this may be a cold take btw but i dont think we paid ENOUGH attention to the Pivot To Video, the point of which i think is clear in retrospect WAS to utterly annihilate an extant and flourishing media ecosystem and replace it with something much easier to push low-trust audience fractionation with

I really think our reactionary age is downstream of the three heads of the Scam Economy, Wellness, Social Media, and Gambling/Crypto

Among other things, we often contrast in Greek military thought between the personal-excellence 'Achilles' ethos and the clever-tactics 'Odysseus' ethos. Whereas Pete Hegseth recalls the Ajax-the-Lesser ethos of being forgettably bland and unimpressive except for doing a bunch of sexual assault.

Back when there was a trend to have video game trailers backed by a sad, somber piano version of a pop song (think Gary Jules’s Mad World), did anybody ever do that to Lawyers, Guns, and Money? Because that’d be awesome.

#WIPSnips | half (From Chapter 5 of The Stardust of Failure) I half-expected a Day of the Locust stampede when the church doors at last opened to grant us admittance. It didn’t come, but a crazed buzz, a current of chaos, thrummed in the air nonetheless.

#WIPSnips | ability From The Stardust of Failure, Chapter 8:

2016 is the birth year of the "it's fine" meme. just saying.

The Stardust of Failure, Ch 5: Alix wore proudly the latest trinket Aunt Molly sent her: a gold badge in the shape of the Mintaka Space Expeditions logo, its three stars lit by real diamonds. It’d flown in space with Molly, and now Alix paraded it as a token of celestial favor.

It's his birthday today so ofc u should read my comic about him Dying

The exceptions are the MC David, who emerged as a specific type of prickly, tyrannical, rock-band figure I wanted to work on, and his initial love interest Eric, inspired by flaky "genius" musicians who wreak havoc. I had particular RL figures in mind in designing them both. (2) #pretendpanel

The characters in Butterfly on a Wheel emerged in stories I was writing for myself as a tween, mostly inspired LOOSELY by people I knew. When I decided to specifically write a saga of a rock band, they were retooled (over many years) to fit the classic rock archetypes I wanted to explore. (1/2)

#WIPSnips | nowhere Just hearing Nicky sing to the nations of children with nowhere to go between the new sun and the chill wind made me wonder, just for a moment, if all we’d been through wasn’t worth it in the greater scale of time. Worth something, anyway.

From The Stardust of Failure, Chapter 6: #WritingPrompt

i like that the administration is run by dilettantes whose pathological unseriousness is illustrated by their total disregard for human life

Absolutely. Both Molly DeSanti and Jeanette Hayhurst have a lot of me in them, which given they're lifelong antagonists says... something... about me! Molly began as more the idealized, aspirational avatar of self while Jeanette was the more grounded, "realistic" self-insert. #pretendpanel

Today is the birthday of David Stuart, the main character of Butterfly on a Wheel and the bass player for Sigma S Star. The #SongSpotlight for today is the track whose sound inspired his signature song, "Messenger" (on the album The Politics of Rapture). www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl3F...

We took in a total eclipse of the sun from a sanctuary for sandhill cranes along the Platte, and in that moment when the stars shone in mid-afternoon and pink flames licked the disk of our darkened sun, it felt like we were living the life we’d been supposed to have. #WritingPrompt

Today in Butterfly on a Wheel lore: 9/2 is the birthday of Allie and Melanie Roberts, the (fraternal) twins who play bass and drums respectively for the Moondreamers. I consider "True Faith" by New Order to be one of Allie's theme songs. :) www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfI1... #SongSpotlight

Gogai, gogai! We don't get BRAND NEW NEVER BEFORE SEEN official artwork often here in the Revolutionary Girl Utena fandom, but when we do, it's Chiho Saito serving us post-series sapphic HELL YES. This was part of a merchandise drop from Rose-nik, cleaned from a scan by purpleriot with permission!

“Oughta put something on here,” Nicky said of his newest guitar, a customized purple Telecaster meant to replace the one that met its end at Reading in 2007. “Y’know, like ‘This Machine Kills Fascists.’” “It’s been done,” I said. “How about ‘This Axe Belongs to a Dying Nation?’”

From Chapter 3 of The Stardust of Failure: An element of their music always had been an appeal to heaven—a child’s yearning for that pure, bright star beyond the highest towers, for the white wings of doves and angels beating against the blue morning sky. #WritingPrompt

“Honestly, you’d think living in the apocalypse would be my jam,” Nicky said of his creative drought. “This is Biblical shit.” “Funny how terrible things happening doesn’t make for a well of inspiration,” Jeanette said. “Sometimes all the end times do is make one tired.” #WIPSnips | tired

New art by me of Ray and Gene from my upcoming novel, SYMPATHY FOR THE BLUES! I love this pose because it perfectly encapsulates the insufferable tension between these two throughout the book 🤭💕 ARC sign-ups are now open for SYMPATHY FOR THE BLUES: forms.gle/9eesCddj1Z62...

The scary headlines about "Chorus, a sEcReT dArK mOnEy gRoUp" have been absolutely wild to watch. Because I'm in Chorus, & it's been a godsend. Without it, I wouldn't be able to cover the US's massive modern-day farm slavery problem- at all. youtu.be/f5UwwtrGdak

From Chapter 9 of The Stardust of Failure, a snippet of lyric from the Sigma S Star song "Something Fated": I’ve heard the story I’ve bought the album once or twice Faith, hope, and glory All coupled with some bad advice #WIPSnips | faith

I missed a couple of days because life got sticky, but here's a snippet of orange from The Stardust of Failure: #WritingPrompt

From Chapter 3 of The Stardust of Failure, some lyrics to the song "The Year of Magicicadas" by the Moondreamers: #WritingPrompt

From Chapter 8 of The Stardust of Failure: "I briefly tried to be SuperMom, in between sipping green tea and eating my noni-fruit squares, but my body wouldn’t let me do more than a fraction of what was required. I retaliated by cancelling everything." #WritingPrompt

Here's a snippet of lyric from The Stardust of Failure: #WritingPrompt

🎸 COVER REVEAL of SYMPATHY FOR THE BLUES 🎸 The cover for book 1 of my upcoming 1970s rockstar romance trilogy! I designed, drew, and painted this artwork 100% all by myself 💕 🎸MM Romance 🎤Singer x Guitarist 🎸Slow burn 🎤Best friends to lovers 🎸Double bi-awakening a.co/d/5VH4EcV

From The Stardust of Failure, Chapter 11. #WritingPrompt

Had a fun time writing about bread and circuses vs. bread and roses and whether in crises we're allowed to have fun. www.meditationsinanemergency.com/circuses-vs-...

"Misinformation at its trickiest: one true thing, a partially true thing, an elision of something else rooted in truth, pieced together into something that wasn’t true at all but was easy to repeat and believe and had sticking power." #HumpDay #WritingCommunity #WritingQ #snippetshare

shit's devolving so badly we're having the "should little Timmy be watching this" talk but for a whole society of grown ass adults

I absolutely read reviews but have a no-response policy for them. I want to know if what I wrote connected with readers :) #pretendpanel

Butterfly on a Wheel #BandSpotlight: Talk Talk! Starting off as synth-pop and evolving to post-rock, Talk Talk had a few big hits but are one of those bands with an impact on other artists far beyond any sales charts. The Moondreamers are one such band. :) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk_Talk #BookSky

#WIPSnips | recent He’d shut all the recent unpleasantness up in some mental broom closet and was coping the way he did, which was by not-so-metaphorically running off to the circus. I said yes because that was a defense mechanism I could relate to. (From The Stardust of Failure, Ch 6)

a friend of mine once suggested to me that it is rising prosperity, and not declining prospects, that leads people to indulge their prejudices at the voting booth. once you feel you're materially secure enough, you might decide that you want to vote for a psychological wage.

I kind of love that every second Leonard Cohen song is about "what if this traditional expression of longing for the divine was also about a real sexy lady"

It's the birthday of Molly DeSanti, the adorable antagonist of Butterfly on a Wheel, so in her honor let's have a #SongSpotlight: "She Bangs the Drums," Stone Roses Euphoric guitar-pop. Swirling psychedelia. The Roses at their most catchy & accessible. www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD6P... #BookSky

#WIPSnips | enemy In the fullness of time, we’d realized the true Boomer enemy of our worst fantasies wasn’t a bunch of guys with guitars and bad haircuts who’d sold out. Selling out didn’t mean a g*dd*mned thing. The Man who’d arrived transcended the very concept of selling out.

Apparently on Twitter they decided Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros is the worst song ever and my inner boomer jumped out, if you kids heard any random number one single from 1975 you’d throw up until you died

Detroit's airport is my favorite because of this, which looks even cooler in real life

so much of the good parts of the internet from 10+ years ago was in the comments, which it seems like blog hosts did everything the could to render unusable and ultimately destroy

#WIPSnips | flower From The Stardust of Failure, Chapter 8: His color wasn’t right. I kept thinking of what Molly said so long ago, about the translucence of a flower petal before it withers and goes brown. Allie had that look about him still.

From Butterfly on a Wheel, Ch 4: “I thought I’d be happier with short hair, but it isn’t working for me. I think I might hate it,” David said a few days later, gingerly touching the sleek new style like the cut ends of his hair were an open wound. #queerwriters

I love mysteries! I don’t have a particular genre beyond ‘literary fiction’ but I hope to write a historical novel or three some day! #pretendpanel

Nope! Even in terms of genre stories (I like mysteries) I want a hook broader than Trope X to pique my interest and tropes don’t particularly factor into the stories I want to tell. #pretendpanel

After a lifetime of being scared (despite never having been stung), I read a lot about their behaviour and took a new approach - calm, informed, at one with nature. The next time I encountered a wasp (in a beer garden) the stripey little bastard stung me right on the mouth.