rasamune

[rasamune]

Not to be a bitch but sometimes people engage with fiction in the most boring way possible, and nowhere is this clearer than in videogames. Like what you mean you hate a character just because they were kind of abrasive when speaking to the player character? "They were mean to me" and it didn't occur to you to wonder why? Like, what might their attitude toward you reveal about the world? About the social dynamics within it? About their own perspectives and backgrounds and personalities? Does it even occur you to ask? Would you only have liked them if they bowed to your presence and talked about how great you are? Like I'm sorry but you're so boring. How boring fiction would be if it cathered to you

[rasamune]

Not to be a bitch but sometimes people engage with fiction in the most boring way possible, and nowhere is this clearer than in videogames. Like what you mean you hate a character just because they were kind of abrasive when speaking to the player character? "They were mean to me" and it didn't occur to you to wonder why? Like, what might their attitude toward you reveal about the world? About the social dynamics within it? About their own perspectives and backgrounds and personalities? Does it even occur you to ask? Would you only have liked them if they bowed to your presence and talked about how great you are? Like I'm sorry but you're so boring. How boring fiction would be if it cathered to you

[rasamune]

Kris took a $100 bet from Monster Kid to enter the town’s annual nose nuzzle competition with Susie as if winning would be hard

Ralsei is just giving them both lessons✨

[rasamune]

you know, I was thinking that people who misgender Kris because they believe that their gender is "up to the player's interpretation" have a fundamental misunderstanding of Deltarune's premise

but on the other hand, someone using your body as a meatsuit to have adventures vicariously through you and then deciding that that entitles them to override core facets of your personality is perfectly in line with the central horror of Deltarune, so maybe they understand the work better than I give them credit for :V

[rasamune]

People used to just post shit like this on God's own internet

[rasamune]

the silly guys (toby fox is actually evil for locking the greatest story ever told behind a bullet hell combat system)

[rasamune]

Should I ever get insanely rich, I wanna make a TV show. Tentative title is "The Kink Shame Think Game."

Every episode would revolve around a different kink, each of which would be one that's likely to be deemed gross, immoral, disgusting, or in any other way "controversial." You know, stuff like ABDL, CNC, vore, misogyny play, cuckolding, impact play, etc. Each episode would feature a licensed sex therapist (there'd probably be a "stable" of like 3-5 recurring ones who'd become like characters the viewers can grow attached to), a person (or couple, or throuple...) who is active in that kink, and a panel of 10 or so random people who each are critical of the kink in some way, ranging anywhere from "I just don't get how that's hot" to "I think people like you should be locked away."

The show's structure would then simply be that the panel gets to talk to an actual, real life person with that kink and someone who's an actual expert on kinks, sexuality, and psychology, just to see how many Purity Warriors fumble once they're outmatched. There'd probably be different "rounds," like everyone on the panel getting to ask exactly one question, no direct follow-ups; the kinkster(s) getting to ask people from the panel a single question, each panelist getting like... two or three minutes to argue with the kinkster and the therapist (maybe in pairs to save time); maybe there'd even be a "role reversal" round, where the kinster(s) have to explain why their kink is gross, and one of the panelists has to defend the kink.

I think that would be fun. And educational. And super controversial, so the ratings would be through the roof!

[rasamune]

i've been starting a collection

[rasamune]

A couple of years ago we were all terribly concerned about the fact that a lot of American high schools are assigning such crushing homework loads that some kids literally don't have enough time to eat or sleep (and all this in spite of the fact that there's no good evidence that assigning homework actually improves academic outcomes at the pre-university level), but now we're hearing stories about those same schools struggling to stop kids from using ChatGPT to write their essays and suddenly It's The Children Who Are Wrong. Like, do you think maybe there's a certain level of cause and effect in play here?

[rasamune]

Now's a good time to get into Old-School Essentials if you haven't already. Bundle of Holding is hosting a bundle that contains the Advanced Fantasy version of Old-School Essentials (contains everything from the basic game but also a number of character options, treasures, spells, and monsters converted into a B/X compatible format from AD&D 1e) as well as a bunch of good adventure modules if you meet the upgrade threshold.

And there's a second bundle of third part modules for OSE!

[rasamune]

Would you recommend mtg for people who want to get into card game dev

i wouldn't "recommend" it because that's like -- i don't even know, i literally can't think of another medium with one work so foundational to the genre. every tcg/ccg of the last 30 years has been directly defined by magic in some way or another, whether by its influence or by deliberate attempts to escape it. magic is also uniquely easy to learn from because it's lucky enough to have mark rosewater, a guy who was intimiately involved in its design from a very early point and still is, write hundreds of articles going very deep into nearly every aspect of its design process. if you seriously want to design trading card games i think you need to look at magic: the gathering.

if you're designing another type of card game, like... a boxed, tabletop style card game, i still think it's going to be extremely valuable to look at magic, actually, because it has 30 years of experience to learn from with things that are quite universal to the form of a card: going through its history you can see its designers starting to understanding how to convey information: how to standardize templating for clarity, how to use evocative design to teach players your rules, how card art can signpost a card's mechanical elements... yeah. love it or hate it, i think you need to go play some magical gathering.

[rasamune]

And "temporarily embarrassed Vivziepops" I assume refers to people who look at the success of things like Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss and think to themselves "I could be a great indie creator too, if only I had this and this and that" and then instead of working within the limits of the skills and resources they actually have to make something, spend their time complaining about other people who aren't visibly putting in the effort to create (even though they themselves aren't either)

To be honest this four panel comic changed my life at one point in its sheer simplicity and incisive critique of the obnoxious Temporarily Embarrassed Vivziepops and I think more people need to like understand the value in this very basic analysis.

[rasamune]

Your interpretation and analysis of a work of art is not something that existed before you observed the art, and therefore the very act of observation is, in a sense, making something. It's not a form of creation that can get you money or clout, though, and so yellow bean A doesn't think it's worthwhile

To be honest this four panel comic changed my life at one point in its sheer simplicity and incisive critique of the obnoxious Temporarily Embarrassed Vivziepops and I think more people need to like understand the value in this very basic analysis.

[rasamune]

Not to be a technical writer on main, but I've been bumping into the idea lately that the only reason explaining yourself in more detail never seems to work is because neurotypical people are misunderstanding you on purpose, or because they have short attention spans, or because they just hate listening to you talk – and sure, occasionally that's even true, but most of the time the problem you're running into is more fundamental.

Every time you add more detail, you're running the risk of tripping over a bad assumption on your part about the listener's prior knowledge, or hitting the tipping point where they become overwhelmed with new information (and remember that you don't know which parts of what you're saying will be new information for them), or making a leap of logic that isn't as self-evident as you think it is, or any of a dozen other potential snags which, by definition, you will not see coming until it's too late to correct course.

Basically, every piece of information you add multiplies the odds of you getting blindsided by some vector of misunderstanding you didn't anticipate, even as it addresses the ones you did anticipate. The point of diminishing returns where continuing to elaborate increases the odds of unexpected miscommunication more than it decreases the odds of expected miscommunication is much nearer than you'd like.

The most effective act of communication is not the one which contains the most possible information, but the one which contains the smallest amount of information it possibly can while still getting its point across. It sucks, but it's the reality of the situation. People far more autistic than you have been trying for hundreds of years to invent a way of communicating which doesn't work this way, without success.

All of which is to say that "getting to the damn point" is legitimately a communication skill, not just an accommodation for people who aren't paying attention. If it's any consolation, it's something neurotypical people struggle with just as much as anyone else – if it was easy, technical writers wouldn't have jobs!

[rasamune]

There's something about atheism that I've repeatedly tried and failed to put into words on several posts on this blog but I think I finally got it.

Atheists are the only religious minority who, even (or sometimes even *especially*) in ostensibly progressive spaces are not allowed to ever act like they're sure of their beliefs.

[rasamune]

every example of the "Mandela effect" ranges from mildly embarrassing for the people who buy into it (at best) to "this betrays a fundamental lack of attention to the world around you combined with profound egocentrism" (at worst) but nothing can ever top the titular example. a bunch of (white) people just assumed Nelson Mandela died in prison, and the best explanation they could come up with was that the fabric of reality itself had warped around them, leaving only themselves and other (white) people with their original memories. like. okay. im gonna Occam's Razor this bitch and say that actually everyone who bought into that is just racist