Joseph Brassey

Yup.

My* entertainment, excuse me.

Either way, it’s just blatantly obvious that they don’t think other people have their own thoughts and opinions and ability to act independently on them. They’re always shocked when people do anything other than cower or fawn.

In this light, the conservative accusation of “NPC” that was popular a few years ago should be taken not as “you think like a conformist whereas I am an independent thinker” but as “you are a Thing without agency that is only here for me entertainment.”

It doesn’t all come back to this but a really significant part is that these people don’t believe that anyone who isn’t them actually has any agency. They think they’re a bunch of protagonists surrounded by video game NPC’s who are just there to validate them or be acted upon by them.

I tell people often that a lot of Frank Herbert slots into place when you realize he was from Tacoma and lived a lot of his life in Port Townsend.

It’s a joke, but also not.

And boom, you have a recipe for a situation where people are easily drawn into unhinged fury with a well-placed tweet or post or video. They’ll likely spread it around, and piss other people off in the process. Rinse, repeat. /End

As a direct result of these factors, a lot of the people with a vested interest in fucking with our system know that all they have to do is know their audiences assumptions, and hurl some horseshit in front of them that will make them feel both angry and validated in that anger. Most won’t check. 2/

One of the things that’s happening I think is that the disinformation brokers know that our electorate is

-Severely uninformed

-Doesn’t know how to parse disinformation.

-Unlikely to stop to verify when they see something that both adheres to their biases and that makes them angryz

1/

One of the challenging dynamics about social media is that it is categorically stupid to talk openly about meaningful anti-government organising, but then that leaves a vast space for the doomers to fill up with "why isn't anyone doing anything!?"

If I was a failed writer I’d have a men’s rights podcast.

It’s so telling when a hate comment on one of my videos (which I get… often) is a MAGA chud pretending not to be. They always lead with something like “you’re a failed writer” which is just funny.

Idk what you’re talking about mate I’m still writing last I checked.

They’re screaming troglodytes whose brains have been melted by the click-o-sphere. They don’t know how to do any of this and whatever they pull off is mostly good fortune and privilege lining up. Don’t mistake those small wins for actual competence.

These guys are idiots.

Like I promise you these guys are not smart. They’re a bunch of dunce-ass failsons who’ve consistently staggered upwards. They don’t know how to run a country. They don’t know how to run a war. They have no clue what to do when people resist them.

It is so apparent that Hegseth has not a damn clue what he’s doing. Trumps brain is liquid goop melting out his ears. Miller is so high on his own supply that he cannot anticipate resistance to his own policies and flails like a toddler when he encounters any at all. They don’t have a master plan.

The cover to Joseph Brassey's "Glassblade, a Novel of the Wielders," featuring a drawing of a teenage boy, a glass sword-hilt, an iphone, a pencil, and a necklace with a glass bead.

A drawing of a dark haired man with brown eyes and stubble. The signature reads "Michael"

Autumn, 2013 Michael Schwan parked his red truck two blocks away, in a familiar space that through fate or irony was the same as the one he’d hurried to so many times all those years ago, and his heavy work boots stood in a familiar puddle in front of the Hearth Community Center. He did not want to be here, but he’d exhausted every other avenue that he knew of. Of all the places he might have visited, this was the riskiest, but the message he’d received—meant for Gabe but redirected to him—had said the thread was cut, which could only mean one thing: the Tenders had been murdered. Michael needed to find out whom had done it, how it had been done, and ensure that whomever knew about his family’s most closely guarded secret was silenced before whatever else they knew could cause more trouble. I am going to have to kill people before this is done.

Chap 6 is out to early access, and drops for everyone else 3/16/26! Noir Epic Fantasy. A city on the blade's edge. Art by @data2048.bsky.social #booksky

Catchup: www.wattpad.com/story/406254...

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I hope to live to see a world where old folks don't feel a compulsion to keep working until they die and leave their partners to field phone calls wondering where they are.

I hope a better world is possible where people can simply retire. No, you don't have to be a contractor, go play golf.

Ugh.

That cover of Nothing Else Matters from the Jungle Cruise soundtrack is so damn good.

Specifically the Vilenuve but they’re all good.

God the Dune score beats ass.

Cosigned.

We desperately need more co-op tech companies, but as always, start-up money is the problem.

Anything that can simply be purchased by a sufficient number of right wing rich people bullying their way onto the board is too vulnerable to enshitification to invest in.

Being privately owned doesn’t mean the company isn’t evil, but it does mean that if it’s not, it’s more likely to stay thus.

The only companies I am willing to extend any real trust to are either privately owned or employee owned.

Anything accountable to shareholders is inherently suspect.

YOU CAN'T DENY US! [Best in Show Bakuretsucon 2013] Gurren Lagann YouTube video by BecauseImBored1

Don't mind me, just getting misty-eyed over a 13 year old AMV.

I mean most of it is because it’s not catered to male fantasies but that’s not the only reason either.

Like if you think telling stories about people falling in love are stupid kids stuff, you also clearly think that one of the most profound and motivating human experiences is stupid kids stuff, and that can’t be good for your life.

Whenever I see people calling romance as a genre “frivolous and silly l” I hear them saying “love is frivolous and silly” and I’m like 90% sure this is one of the beliefs that at the heart of our societal rot.

One of the root problems of our society is a refusal or inability by media to articulate that all those “it’s gonna be an apocalypse” disasters were not disasters because we collectively did something about them.

“Y2K came to nothing amirite?”

Yes because an army of software engineers prevented it from happening.

“Remember the hole in the ozone layer?”

You mean the one that was fixed through rigorous world wide government action?

“Haha remember when murder-hornets were gonna be a thing? What a nothingburger.”

Yes, because the Washington state government activated like a sleeper-cell and ruthlessly, systematically hunted them down and annihilated them.