iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I almost gave up on The Blood of Dawnwalker because of its parry system (I suck at parrying). Then something clicked. A Gen X gamer's review of the new vampire RPG from the Witcher III creators — and a small victory for aging reflexes. #BloodOfDawnwalker #Witcher #gaming #RPG #vampires

open.substack.com

Review: The Blood of Dawnwalker

If at first I don’t succeed, die, die again: A Gen X gamer attempts to hone his fading reflexes in a new vampire adventure RPG

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

The first time I saw someone die was on a tennis court. Reading Joan Didion’s memoir of her grief at the sudden death of her husband, John Dunne, sent me back to that teenage moment when I tried to comfort a woman who was losing her husband. #JoanDidion #grief #memoir #BookSky 💙📚

backhalfbugg.com

Tennis, Death, and Didion

Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking launched me into a new consideration of my own first experience with death

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Books & Bakes 2026 is a wrap. Twenty books, 6,867 pages, and $2,180 raised for Cake4Kids, way more than my first-year goal. Plus, I accidentally fell into a four-book rabbit hole of Dungeon Crawler Carl and I think you should join me there. #DungeonCrawlerCarl #BookSky 💙📚

backhalfbugg.com

Reading, Writing, and Dungeon Crawling

Books & Bakes: Crossing the finish line for my first annual read-a-thon benefiting Cake4Kids with the sci-fi satire Dungeon Crawler Carl

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

I suspect reading Reinhold Niebuhr won't set my search stats on fire but I'm glad I did — even if his willful blindness to America's race history is infuriating. Led me straight to James Baldwin though, so win-win. Plus a halftime Books & Bakes report. #JamesBaldwin #AmericanHistory #BookSky 💙📚

open.substack.com

The American Myth of Innocence

Books & Bakes: A halftime progress report and a frustrating experience with the invisibility of race in “The Irony of American History”

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Just absolute racist fucking bullshit. I’d like to say I can’t believe we’ve gotten to this pathetic point but, yeah, we’ve been on this trajectory for a while now.

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The Onion @theonion.com · 07/08/2026

Black Homeowner Receives Higher Appraisal After Displaying Pictures Of Klan Members

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Mike Flanagan's Carrie is already getting grief from some fans because the actress isn't "fat" or "ugly." I reread Stephen King's first novel for Books & Bakes. The actual text is more complicated than the criticism suggests. #StephenKing #horrorfiction #Carrie #BookSky 💙📚

backhalfbugg.com

Carrie, Stephen King, and the Politics of Fatness

Books & Bakes: The upcoming remake of King’s iconic first novel is raising new questions for fans about fidelity and adaptation

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

Like every real estate agent, I have horror stories. But none quite like the one in Marisa Kashino’s dark comedy about the Washington real estate market, Best Offer Wins. It’s been called Gone Girl for real estate and that ain’t wrong. My latest review for Books & Bakes. #BookSky #realestate 💙📚

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Gone Girl Goes House Hunting: Best Offer Wins | Books & Bakes

YouTube video by Sean Bugg

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Like every real estate agent, I have horror stories. But none quite like the one in Marisa Kashino’s dark comedy about the D.C. real estate market, Best Offer Wins. It’s been called Gone Girl for real estate and that ain’t wrong. My latest for Books & Bakes. #BookSky #GoneGirl #realestate 💙📚

open.substack.com

Gone Girl Goes House Hunting

Books and Bakes: “Best Offer Wins” takes a darkly comedic journey through the Washington real estate market

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

A partial list of nasty things that happened during my youth in rural Kentucky: My elementary school friend's father was murdered, shot to death in the cab of his truck. There were 30 kids in my class.

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

I came to "Blood River Witch," T. J. Martinson's new occult-tinged thriller, because I wanted to read the rare story that's set in the western Kentucky I grew up in. While some things feel familiar, what I found was that I'm no longer fluent in the language of my home. #BookSky 💙📚

youtu.be

Blood River Witch: The Lost Language of Home

YouTube video by Sean Bugg

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Books & Bakes update: With "Blood River Witch," T. J. Martinson's new thriller, I wanted to read the rare story that's set in the western Kentucky I grew up in. While some things feel familiar what I found was that I'm no longer fluent in the language of my home. #BookSky #Kentucky 💙📚

open.substack.com

The Lost Language of Home

Books & Bakes Update: Searching for my past in the unfamiliar present of Blood River Witch

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Straight boys in 1983 had the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. I had Friday Night Videos and "Total Eclipse of the Heart." My love for Bonnie Tyler's unexpected gift to young queer boys of the time (and what it shared with French gay erotica, of all things). #BonnieTyler #LGBTQhistory #queer

open.substack.com

Total Eclipse of My Teen Gay Heart

Bonnie Tyler’s Heated Prep School Fantasia Was an Explosive Force in My Young Life

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Viet Thanh Nguyen's memoir A Man of Two Faces blew me away. I married into a Vietnamese refugee family, so I see the people I love in it. But there's a difference between empathy and experience -- I write about that tension at The Back Half. @vietthanhnguyen.bsky.social #BookSky 💙📚

open.substack.com

A Man of Two Faces: Viet Thanh Nguyen's Beautiful (and Searing) Memoir

Books & Bakes Update - The tension between empathy and experience in the story of a Vietnamese refugee family

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

open.substack.com

A Man of Two Faces: Viet Thanh Nguyen's Beautiful (and Searing) Memoir

Books & Bakes Update - The tension between empathy and experience in the story of a Vietnamese refugee family

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

open.substack.com

Total Eclipse of My Teen Gay Heart

Bonnie Tyler’s Heated Prep School Fantasia Was an Explosive Force in My Young Life

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

Paid subscribers to The Back Half can now download a free copy of Boy Does World through Substack's new Perks feature. Books & Bakes read-a-thon supporters, that means you too. #LGBTQbooks #memoir #BookSky 💙📚

open.substack.com

Around the World and Back Again

“Boy Does World” makes its debut on Kindle and as a new special gift for paid subscribers to The Back Half

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Week One of Books & Bakes: Richard Stark's The Hunter. Razor-sharp sentences, an amoral anti-hero, and one of the most heterosexual things I've ever read. Also: we've already blown past my Cake4Kids fundraising goal! #crimefiction #noir #hardboiled #BookSky 💙📚

open.substack.com

Books & Bakes: “The Hunter” Is a Razor Sharp Tale of Revenge

Week 1 - It’s hard to write spare, simple prose that thrills but Donald Westlake mastered the craft; plus, what's on deck for Week 2

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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Guaranteed: 1) Black girls will be harassed and demanded to be tested over and over again regardless of how competitive they are. 2) Winners from public schools will be relentlessly hounded by the parents and coaches of losers at private schools, with the goal of making them quit the sport.

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

I was going to write today about rejecting Doomerism, then the Supreme Court interjected itself, legitimizing attacks on trans athletes and barely upholding birthright citizenship. So today, it's okay to feel some despair. #transrights #SCOTUS

open.substack.com

Despair, Anger, and the Right to Feel Hopeless (for Today)

The Supreme Court's rulings on trans athletes and birthright citizenship make today a hard day to argue against doomerism

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

@kenwhite.bsky.social I get it. I just think this place will get better with you in it rather than out. No one person bring place up or down, but it does add up.

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Books & Bakes, my summer read-a-thon benefiting Cake4Kids, starts soon. New video preview: Terry Pratchett's Wyrd Sisters and Viet Thanh Nguyen's memoir A Man of Two Faces. Read along with me this summer! #booksky #indieauthor

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Books & Bakes Preview: Terry Pratchett's Wyrd Sisters and Viet Thanh Nguyen's A Man of Two Faces

YouTube video by Sean Bugg

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

I would buy crates of these. 🤣

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Jeremy Yoder says no war @jbyoder.org · 22/06/2026

I'm not sure I've ever seen a single sentence go downhill this far and this fast

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

I've lived in Virginia for most of my life. But if you ask me where I'm from, I'm going to say Kentucky. You don't often find Western Kentucky in literature, so I'm eager to dive into Blood River Witch by T.J. Martinson, set in the rural world I came from. #booksandbakes #Kentucky #BookSky 💙📚

open.substack.com

Books & Bakes Preview: My Old (Western) Kentucky Home

A Books & Bakes preview of T.J. Martinson's Blood River Witch — a murder mystery set in the rural Western Kentucky that shaped me as a kid, plus why I don't see enough of that region in literature.

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

I’ve been cheering for a heart attack or clot to take out Trump, but I’m rooting for Bessent to trip and fall into a fucking wood chipper.

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

I haven’t seen this but if I do there’s a good chance my Gen X queer ass will come through the screen and box some whippersnapper’s ears.

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Heard today... Older White Man: "Do you speak Chinese?" Asian Woman: [pointed pause] "I am not Chinese." Do better, white people, I don't care how old you are.

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

youtu.be

Books & Bakes Preview: Terry Pratchett's Wyrd Sisters and Viet Thanh Nguyen's A Man of Two Faces

YouTube video by Sean Bugg

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

Let’s cheer the Reaper I'm guest posting today at Bil Browning's Tummy Ache Nation, on why it is perfectly acceptable in a country gone mad to cross your fingers and wish for a Trump heart attack, preferably on live television. Bonus: I share the playlist I have ready to go for When It Happens.

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Let’s cheer the Reaper

We might as well enjoy the anticipation of “when it happens”

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

Two of my Books & Bakes summer reads: Terry Pratchett's Wyrd Sisters, because genre snobs are wrong and Pratchett is a master, and @vietthanhnguyen.bsky.social 's A Man of Two Faces, because now is the time to read an immigrant's memoir about America. #booksky #indieauthor

open.substack.com

Books & Bakes Preview: From Discworld to Immigrant America

Terry Pratchett's Wyrd Sisters is a perfect into to his satirical world, while Viet Thanh Nguyen is a preeminent chronicler of the Vietnamese immigrant experience

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Books & Bakes is live—my summer read-a-thon for Cake4Kids! Pledge per book, every dollar goes to kids who need to feel special. Plus you get a 6-month subscription to The Back Half + my ebook. #booksky #indieauthor

youtu.be

Books & Bakes: A Summer Read-a-Thon Fundraiser for Cake4Kids

YouTube video by Sean Bugg

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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

When you bitch about "the entrenched bureaucracy" you sound like George Wallace ranting about "briefcase-toting bureaucrats" or Donald Trump conspiratorially denouncing "the deep state." The people who do the nuts and bolts work of government aren't the problem here. Try punching up instead.

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

Yeah, yeah, if you really want to prevent pregnancy, marry Benny Johnson.

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

Just had a kid knock on my door, collecting signatures for climate activism in Virginia. Just realized the shorts I’m wearing are probably older than they are. 🤣 And yes, I signed!

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

The January 1982 issue of Amazing Science Fiction Stories predicted we'd add 50 years to the human lifespan by 2020. Spoiler: we did not. Also: a George R.R. Martin chess story that's actually about aging and regret. #ScifiLit #sff #SpecFic #GeorgeRRMartin

open.substack.com

Dreaming of Immortality

In the January issue of Amazing Science Fiction Stories we find overoptimistic predictions of life spans alongside a stellar meditation on aging

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

As a human rights issue, no tennis broadcast should be allowed to include more than one (1) McEnroe as a commentator. #rolandgarros

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

So I recently followed a list of Bluesky tennis fans because, well, I love tennis. I've been surprised during this French Open that a majority of them seem to actively hate everything about tennis.

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

I went back and forth on Sieger over the course of this season of #TopChef but, damn, his (second) exit really solidified my impression of him as an asshole.

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

Introduce yourself w/ 10 bands/artists you've seen live Blue Oyster Cult The Ramones REM Aerosmith The Cure INXS Nine Inch Nails (x2) Marilyn Manson Run River North (x3) Love and Rockets

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

Trump’s Roy Cohn was actually Roy Cohn. I kind of hate to be pedantic but this is just dumb. Especially because Cohn, evil as he was, was way smarter than all these fuckers.

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

I heard Jeff tell Coach he had ten seconds to say something to end the show and I closed my browser at the speed of fucking light. #Survivor50

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

Ugh, why did they do a live show if they aren't going to have the live reunion? I know, they want to have full control over the content. And that sucks, because that's why the post-40 "reunions" fucking sucked. #survivor50

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

I'm an idiot, I meant to never get a vote in two final 3's! But, Joe got vote so I was wrong anyway lol

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

Is Joe going to be the first person to never get a vote in the final 3? #survivor50

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

I used to think Chrissy got robbed but now, well, that was unfortunate #Survivor50

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Sean Bugg @seanbugg.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

If Cirie read me like she just read Joe on national TV I would bury myself six feet deep. #survivor50

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