Brendan Stephens

Thank you for your service.

Every time there is a “We need a X on the left,” I’m baffled. Like, the left doesn’t circle the wagon to protect their own like the GOP. A “leftist Stephen Miller” would make a false claim, face backlash, and then immediately rebrand as a right winger because the internet was mean to him.

It’s nine in the morning and I’m trying to find box office projections for The Naked Gun because deep down I truly want it to be a blockbuster, and oh my god what have I become?

The vegan cheese in this metaphor is in an off-grid commune with veggie hot dogs and organic kimchi.

I’ve been editing out my beloved em dashes, and honestly, I’ll never forgive ChatGPT for making me use parentheses.

This is me after moving back to Texas.

I think about this movie all the time. It really hit me to see war from a non-soldier perspective, how it both impacts everything, even those who aren’t actively fighting. Really should be required viewing for all militia types and tankies.

I miss the early seasons of Chopped, before the chefs practiced and cracked the code on transforming ingredients. Those early episodes were so good cause chefs would make a Michelin star seaweed salad and then sprinkle gummy bears on top.

Boosting one of my oldest friends.

Great opportunity for flash writers who want to see behind the curtain of lit mags.

Thanks Dan. Maybe someday we can both venture out to like Austin or Dallas to meet up.

Excited to announce I accepted an assistant professor gig at West Texas A&M. Stoked to explore Amarillo and Palo Duro Canyon.

I’m at the stage of revision where I’m just circling passages and writing in the margin “Make this paragraph less bad.”

I relate to this so much. Like I want to know all the drama, and yet I also don’t know how it is public knowledge which writers has a messy MFA love triangle twenty years ago.

Exactly. Like I’m no longer in my high school anti-jock phase. Love to see people with hobbies and interests. But it’s wild that it is mainstream to wear jerseys when, really, how different is it from cosplay?

How are sports fans not considered more nerdy than every other fandom? They’ll see someone repoing the same team gear and start chanting in public. Like wouldn’t that be the same energy as two strangers in Pokémon shirts spotting each other and bursting into the theme song?

I’m a professor and there has been a huge shift towards no-indentation and extra spacing. Even with older nontraditional students, almost no one even knows what the tab button does. Honestly, I think this is only going to get more common.

A hotel receptionist just said, “You have been upgraded to a bigger room due to… circumstances.” I’ve never received such good news that also seems sinister.

Museums are wild cause there will be a plaque that says, “Despite being famously short, this lord commissioned a painting as standing over 10 feet tall with the wives of his rivals depicted as his concubines. Also in the corner is his dresser.”

Reread Rusty Brown volume 1 recently, and I just don’t think it gets better than Chris Ware.

The other day, I was showing my Submittable to students. I was at 470 rejections and said, “I’d love to get to 500 rejections by the fall,” and I think my students thought I was joking.

Boom, roasted.

Woah. I got a fellowship for the Vermont Studio Center. January can’t come fast enough.

In an escalation in pet naming, @biancastephens.bsky.social has started calling me “The Ultimate Baby.”

Send help.

So it was just really important to me (and expensive) for me to have that aspect of me validated so I didn’t feel like an imposter. But now I’m like it is just safer to be under the radar and skip my diagnostic appointment. It’s disheartening. (End)

It sucks because ASD informs my life and how I see myself with even the psychologist saying, “So I can tell you right now you’re on the spectrum.” Yet without a diagnosis I sometimes feel like my informal diagnosis to self-diagnosis from an internet test. (Pt 3)

And now with this NIH study that is going to pull from private medical records, I’m really not sure if getting formally diagnosed is not going to somehow marginalize me. (Pt 2)

So I’ve had an unofficial diagnosis as autistic for going on a decade, because I couldn’t afford the diagnostic. Literally met with a clinical psychologist last week for in-take in preparation for the diagnostic in a few weeks. (Pt 1)

Celebrated Easter by getting a tattoo covering up the cross I’d got on my 18th birthday. Still have a few more sessions ahead of me to completely go over my old Christian tattoos, but damn it feels great to not be wearing my religious trauma.

My talent that I have the most proud of is that I’m good at recognizing non-famous actors over multiple projects. Legit wish I could monetize being able to quickly, “She was the ex-girlfriend in that other show.”