Getting a headstart by collating this as time progresses rather than trying to go through a backlog way at the end of the year, though this in no way means I'll keep up with doing this each month. Going to be missing a lot of good posts (and probably including the same people a fair bit) simply as a consequence of what crosses my timeline.
The Cybernetics Problem, or: It Eats Your What? by @amaranth-witch
But what if I find myself compelled by the various tension levers that the existing cyberware systems have in play? What if the frictions presented inspire me, but I still have issues with some of the directions the underlying messaging goes?
The West is too comfortable when appropriating Buddhism by @audriserat
I've read some erotica that likens orgasm to 'Nirvana' and as a Buddhist that takes me out of the text because how can orgasm be likened to freedom from Saáčsara and dukkha? Is the English vocabulary so bereft of other metaphors and flowery language to describe orgasms?
The Milgram Experiment (Hopeful) by @swordbroken
Not "People can just tell people what to do," but, less excitingly, "The degree to which people can tell others what to do apparently depends on a bunch of different things, and, in fact, you can resist being told what to do depending on those same things."
Random story time. by @BridgetEndeavor
Pain is strictly subjective and dwelling on how it impacts others is only going to burden you down even more. Don't be ashamed of how deeply any given thing hurts you, physically or emotionally.
thread on in-person communities by @PermanentReset, @fred, @NoelBWrites, @aloe
You don't have to build a whole network or bring in a large group of people. It's enough to just be the person who keeps you and your two friends together. It's human to get lost in the hectic schedule of our day-to-day, and sometimes people need that friend to drag them over for a hangout.
thread on British currency by @bruno, @belarius
British coinage of the pre-decimal era is a panoply of pointlessly confusing denominations; you have the farthing, ha'penny, penny, threepence, groat, sixpence, shilling, florin, gambrel, half-crown, crown, half-sovereign, sovereign, and double sovereign. One of these I made up, you probably can't tell which.
ask on word etymology by @thaliarchus
This etymology's not certain, though it's certainly tempting. As we have no smoking gun, the crossbow's name could in fact pun on some pre-existing form of gun that hadn't made it into the surviving written record.
Gainax (1984-2024) by @gee-man
Can you imagine it? There was a studio so talented you could reliably expect them to put out an anime that would rock the foundation of the medium itself every 3-5 years. Almost all of it original, unthinkable in today's industry. I tried to come up with a modern analogy for younger readers but I literally cannot think of one. There simply isn't a single modern studio with Gainax's prolific multi decade track record.
Why So Many People Make Games That Are Just Like D&D by @covok
Anyway, the dust of "who will be the next Pathfinder" won't settle until OneDnD happens. As long as 5e is around and being supported, the adoption of the 5e clones won't happen.
"I don't know how to write" by @Edcrab
"But it's trash," you'll say. "I'm not happy with it." But you'll be writing, and over a grand enough time scale you will find something that works, and in the embers and ash you might even find the spark of an idea that you, gasp, like.
Some musing about the evolution of game design by @covok
You essentially removed the issue with balance by making everything the same. They have assigned use cases, they push you to make each one double sided so you can get more resources, and their real benefits are tied to a finite resource that players often receive a uniform amount (and, if they don't, that's often to compensate for weaker characters).
i feel like one of the most important pieces of advice i can give any artist is to stop being self-deprecating or belittling your own work by @hvb, @Bigg
there are more productive ways of phrasing or channeling those sorts of feelings; for instance if you do really think the mixing of your song is scuffed, you could voice this as a feedback request: "feeling unsure about the [blank and/or blank2] in the mix here, how does it sound to you? any suggestions?" and now the person is primed again but in a way where they're being asked to consider it deliberately and you might be given ideas to try - a tangible step forward for you.
thread on frankenstein by @pervocracy, @namelessWrench, @DianeThePunk, @calliope
And that's why, to me at least, it's important to differentiate the book's dark mirror held up to Christianity from what we know of Gnosticism: the demiurgos is often cast as a villain, but with there being no discernible reason for existence itself, the buck must be passed further on. According to the book, God, the monotheistic One, itself, is a fool leading innocent people, Creatures and sailors, into a lonely death in a field of ice.
DO NOT CHARGE ONE DOLLAR FOR YOUR INDIE GAME by @geometric, @bruno, @binary
The margin on a $3 game is not three times more than a $1 game. It's like 10 or 20 times more. You'd have to sell at least 10x more copies for $1 to be a better price point than $3.
Some rambling thoughts on how Summer Games Fest is all a marketing gimmick (you already knew that so I'm not bothering with a clever title) by @retroheart
He didn't bother even talking about anything else happening in the world this time, but was more than happy to point towards "look, indies!" while glossing over that 2 of them on the list were developed / published by massive companies that, by pure definition, are not indie at all, and fall into the same category of big companies with constant layoffs that Keighley refuses to condemn in any meaningful way.
thread on evolution of the internet by @iiotenki, @lokeloski
Considering all of this, I agree that newer generations will definitely need help to have a healthier relationship with the Internet, because people are being born and thrown straight up into "gamified" social interactions and being bombarded with trash all day, every day, without ever knowing other ways to interact and relate to different people.
Media literacy is dead, everyone go home by @Kaden, @jordgubbe, @sans-sarif, @lokeloski
People can interpret anything they want out of a story, and many writers love this kind of relationship between their creation and their readers, just like the original post shows. And that's actually just fine. It shouldn't affect what I do, but it does, because if I'm alive, here, and saying "no, it doesn't mean that" or "no, it wasn't inspired by that", and people are saying "no, you're wrong" about something I created, they are not really listening to what's being said.
thread on orientalist aesthetics by @Kaden, @renkotsuban, @smuonsneutrino, @Partheniad
Please think about what it means to give your games a ""Japanese aesthetic"" as if Japan isn't a country filled with actual human beings! Please read about how the Donut County dev learned to stop treating people and cultures like ornaments! And for the love of god, if you do have Japanese in your game, please make sure you aren't pulling a Mahoutokoro in front of the world!!!!!
The Outrage Echoes - Recalibrate Your Reactions' Intensity Based On New Information by @Sheri
When a single news story about someone behaving badly comes out, especially on platforms like X, people will take it as a chance to aggregate every dumb moment the person has ever had, every ignorant or silly thing they've done in their entire online life, and turn it all into threads celebrating hate. Then if the core news story, the actually dangerous thing turns out to be bogus... who cares, right? Look at all this other shit that they did!
A player engaging in grappling is a signal for the other players to go take a smoke break by @Inumo, @hkr
In actual fights, grappling is basically just turning those passive aspects of fightingâyour stance, your guard, etcâinto active aspects. Your guard is being forced open, but how it's being forced open also limits how they can attack, so you can shift your guard to protect against those specific blows, and then you're trying to take advantage of their new openings, so they're shifting their guard, and and and...
You Are Who You Represent On The Internet by @DoctorSockrates
The Notion of Association is that in society (especially in today's modern internet), we cannot do anything without contributing to the reputation of a greater group than ourselves. Not all of those groups are necessarily visible all the time, but our contributions, however small they may be, add up and exist when the time comes.
Thread on Procellariform seabirds by @osedax, @Moo, @dismallyOriented
A vast majority of the Procellariiform species were attracted to the DMS oil, specifically the smaller species like white-chinned petrels, prions, and storm petrels. However, albatrosses, who are much larger, were not. When they tested again with DMS aerosols (pure smell, no visual), the white-chinned petrels started turning more frequently, a behavior associated with searching for food, while the albatross species did not change its flight patterns.
Speaking of killing the cop in your head: by @AtFruitBat, @NoelBWrites
The inability to be uncomfortable without lashing out is cop behavior. The impulse to protect whatever status quo you're comfortable in by attacking any sort of dissent is cop behavior.
Thread on destructive ideologies by @pnictogen-wing, @adhere, @NoelBWrites, @eatthepen
In the world of everyday life, by contrast, concepts are far from clear-cut. Using logic cosmetically to cherry-pick conclusions is crankish eccentricity. When combined with political, social, and economic power, logical cherry-picking constitutes a form of intellectual thuggery.
seven-six-two millimeter, full metal jacket by @verticalblank
It's all horseshit. Complete horseshit. It's people taking Pentagon pitches from arms manufacturers at face value. An assault rifle is designed to do exactly the thing the military did in the last war it fought, at the lowest possible cost and as light as possible, and literally nothing else.
Some thoughts about Large and "Large" Games by @highimpactsex
It felt like I was on an adventure figuring out how deep something went. The anxiety and awe I felt created a larger game than it really was. It's all imaginary when you step back and think about it, but I would argue that imagination is a productive space that makes games feel like fun and not a chore.
Thread on older game graphics, (alternate branch) by @Kayin, @the-doomed-posts-of-muteKi, @ShadowHog, @blazehedgehog, @bb8
Wanting to see everything as clear and as crisp as possible without consideration lets you see the models and the textures better, but they don't let you see the picture that's trying to be painted.
been reading this thing that's going around today and it's got me thinking about the experience of making a "good game" by @MOONMANiBE
One of the things I truly believe is that no one on a dev team ever sets out to make a bad game. Gamedev is buoyed by nothing if not eternal optimism. And so it's really hard to know what "honesty" looks like, right? Do you go out there and say "well it's awful but it'll be good by ship?" Will anyone understand?
How long does it take to translate a video game? by @lokeloski, @mojilove
You know the phrase "a woman can make a baby in 9 months, but 9 women can't make a baby in 1 month"? Creative translation works kinda the same way: although we can make a 9-month job fit into a 1-month deadline, just... don't expect the same level of quality. That's why proper planning is important.
Thread on onboarding newcomers by @NireBryce
Every community has a lot of skills distributed across it just because of human nature, and so many of those are barely used. So many words are spilled on how much the teens/people newer to your community are causing problems, when instead the effort could go to writing down thoughts and experiences and goals and futures.
it's ok if a game isn't a game by @kylelabriola
So, to be frank, I donât care if a linear visual novel Iâm playing âcouldâve just been a book or graphic novelâ because the dialogue choices didnât branch the story. If it was a book, I probably wouldnât have stumbled on it. The developer wanted to make a game, I wanted to buy a game, their game found my attention on a game store and now Iâm enjoying it.
Growing fewer branches as I age by @shel
And as you age, you realize you cannot live every life there is. There is no time to do it all, love them all, care about it all, be every person you could ever mean to be. There is barely enough time and energy just to keep yourself alive and maybe have a hobby and a friend.
I have been made aware of the 1971 Mercury Marquis. by @jaidamack, @sgaren, @Osmose
This car was made with spite for humanity in mind. It should be illegal to line car seats with suede, and it should be double illegal to move to Florida with a car lined in suede.
post on friendship and therapy by @PermanentReset
Your friend is fully capable of being your friend, being there for you, and hearing you out. Your friend is most likely not at all trained to be a therapist and work as a free, all-access brain doctor.
Spaceflight is Inherently Political And That Is Both Infuriating And Fascinating by @lupi
NASA did this intentionally, deliberately, because its earliest leaders knew that if and when the conflict with the Soviet Union ended, if being a tool in that fight were NASA's sole raison d'ĂȘtre, that it'd be killed off on the spot. It needed to make itself useful to the nation. It needed to bring economic, industrial, and other such benefit wherever it set down roots, to guarantee its value as more than just a one-trick pony.
Lunar Boy and Queer Vocabulary by @jesncin
I had done extensive research while I was in school over how middle grade comics often avoid saying words like "gay" "lesbian" or "trans" and its connection with bans and censorship. While I was at school, it felt like Raina Telgemeier's "Drama" was the last time I saw a character say "bi" in a middle grade graphic novel, and that was published in 2012! Why haven't we built more from that bravery since then?
