Joseph Brassey

Author updates and stuff

[josephbrassey]

The thing is the average AI-bro does not actually expect to get rich and famous off generating bullshit with an LLM. What they get excited about is what they see as the primary currency of life—popularity and prestige—being stripped away from people who make beautiful things, by devaluing beauty itself.

Underneath every one of these “move fast and break things” innovators is an insecure person who has never been meaningfully popular resenting the help out of the fact that a writer or an artist or actor got more likes on their posts than they did. It’s the same reason the far right used to lose their minds over blue check marks in Twitter’s old days, and it’s why once Musk got ahold of it he turned the blue check into something anyone could just buy.

In their world, popularity is something you should be able to buy, because their money can buy anything else, right? And even if they themselves don’t have money, they can at least rest easy knowing that some uppity artist isn’t able to gain any more prestige than someone who has enough money to buy the same thing.

For all these people talk about merit, there’s nothing they fear more. A world built on merit is a world where you have to actually put in effort and make things in order to receive admiration and validation. They are so unwilling to try this, and so deeply resentful of anyone who is, that they would rather destroy artistic merit itself than see someone else have it.

Can they do this? Can they destroy the arts? Nah. But even if they could, the world they’d make is so drab and flattened and boring that nobody, even them, would really want to live in it.

[josephbrassey]

Y’all realize that even if LLM’s give correct answers reasonably often that makes them MORE dangerous, right? Because people are then less likely to be suspicious when it gives them a cleaning recipe that will produce lethal chlorine gas in their dishwasher.

A thing that is trustworthy 1/4th to even 3/4ths of the time and lethally, dangerously wrong in the remaining cases is not, in fact, trustworthy.

[lastpositivist]

The purest expression of being a Warhammer fan

[josephbrassey]

It is always always always worth asking—when something on the Internet makes you furious—“who benefits from me being emotionally compromised by this?”

[josephbrassey]

A frequent subject of my fiction—as someone who’s done martial arts for 18 years—is the fallibility of teachers and the sort of inevitable strain that can happen over many years of training together. Ellis Amdur talks a bit about this in one of his books—either Dueling with O-Sensei or Old School—that essentially an inevitable result of a student growing stronger is the teacher becomes more vulnerable.

I do not necessarily mean physically, though that’s part of it. I’m specifically talking about how the teacher often starts off as a figure of mystique and power and wisdom, but eventually all of this is stripped away. There’s simply no way to train with someone for many years without their faults and foibles becoming readily apparent. The mystique fades. The wisdom is all dispensed, and as the power differential becomes more even, pupil and teacher must eventually regard one another as equal, flawed people.

And this is where the schism either happens or does not happen. When mystery is gone and physical power is equal, when your teacher, mentor, parental figure is visible for all that they are with all the imperfections and flaws and disappointing qualities the question becomes: are you compatible? Do you cling to the version of the person you thought you knew, and resent them for being human instead, or—regardless of whether you go your own way or not—do you allow them to be just a flawed, messy person?

I have been on both sides of this equation, now. Several times. Ultimately it’s the same sort of thing as having to go from seeing your parents as your wise protectors to learning that they’re just messy, imperfect humans. I don’t think there’s any one answer. It’s very circumstantial. But one of the things I sort of hope posts like this—and stories that concern it—will do is make people who are struggling with this dynamic **aware of what is happening.**

You will save yourself a great deal of pain when entering any teacher-student relationship if you sidestep at the outset the trap of regarding your mentor as anything other than a person whose faults will eventually become EXTREMELY visible to you. And once you are faced with them you will—as everyone does—face the choice of going your own way, or staying and continuing.

There is no right answer for every situation, but being aware of what is actually going on can help you avoid a lot of psychological agony.

[josephbrassey]

Billionaire: “I’m running for office because I want to use my power to help people.”

Everyone: “… you know you could just… DO that. WITHOUT running for office.”

Billionaire: “…”

Everyone: “with all your money, we mean.”

Billionaire: “…”

Everyone: “… you just wanna be in charge huh.”

Billionaire: “I REALLY do.”

[monsterkinsworld]

[josephbrassey]

Glassblade Characters as Different Types of Produce because It's a Thursday and School is Out for the Summer Oh God Help Me.

(All art by the awesome @data2048, Characters are mine)

First off, Gabe, our principle protagonist: The Concord Grape.

Yes yes, he has purple eyes and Concord Grapes are purple. Really though, this has less to do with the color and more to do with his versatility as a person, with his general sweetness (despite what his portrait would have you think), and the fact that he looks good on a spread surrounded by green leaves is of old stock, best suited to northern climates (the guy will straight up melt in temps over 80) and clusters around wooden fences until he falls off is good at most of the things he tries. He's also kinda basic, rural, and isn't super demanding as far as crops go, and the vines of Concord Grapes serve as excellent cover for arbors, fences, gardens, walls, and trellises. Gabe is all about acts of service, and he'd be glad to be seen that way, I think.

Second off, Claire Vallais, Daughter of the Prince of House Vallais: The Dragonfruit

I could've gone with one of the million varieties of apple. I almost DID go with one of the million varieties of apple. Hell, I almost went with the GREEN apple just to be funny and ironic (I also almost went with straight ginger but that would've been too on the nose). I settled on the Dragonfruit though because--frankly--it looks unhinged, and this is the girl who causes a wholeass political crisis by being unable to hold back from throwing a punch when someone hurts her cousin. I am not saying that the Dragonfruit is quick to take offense (I am absolutely saying that), I am not saying that it is quick to anger or violence (It looks like it is both), And I am not saying that it's Royalty (I wouldn't be caught dead saying that it's not though--look at the thing!), but I am saying that it looks like a red dragon's egg, and if anyone else also has those traits, it's probably Claire.

Thirdly, Jonathan Heart, Retainer to the House of Vallais, Claire's tutor, and bodyguard: the Quince

Heart is the sort of man who when cooked goes from being sour and bitter to sweet and delectable is circumstantially appreciable. He's also someone who takes a bit to appreciate, because despite the fact that he's gay librarian hot aesthetically well put together, he's also an acquired taste and is capable of getting under the skin in a very uncomfortable way when not properly prepared. When you get to know him, however, especially in the right situation, he can be very sweet, a real treat, and noble in bearing and intention (if not descent). Heart is also very blond, and Quince are yellow. There is a theme here and it is very subtle and I am scraping the bottom of the barrel determined to stick with what I've got going for me.

Next up: Agnes the Green, fabled retainer of the Schwan Family, who is not actually going to be a green fruit: The Beet

I know I know, beets are purple, not green, and everything about Agnes is themed around the color Green, which flies in the face of the last three characters themes, but hear me out: she's an irritable baba who will put their boot so far up a jerk's ass they piss blood the next day a Russian Grandmother so beet's were approproate. On the surface level this is because beets are a key ingredient of borscht, which she's always talking about making (she's very good at it) but also because of the nature of beets themselves: they're a very hearty crop, able to withstand all sorts of seasons and able to put down roots in a lot of different places. They're hearty and very nutritious, useful in a whole bunch of different dishes and an excellent source of several things the body needs, and if you eat too many of them you'll be scared the next day that you're bleeding internally they encourage diligence in your biological movements. I also really like beets, and Agnes is a both a person who has proven herself able to survive incredible danger and hardship while managing to feed her family effectively and sustainably. That makes this the ideal pick.

And Last But Not Least, Michael Schwan, Regent of the House of Schwan: The Durian

Michael is not from the area where Durians naturally grow. He's an extremely aristocratic man of Western European descent, but I still had to pick a Durian. I picked it because he has a gooey, delicacy of a center once you get to know him, but getting to know him requires getting through an extremely tough outer layer that is literally COVERED IN SPIKES, and a socially offensive odor that would be more than enough to drive an entire crowd of people immediately of of public transit in a stampede. Michael is many things--one of the principle driving characters of the story, a staggering, accidentally dancing gay disaster of a human being, handsome, traumatized, and prone to taking root in weird places, but he's also profoundly decent and good at his core, and while the taste is acquired, once you acquire it, it's hard to shake it from your memory (hopefully in a good way, though that's not guaranteed. Also I really am serious about the man being able to drive people off public transit. After his first few chapters he probably reeks.

Want to know more? Catch up here

Want new chapters to your inbox every other week? Click here

Want to support the story directly? Check here

Also if you got to the end of this thing, bless you, bless you, bless you.

[josephbrassey]

At the YMCA and a group of teenage boys who apparently ordered too much Taco Bell started just handing it out to strangers. They asked if I want one and I said "honestly yeah I'm really hungry, thank you!"

One of them fist bumped me and said "I gotchu dawg."

That was a wholesome bunch of lads. So when I say "Boys will be Boys" or “let boys be boys” going forward I want it clear that I mean "A bunch of kind hearted jr gym-bros handing out Tacos to strangers."

[josephbrassey]

The sheer hate in the air, the malice, is so palpable that I can’t ignore it, today. I normally get through by ignoring it, focusing on other things, and bringing love and creativity into being. I do things for strangers, for friends, for myself, for my family, and I let that be enough.

I can’t, today. It’s ugly, heinous, evil, and overwhelming in its totality. I’m exhausted and sad.

[frayinaforest]

i feel like the best tip for someone struggling to write stuff is to lean into the cringe to keep the flow going instead of constantly deleting and starting from the top

[josephbrassey]

Everything I have ever successfully published was the result of unabashedly embracing emotional earnestness, which is what people call cringe.

If you don’t write what you love, the work won’t be good. If you do, it can be great.

[josephbrassey]

A quick and dirty way I’ve learned to spot fake, dumb history takes is to look at the “reason” being offered as to why X thing happened and whether that explanation is both

A. Hollywood compelling,

B. Conveniently simple.

In my personal and yes, anecdotal experience, if a historical explanation for something fits A, it’s too complex for B to apply, and if it’s B, it’s too boring for A to be the case.

This methodology does not catch everything, but what it misses is usually pretty interesting.

[josephbrassey]

I call bullshit on "edgy" or "dark" media not being able to be made today because of Woke in an era when Berserk has never been more popular.

(Yes Berserk is plenty woke but they don't get that).

Also Berserk--while it does take a certain constitution to be able to read it--is very good, and if you think it's just a murder-and-rape-fest consider that one of its most popular demographics is women who are SA survivors.

And as Miura said, the core audience has always been women.

[josephbrassey]

Issues with Jared Leto aside people I trust are starting to compare the Masters of the Universe movie favorably to the Wachowski Speed Racer film in a very specific way that makes me perk up:

It’s got a wholesome protagonist who demonstrates to young cis boys how to be both archetypically masculine and non-toxic.

Fidelity or not aside if this is true that makes the flick worth seeing for me. Those films are worth their weight in gold.

[josephbrassey]

I’ve been poking at Roman history and the Roman sources tendency to insist that cleopatra was physically plain is so funny when you know the context.

They were—at that point in history—obsessed with the notion that Roman women were the most beautiful in the world. Caesar was married to a Roman woman of high status.

Therefore, entirely for nationalistic reasons, he had to be attracted to Cleopatra ENTIRELY because of her keen political mind. NOT because she was physically attractive. That was NOT ALLOWED.

Mind you Cleopatra seems to have been the complete package: beautiful and brilliant and cunning, but for the sake of the Roman ego, in their histories she had to be PHYSICALLY UNREMARKABLE.

Reading some of this stuff you can almost hear an indignant Roman historian saying “… and Caesar had a child with Cleopatra, who was nOT PRETTIER THAN HIS NOBLE ROMAN WIFE.”

[josephbrassey]

Me: **constantly thinking fantasy authors over-inflate their military numbers.**

Me: **Reading about the battle of Vienna in 1683 where the king of Poland broke the Ottoman siege of the city my personally leading a downhill cavalry charge of 3000 hussars at the head of 18,000 horsemen.**

Me: “… or maybe they undershoot it sometimes.”

[the-lamplighter]

Persepolis

[wearepaladin]

Rest in peace, Marjane Satrapi