’m basically obsessed with Jeff Lemire. I found The Underwater Welder many years ago on a library shelf and have been fully in love with his style ever since. I cannot recommend the Descender and Ascender series enough, for example. This time though I’m reading through the Bone Orchard Mythos and absolutely loving them - I have to force myself to read slower so that I can really appreciate the surrealism happening in both the script and the illustration. In many ways they remind me of darker versions of The Mazebook, which is also very good.

Right up to the wire I just finished reading a very good sci-fi book called Of Monsters and Mainframes. I really enjoyed it - it’s almost like a beach read with the short chapters and quick pace. I was seriously like ~40 pages in thinking “where else could this go for 300+ more pages?!” And let me tell ya, they figured it out. There are some things I want to discuss about it, so somebody else needs to read it lol.

I’m also re-reading through Exquisite Corpses, which is about to EXPLODE with prequels and sequels, one of the only weeklies I’ve ever followed in real time. I also love James Tynion IV, so this has been another check on the I’m Into This column. If you like violence, and compelling storytelling!, I highly recommend it.

I’ve been playing a lot of Mario Kart with my kid, so that’s been pretty cool, too. He is quite good, which is terrifying. How does someone who was not alive 4 years ago get 2nd??

Oh, also, I cut 6 inches off of my hair and I feel free. I did not get bangs, don’t worry. I’m not THAT manic.

PRODUCER BOBBY:

Ok good things not bad real things good real things. 

We found a whole wheat pizza dough recipe that doesn’t spike my sweet sweet blood so I CAN HAVE PIZZA NOW. Making your own pizza is dope and I invite you to go crazy with your topping choices. The jar of pickled jalapenos and onions I had made a week earlier did come in handy. Don’t listen to the internet about anything, including how polarizing your pizza toppings are. 

I did the thing and started a plex server. Tooling around with getting it running on Linux was a wonderful vacation from caring about anything else for several days. I was also unaware of plexamp, a really fun music program they have that is allowing me to access my decade plus old music files on the go. I will eventually probably switch to open-source versions of these things, but plex is easier to give access to others on. This felt good. Hosting games more often has felt good. Creating spaces for others to enjoy themselves right now feels important. 

Ever have a ttrpg that you REALLY wanna run, so much that you’re getting in your own way of just asking 4 people so sit down and play it? Right now for me, that's Mothership from Tuesday Knight Games. It’s brutal sci-fi horror with a high death rate and SUCH cool content. I’m ready to run this twice a month if I ever get out of my own way. They also just released a more fairytale-focused engine, Fatherfog.  

O K R E C S

Musics:

A new Failure album (genre: space indie rock from the people who invented it). It’s less punchy but it’s still a Failure album. It’s very good. Excellent strategic deployment of Hayley Williams.

Speaking of strategic deployment, Bad Operation (genre: all-wave ska) is going to make it summer even if the sky isn’t quite there yet. A very complete album that immediately got me pumped to go to a show sometime soon.

Movies: 

If you’re in for a silly, bloody time that’s icky but won’t ick you out, give the Deathstalker (link: youtube trailer) remake a look! It’s sword and sorcery without all of the racist and misogynist pitfalls. It’s lovingly made, proudly low budget (fuckyespuppets), and so goopy and splorpy. Very much the tone of the Xena/Hercules TV shows but with the guts to 11. If you want to familiarize yourself with the source material, MST3K (link: youtube of full Mystery Science Theater 300 episode 703: Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell) makes it a little more tolerable.

This month’s Links 4 U:

Things coming this month:

  • Not Your Demo/PostPartum Chat! 

  • Instagram, here we are: @nydproductions you can get show announcements, hilarious clips, a truly unhinged array of reposts, and general revelry. (Upscroll? Erin is squatting her name)

  • So does it exist? It does! Tumblr!

  • Bluesky @nydproductions we’ll figure out what to do with this someday

Exclusive to our Patreon (it's only a dollar!) and open for all Discord!

  • Join the book club in May! Discord has all the (virtual, do not worry) meetup information!

  • Xtras on the Patreon include:

    • All of the Erin’s Not Your Demo After Darks are available 

    • Unofficial Channels archive is there 4 u

    • Outtakes from X-treks

    • First looks at upcoming projects

And in the Discord, let’s hang out! We’ve got lots of cool little internet rooms.

  • Memes 

  • talk sports! It does happen!

  • Stay up to date on the milk wars   

  • Erin is back in May with liveposting fanfic in Stella’s Link Lounge! She’s also documenting it on our Instagram highlights. It’s been long enough - she needs weird recommendations! The time has come.

Hachacha!