Michael C. Bailey - Indie Author, Stage Combat Guy
banner
mbaileywriter.bsky.social
Michael C. Bailey - Indie Author, Stage Combat Guy
@mbaileywriter.bsky.social
Independent author (superhero, fantasy, urban fantasy), stage combat director/instructor in the central MA area. Native Cape Codder. Shares a bed with one wife, two dogs, and three cats. He/him/his.

https://innsmouthlook.com
Pinned
Updated pinned post for anyone who wants to check out my work or maybe even buy some books.

WEBSITE: innsmouthlook.com

BOOKSHOP: bookshop.org/beta-search?...

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL: www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/a...

FYI, you can order print editions through my website.
The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot – A Series Overview

What’s it About? Derek Strongarm and Felix Lightfoot are a pair of hard-luck adventurers for hire with an unfortunate knack for landing jobs that pay too little and threaten their lives too much. Erika Racewind is a hardened elven warrior…
The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot – A Series Overview
What’s it About? Derek Strongarm and Felix Lightfoot are a pair of hard-luck adventurers for hire with an unfortunate knack for landing jobs that pay too little and threaten their lives too much. Erika Racewind is a hardened elven warrior who doesn’t like people, except maybe when she’s killing them. Winifred Graceword is a kindhearted elven priestess skilled in the healing arts.
innsmouthlook.com
February 19, 2026 at 3:00 PM
Bob Dylan. Bruce Springsteen. Neil Young, with & without Crosby, Stills, & Nash. Green Day. Creedence Clearwater Revival. U2.

Pissing & moaning about politics in music shows that you never once paid attention to what you were listening to. If you had been, you wouldn't have turned into such a turd.
February 19, 2026 at 12:50 PM
The Gen X urge to not even supposed to be here today.
the gen x urge to be brought to one's sha-na-na-na-na knees, knees
the Gen X urge to hang in a buffalo stance
February 19, 2026 at 12:46 PM
Developments like this make me want to check in with a former friend who went MAGA because he believed DJT's lies about not wanting to start another war, but then I remember, fuck that guy. He turned his back on every queer person and POC he used to call friends to vote for a lying sociopath.
The Defense Department is sending additional warships, air defenses, and submarines to the Middle East in preparation for a possible strike on Iran if Trump makes that call. Can somebody tell him that no one wants another war?
February 19, 2026 at 11:53 AM
We're not "missing out' on gAI, my dude. We're recognizing that techbros are developing it recklessly and unethically, with no guardrails for its development or use or regard for its many negative impacts, so they can make a buck and feel like Tony Stark for a day.
February 19, 2026 at 11:18 AM
Anyone who believes creatives have to be miserable to create is either:

A) A creative who moonlights as a pretentious douchemagoo
B) A noncreative who needs to STFU about what creatives need

Writing for me is how I stave off misery, not how I marinate in it.
This reminds me of a coupla decades ago when the argument du jour was “What if Van Gogh had been medicated for his depression?!” with the implication that he wouldn’t have created art if he wasn’t miserable.

A) fuck that noise
B) Van Gogh didn’t own anybody his art OR his misery
this is why the whole “oh, suffering creates great art” thing is bullshit

you know what’s conducive to art? a roof over your head and food on the table

you know what isn’t? stressing out over where the fuck the rent money is going to come from
February 19, 2026 at 11:14 AM
I'll be the first to say that the Real ID concept exists only because a scared, confused America wanted to feel safe after 9/11 and was too happy to create a series of bureaucratic hoops they believed would only inconvenience brown people, and "real Americans" would skate through the process (1/3)
February 19, 2026 at 11:08 AM
Same condition. If I had to read Ayn Rand or any angry screed about saving America by a conservative talking head, the price would go WAY up.
Assuming I pick the book? 3000%
1. Immediately yes
2. I would quit my job

#booksky
February 19, 2026 at 10:43 AM
This show absolutely kicked ass.
February 19, 2026 at 2:08 AM
Reposted by Michael C. Bailey - Indie Author, Stage Combat Guy
TODAY'S COMIC: Naming Types of Barks (Part 2)

( I *DOUBLE DOG DARE* you to join us for my new dog book! Kickstarting now! —>
www.kickstarter.com/projects/sma... )
February 18, 2026 at 6:03 PM
Reposted by Michael C. Bailey - Indie Author, Stage Combat Guy
Ramadan Mubarak!

Wishing our Muslim neighbors in the #MA7 & around the globe a rewarding month of joy, peace, & community.
February 18, 2026 at 4:21 AM
Reposted by Michael C. Bailey - Indie Author, Stage Combat Guy
When creating PDFs, avoid using "Print to PDF." A screen reader user may still be able to access the text of PDFs created this way, but heading structure, alternative text, and any other tag structure will be lost. Using "Save As" or "Export" can preserve these tags.
February 18, 2026 at 4:25 AM
I'm not saying I'm a futurist or anything, but 13 years ago my debut #novel featured an AI that gained sentience, turned out to be an amoral bastard, and ended up weaponized by a secretive cabal bent on conquering America.

Cover art by @patricialupien.bsky.social

bookshop.org/p/books/acti...
Action Figures - Issue One: Secret Origins
Secret Origins
bookshop.org
February 18, 2026 at 12:28 PM
Reposted by Michael C. Bailey - Indie Author, Stage Combat Guy
Sorry to get radical but I don’t think it’s my job or yours to embrace, accept, understand - and certainly not to use - the thing being sold to us as AI. I don’t like any part of it, so I won’t. I’m missing out? Good, that’s what I want. You’re worried about me missing out? That’s fuckin weird, man.
February 18, 2026 at 5:13 AM
Reposted by Michael C. Bailey - Indie Author, Stage Combat Guy
The constant condescension about ai is another aspect of it that makes me hate it more. The assumption is you can only be against it because you don't understand it like I do. No man. I don't like voluntarily making every human enterprise dependent on a tech run by a tiny group of financial maniacs
February 18, 2026 at 5:08 AM
Reposted by Michael C. Bailey - Indie Author, Stage Combat Guy
The AI bubble RAM crisis is caused for non-existent problems by non-existent money for a non-existent infrastructure to meet non-existent demand to make non-existent business and will utterly destroy real business based on real demand and real infrastructure built with real money for real problems.
I understand framing the AI bubble RAM supply crisis in terms of stuff like video game consoles because nerds can conceptualize that but the framing does really undersell the sheer magnitude of how it's going to fuck up everything that even touches a computer.
February 16, 2026 at 9:54 PM
Exactly this. Renewable energy isn't sexy like gAI, and its growth would mean old-school coal and oil barons would be rendered obsolete (as they should be).
The left tried for decades to pass green energy subsidies, passed them, the subsidies worked, and now literally the entire planet's electricity grid is going to convert to solar+battery. It just doesn't feel like "tech" because it mostly produces kinda boring blue collar jobs instead of billionaires
is there a technology that "the left" is excited about?
www.transformernews.ai/p/the-left-i...
February 18, 2026 at 11:05 AM
Fuck no. Never. I can write a great, watchable movie on my own because I'm not an untalented hack that needs the plagiarism robot to shit out mediocre garbage on my behalf.
Writers if you could drop your novel or short story into an AI and have it make a great and watchable movie out of your story, and you could sell that movie, would you do it? #writers #WritingCommunity
February 18, 2026 at 12:53 AM
Reposted by Michael C. Bailey - Indie Author, Stage Combat Guy
Read this sentence slowly:

“Gov. Gavin Newsom, crypto executives and business leaders are ramping up efforts this week to stop the proposed wealth tax...”

gift link:

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/17/u...
As Bernie Sanders Comes to California, Wealth Tax Opponents Intensify Efforts
www.nytimes.com
February 17, 2026 at 10:56 PM
Reposted by Michael C. Bailey - Indie Author, Stage Combat Guy
One thing AI has revealed is that there are a whole lot of people who have neither interesting ideas nor the talent to express them, and apparently not even any real will or desire to cultvate either of these things… but still for some reason desperately want to be regarded as artists.
AI filmmaking is completely unserious.

You've got people with $30k begging the internet for ideas by next week because they have nothing of their own to say, it's just slop for the sake of slop. Embarrassing state of affairs.
February 17, 2026 at 11:55 PM
Reposted by Michael C. Bailey - Indie Author, Stage Combat Guy
an editor at Cleveland.com announces that they're "removing writing from reporters' workloads"

(in the midst of a column criticizing a graduating student not understanding this is how the world works now: god forbid a student is looking to actually write) www.cleveland.com/news/2026/02...
February 17, 2026 at 3:59 PM
That would be this account, I assume. Also blocked.
February 17, 2026 at 5:19 PM
Reposted by Michael C. Bailey - Indie Author, Stage Combat Guy
This makes me sick to my stomach.
(5/11) Walmart, Whole Foods, and Kohls are switching to electronic shelf labels that can display dynamic prices. Kroger deployed them with Microsoft AI—a setup a 2024 Senate inquiry warned could enable “surge pricing” via facial recognition. (Kroger claims it will only lower prices.)
February 17, 2026 at 5:09 PM
Porting that is over from FB. I'll be returning to work with the fine folks from Studio Theatre Worcester as fight director for this show. Further details, including audition info, in the alt text.

#theater #centralMA #WorcesterMA
February 17, 2026 at 5:12 PM
Weekly Update – February 17, 2026

If you run in writer/author circles online, particularly on Bluesky, you may have heard of the controversy surrounding an author operating under the pseudonym "Coral Hart" and a pandering article in the New York Times about her use of generative AI to churn out…
Weekly Update – February 17, 2026
If you run in writer/author circles online, particularly on Bluesky, you may have heard of the controversy surrounding an author operating under the pseudonym "Coral Hart" and a pandering article in the New York Times about her use of generative AI to churn out dozens of quickie romance novels and, allegedly, make big money doing so. If you haven't? Well, I just summarized the situation for you.
innsmouthlook.com
February 17, 2026 at 3:00 PM