Brandon O’Brien | National Pray For A Bredren Month (extended)
🇹🇹 Poet, SFF writer, TTRPG designer. Worldcon 2025 Poet Laureate.
@rascal.news columnist. Podcaster @speculate.bsky.social & @skiffyandfanty.com.
Author of CAN YOU SIGN MY TENTACLE? and other things.
Thank God for words.
brandonobrien.xyz
- so let me get this straight: a giant circle in Switzerland allowed a group of researchers to perform one of the most complicated and sought-after feats in alchemy? quick, someone check to make sure no one's talking to flasks full of black goo in the surrounding area, or we're all doomed
- Today's tunes. I think the existence of this mix just caused a couple of my neurons to pop from an inexplicable sense of joy.
- This thought is still consuming my brain, allyuh.
- The timing of [that Facebook post] notwithstanding, I can think of very few things that are less like journalism and more like astroturfing than a group of Substack posts packaged alongside a Reddit forum full of people conflating other people’s antisemitism with proof of their target’s innocence.
- Aside: there is still a particular point I'm trying to hone in my essay that this video both didn't cover in the detail I want to, & yet helped me articulate much better than I initially had in mind. it also convinced me that the essay title has to change. ~totally unrelated~, tonight's tunes:
- This Adam Neely video makes some of the best arguments I see for why creatives should rebuke AI as part of the process: that it's asking us to make art lonelier, that 'efficiency' is deliberately anti-craft, and MANY OF ITS KEY STAKEHOLDERS ARE LITERAL FASCISTS??
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- Wonder Man is absolutely brilliant. That is all.
- I've been thinking of this old essay of mine I wrote for @interstellarflight.bsky.social Magazine just over three years ago. So much more to say about how power will even destroy its benefactors in service of hegemony and seek to rewrite history to defend it—but also how we can rewrite our future.
- "Joseph's mother Sallycar Korasingh added that if the US government believed her son had done something wrong, "it should have arrested, charged and detained him, not murdered him"."
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- Please pay attention to what's happening in Minneapolis, Minnesota. youtu.be/W1dyNcRGRXY Reposts are appreciated.
- My desire to see Ye become healthier notwithstanding, I am not only angry because I am confident dozens of people were trying to reach him while he was struggling, but angriest at the dozens of executives, collaborators, and neighbours who enabled him doing press and making art in that state.
- Saying that it is foolish to lose your life peacefully defending your neighbour from state violence is the same as saying it's better your neighbour die than you. I feel like Christ said something a bit catchier about this, but I can't recall it at the moment.
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- To be absolutely sure, people shouldn't have to wait for violence to visit people who only look like them to be called to action to resist that violence, but it also serves as a valuable reminder to the majority that power's only kinship is to itself and to violence.
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- Last night I learned it activates neurons to just crack packs, even of TCGs you like but will struggle to get anyone to play with you so I'm trying to trick my brain into wordsing today by saying I get to crack another pack of Cookie Run Braverse for every 500 words I make today 🤔
- A reminder that you can support my work by joining my Patreon (where you can also get an early look at an essay I've been slowly grinding away at) or by throwing some coin at me over at Ko-Fi!
- Today is the 80th birthday of DAVID LYNCH. A day to celebrate the birth of an artist who forever changed the world of art and culture. And our lives. Thank you for everything. Long live The Greatest.
- "Cholera could stop spreading if people stop drinking from this dirty river," warns man who shat in the river
- “Dozens of rivers are dirty. Refusing to get cholera won’t cure other people of cholera—it just means you teach other people not to get cholera. Demand your own strain of cholera, not cleanliness.”
- Ooh! Look—some Cookie Run Braverse cards arrived! I think I really dig this game. I just need more people to play it with… Shoutout to @kohdok.bsky.social because I totally forgot I even entered this giveaway!
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- tfw I discover a TokuTuber from the Caribbean. Immediate subscribe.
- Catching up on Zeztz. I almost didn’t notice we’ve just hit the one-third mark of this Rider series—I really wanted to learn [redacted], but this is actually far too early for the show to be airing valuable secrets. What is The Lady’s deal though? I’m beginning to think maybe NOX ain’t willing.
- All of those 55th Anniversary Kamen Rider movie candidates are actually pretty hard. So far voter turnout seems to be favouring Kabuto, by which I am not surprised. Too bad you have to cast your vote in Hell, or else I would cast my lot with the doomed idea of another Zi-O movie.
- Okay, I am kinda excited about Gavan Infinity now.
- Sometimes you just have to remind yourself that Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood easily is still one of the greatest anime of all time.
- 👀 SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON
- I am waiting on some work payments coming in, and some bills and other expenses are about to hit me hard, so your support at the present moment would be greatly appreciated! Thank you so much for checking out my work (especially if you've given a comment on the essay snippets on Patreon)!
