put it in my hand

Grammar may be fake, but sweating the small stuff is forever. Verso, they/them. Diversity of race and gender, speculative fiction, tabletop rpg podcasts, sociology, anime, neurodivergence, revolution, video games, higher education, webcomics, philosophy, and all things related to writing. Current obsessions include Murderbot and Friends at the Table. Asian-American, college grad, technically a doctor. Check out my "Tags I Use" tab for specifics and request new tags anytime.

[grammarpedant]

Indah's treatment of both SecUnit and the refugee Humans at the end of Fugitive Telemetry was the masterstroke of writing that showed what IS good about Preservation's establishment, actually. That Indah was able to hold compassion and understanding for both extremely traumatized parties, both the prickly consultant she's been butting heads with all book and the ungrateful strangers who shot it in the back, and balance their needs without letting either hurt the other further, shows what Preservation is GOOD at. Reparative justice, harm reduction, compassion and healing and the difficult logistics thereof.

She is dead serious when she offers for Murderbot to press charges against the humans who shot it. She also won't let the refugees be threatened or intimidated by that same legal action by her own officers. She makes sure everyone knows the rights and protections they're due. She says, No, we will not be charging Human One, "because I understand she’s experienced extreme trauma and because the consultant refused to make a complaint," because she understands due process is necessary for justice, and because she understands that what she doesn't understand comes from trauma—on both sides. She says, Are you going to help us find the real killer, "Or is this just how your whole group treats people who get hurt trying to help you?" because yes, she does understand where Murderbot's coming from better now, and because she has to speak up—she cannot simply accept the humans fear this SecUnit, despite its own resignation, not when her job is to restore and repair the society that holds both victims. And when she keeps Murderbot and the refugees from coming face to face with each other, it's not only for the humans' sake, it's for Murderbot's sake too. An unmediated, charged possible confrontation would harm both parties and serve no one. Her words and actions reflect her sincere beliefs in compassion and justice, and those of Preservation's.

And in the end when Murderbot has given up on its "less murdery," minimum force, life-prioritizing, "that was a SecUnit plan" aspirations to non-violent purpose and gone to kill Balin or be killed by it, it's Preservation's bot community that intervenes and de-escalates the situation without further harm or violence. After Human One, it sends a message to the reader: that despite the trauma and injustices the world brings to its doorstep, despite the missteps its people make in the process, Preservation is still ready to respond with strength, compassion, justice, mercy, and its belief in the sanctity of all life. It shows us, not better people, but people borne of a better society, and asks us what we could be if we could make our future better, too.

[grammarpedant]

just realized my IDEAL drag king persona would be disgustingly long-bearded karate master who hobbles around doing the crouching tiger hidden dragon thing of pretending to be a senile old man before throwing off my hanfu to reveal the washboard abs of my fake bodybuilder muscle suit and saying something obnoxiously campy about my opponent being ten years too early to beat me

this combines my two favorite things about masculinity: being a shameless old man and saying stupid chuuni shit

[arowitharrows]

I feel like people struggle to understand that my life as an aorace person is not centered around an absence of relationships. There is no romance shaped void that I am trying to live with, or live around, or which my life's purpose is to fill somehow.

I go to university and I go to work and I volunteer in my community and in the in-between moments I drink tea with my friends and I plant tomatoes on my balcony and there is no need for anything else. There is no room for anything else anyway.

When I am asked how I deal with 'the hole in my life' or what I do with 'all my free time', I know these questions are not about me at all. They are a reflection of the person asking.

[thatsthebirds]

Its kind of asking how you cope with the lack of parking spaces when someone doesnt own a car

[ace-of-bass]

Ooh I love this analogy because not owning a car does come with problems (at least in the US typically), namely that US infrastructure is so reliant on cars that not owning one means that you deal with other problems, like lack of bike lanes, infrequent public transit, people always assuming you can drive places, etc. Aro/ace people do face problems due to amatonormativity in society, such as inaffordability of places to live alone (because it's assumed you'll live with a roommate until you're a "real adult" and live with a partner and also because of capitalism), lack of ways to meet new people that aren't specifically focused on dating, and people always asking when you'll settle down, aren't you lonely, don't you miss having a partner? as OP talked about.

Like, there are problems that one encounters as a carless person, and there are problems I've encountered as an aroace person. But the problem as a carless person isn't lack of parking spaces and the problem as an aroace person isn't lack of a relationship.

[wizardarchetypes]

i think avoidance is such a little-recognized ocd compulsion. all the time i talk to people with ocd who are like "i was always having intrusive thoughts about using kitchen knives and harming myself or others but i'm okay now because i just stopped using knives ever 👍 so i'm good now"

and i'm like unfortunately i have bad news.

[wizardarchetypes]

if you don't know why this doesn't work, the issue is that ocd never stops when you implement a compulsion. it evolves. today you've "solved" it by never using a knife again (and losing access to an important cooking tool, thus limiting an aspect of your life) but in a few months or a year it'll be that forks are dangerous too. and hey, isn't it risky to use the stove? avoidance will even begin to manifest in places you might not recognize.

the point is that OCD compulsions are never solutions, they're actually the problems. the intrusive thoughts SEEM like the problem and the compulsions FEEL like the solution. and that's how it getsya.

[hussyknee]

The most basic, intractable fact about mental illnesses is that you simply cannot willpower your way out of them. The only exceptions to this rule are the ones I have, which continue to disable me due to lack of determination and other grave personal flaws

[aethersea]

another thing fantasy writers should keep track of is how much of their worldbuilding is aesthetic-based. it's not unlike the sci-fi hardness scale, which measures how closely a story holds to known, real principles of science. The Martian is extremely hard sci-fi, with nearly every detail being grounded in realistic fact as we know it; Star Trek is extremely soft sci-fi, with a vaguely plausible "space travel and no resource scarcity" premise used as a foundation for the wildest ideas the writers' room could come up with. and much as Star Trek fuckin rules, there's nothing wrong with aesthetic-based fantasy worldbuilding!

(sidenote we're not calling this 'soft fantasy' bc there's already a hard/soft divide in fantasy: hard magic follows consistent rules, like "earthbenders can always and only bend earth", and soft magic follows vague rules that often just ~feel right~, like the Force. this frankly kinda maps, but I'm not talking about just the magic, I'm talking about the worldbuilding as a whole.

actually for the purposes of this post we're calling it grounded vs airy fantasy, bc that's succinct and sounds cool.)

a great example of grounded fantasy is Dungeon Meshi: the dungeon ecosystem is meticulously thought out, the plot is driven by the very realistic need to eat well while adventuring, the story touches on both social and psychological effects of the whole 'no one dies forever down here' situation, the list goes on. the worldbuilding wants to be engaged with on a mechanical level and it rewards that engagement.

deliberately airy fantasy is less common, because in a funny way it's much harder to do. people tend to like explanations. it takes skill to pull off "the world is this way because I said so." Narnia manages: these kids fall into a magic world through the back of a wardrobe, befriend talking beavers who drink tea, get weapons from Santa Claus, dance with Bacchus and his maenads, and sail to the edge of the world, without ever breaking suspension of disbelief. it works because every new thing that happens fits the vibes. it's all just vibes! engaging with the worldbuilding on a mechanical level wouldn't just be futile, it'd be missing the point entirely.

the reason I started off calling this aesthetic-based is that an airy story will usually lean hard on an existing aesthetic, ideally one that's widely known by the target audience. Lewis was drawing on fables, fairy tales, myths, children's stories, and the vague idea of ~medieval europe~ that is to this day our most generic fantasy setting. when a prince falls in love with a fallen star, when there are giants who welcome lost children warmly and fatten them up for the feast, it all fits because these are things we'd expect to find in this story. none of this jars against what we've already seen.

and the point of it is to be wondrous and whimsical, to set the tone for the story Lewis wants to tell. and it does a great job! the airy worldbuilding serves the purposes of the story, and it's no less elegant than Ryōko Kui's elaborately grounded dungeon. neither kind of worldbuilding is better than the other.

however.

you do have to know which one you're doing.

the whole reason I'm writing this is that I saw yet another long, entertaining post dragging GRRM for absolute filth. asoiaf is a fun one because on some axes it's pretty grounded (political fuck-around-and-find-out, rumors spread farther than fact, fastest way to lose a war is to let your people starve, etc), but on others it's entirely airy (some people have magic Just Cause, the various peoples are each based on an aesthetic/stereotype/cliché with no real thought to how they influence each other as neighbors, the super-long seasons have no effect on ecology, etc).

and again! none of this is actually bad! (well ok some of those stereotypes are quite bigoted. but other than that this isn't bad.) there's nothing wrong with the season thing being there to highlight how the nobles are focused on short-sighted wars for power instead of storing up resources for the extremely dangerous and inevitable winter, that's a nice allegory, and the looming threat of many harsh years set the narrative tone. and you can always mix and match airy and grounded worldbuilding – everyone does it, frankly it's a necessity, because sooner or later the answer to every worldbuilding question is "because the author wanted it to be that way." the only completely grounded writing is nonfiction.

the problem is when you pretend that your entirely airy worldbuilding is actually super duper grounded. like, for instance, claiming that your vibes-based depiction of Medieval Europe (Gritty Edition) is completely historical, and then never even showing anyone spinning. or sniffing dismissively at Tolkien for not detailing Aragorn's tax policy, and then never addressing how a pre-industrial grain-based agricultural society is going years without harvesting any crops. (stored grain goes bad! you can't even mouse-proof your silos, how are you going to deal with mold?) and the list goes on.

the man went up on national television and invited us to engage with his worldbuilding mechanically, and then if you actually do that, it shatters like spun sugar under the pressure. doesn't he realize that's not the part of the story that's load-bearing! he should've directed our focus to the political machinations and extensive trope deconstruction, not the handwavey bit.

point is, as a fantasy writer there will always be some amount of your worldbuilding that boils down to 'because I said so,' and there's nothing wrong with that. nor is there anything wrong with making that your whole thing – airy worldbuilding can be beautiful and inspiring. but you have to be aware of what you're doing, because if you ask your readers to engage with the worldbuilding in gritty mechanical detail, you had better have some actual mechanics to show them.

[bill-blake-fans-anonymous]

The Five Love Languages (and how to show affection in each one!)

Each of us has one or two love languages, the special ways we prefer to be showered with affection. But keeping a partner's love language in mind can be tricky. So here are a list of the five love languages, and some tips on how to put them into practice with your main squeeze!

Disembowelment

If your partner's love language is disembowelment, you probably already know it from the sweet way they run their fingers along your intestinal tract, or hold your heart in their hands—literally! For a disemboweler, a fine, keen knife of obsidian makes a gift they'll treasure. They'll also love little vials of your blood, or even just handwritten notes that say things like "you're the only one who gets to fondle my luscious entrails <3" You may also want to purchase more practical gifts, like bandages, disinfectant, and (just in case) formaldehyde.

Deadly Vendettas

Do you often find yourself in merciless rapier duels with your partner over matters of honor? Do they smile with malicious tenderness at you as they offer you a goblet full of inky liquid that might be wine (or might be something else)? Are they always tearing at their hair and weeping into their lacy cuffs while swearing that they will hunt you down and slay you if it's the last thing they do? Then your partner's love language is deadly vendettas! Deadly vendetta partners are very passionate and cunning, so they'll adore samples of exotic poisons, a picture of you to gaze at in ecstatic hatred, or even a fine, keen knife of obsidian to sweep slowly through the air as if practicing to slash your throat.

Obsession

Partners often say that they feel like two halves of one whole. But maybe your partner feels like a lone half a being, raw and chill in the howling wind, and wants nothing more than to rejoin with their lost half in a searing love-clash that may destroy both of them. In that case, you've got an obsessive partner. Whether you two are linked by inexplicable forces or under the effects of a love-philtre, the obsessed lover is a fan of anything that smacks of chivalrous passion and suppressed yearning. Give them a lock of your hair, a handkerchief, perhaps even a glance that lingers a fraction of a second too long. Or, in the dead of night, after making tormented love, press into their hand a fine, keen knife of obsidian and whisper "if we are discovered, you know what you must do."

Acts of Service

Blood and death and dangling, dripping guts are all well and good, but a partner can also be very receptive to simple, small acts that show you care about their well-being. These are acts of service, and they can be very powerful to the right partner. Try helping with chores around the house, or otherwise easing the burdens of everyday life for them. They may also appreciate you helping to locate something—like if they can't find their fine, keen knife of obsidian anywhere.

Night Pursuit Over the Moors

You already know this one! Practically everyone loves to pursue their beloved on foot over the deserted, moonlit moors. You can make this common practice even more exciting by donning a fine linen shift that gleams silver in the moon's eerie radiance, carrying a lantern, letting down your long raven-black tresses, and carrying with you the fine, keen knife of obsidian that is your secret weapon against your pursuer, and the instrument of their horrific death.

[kradeelav]

i know things are hella grim in the nsfw/kink art circles especially in the last year --

but I'm hearing there's a NSFW-friendly ko-fi alternative built on atproto that's actively in the works, and being vetted by lawyers right now. as torrent-princess (OP) says, you should be able to swap out payment processors while keeping your account intact. this matters since even if stripe removes support, you'll still have a shop and all of your links intact. (ATproto is an infrastructure that bsky is built on, but is far bigger than bsky with far more opportunities.)

additionally, the Free Speech Coalition is working on a credit union specifically for adult work (including kink art) - here's the link so you can add your interest & support. Since this will be built by sex workers, there'll be far less risk of being debanked for spurious and puritanical reasons.

on a domain TLD level, there's an initiative here for a .furry domain built from the ground up by seasoned furries; it's unclear whether they'll support NSFW, but it's yet another promising turn of events for a group that's been similarly affected by censorship.

there are friends and allies out there helping to build a working parallel infrastructure. keep being vocal, keep supporting these initiatives when it's possible, and keep supporting your nsfw/kink artists. ♥

[happyroadkillart]

Vixen's origin story

[ramshacklefey]

If I See One More Person Define Quoiromantic Wrong I'm Going to Scream

When I was a much younger Fey, a friend explained the concept of aromanticism to me.

"But," said I, "How can someone be aromantic? What is it they aren't experiencing? There's no One Thing that romantic love is."

Some readers will now be laughing and shaking their heads at young Fey, who just didn't know he was aromantic yet. Those readers would be wrong.

The term I use to describe myself is quoiromantic: I fundamentally reject the categories of romantic and platonic love. Being quoiromantic says nothing about what sorts of emotions I experience. It's about how I view those emotions and my relationships with other people. Kasumi Nakamura's article "The Quoiromantic Manifesto" is fantastic, and AsexualAgenda did an Ace Journal Club piece on it that gives a slightly more accessible summary.

What makes me want to screech is people defining quoiromantic as "unable to distinguish between platonic and romantic love" or "unsure of the difference" or "doesn't understand romantic love." These definitions cast being quoiromantic as something like being red-green colorblind: "romantic" and "platonic" are two categories which exist and can be distinguished by most people, but I for some reason lack this ability. Charmingly, it also manages to paint being quoiromantic as a kind of immaturity, since being able to identify and categorize one's own emotions is, y'know, a sign of being a grown-up. It also opens up this whole world of people thinking I need their help, or thinking they get to tell me what I'm feeling, the way one might tell a colorblind friend whether the shirt they're wearing is red or not. Delightful.

I understand where the confusion comes in. As the Asexual Agenda post points out, the glossary definitions of Queer Identities tend to treat them all as "intrinsic identities with clear distinctions between them." In Anglo-U.S. circles Queer Identities are focused on inner experiences: what do you feel? for whom? how do you view yourself? We have a major aversion to claiming things as part of ourselves which can't be claimed as intrinsic. (Things that aren't intrinsic are Lifestyle Choices, and Lifestyle Choices can be Immoral, and Immorality can be Outlawed.)

Quoiromantic isn't an identity in that way. Like I said, it's not a description of my inner world. I use the term for myself because it covers a set of ideas I believe are true, and those ideas inform the way I structure my interpersonal relationships.

And the fundamental idea is that romantic love vs platonic love is a false distinction. The categories are incoherent. ("Incoherent" is different than "nonexistent.") You can't fix the problem by adding a "secret third thing."

It's not that there's any particular emotion which doesn't exist. It's that when you look into the distinction between romantic and platonic love, there isn't one. There's love or whatever you want to call it, and it comes in infinite shades and textures and weights, but those two categories are nonsense. Once you start trying to find the actual distinction between them, it's easy to see.

As far as I can tell, all of the following could be considered parts of romantic love:

enjoying Person's company more than anyone else's;

feeling you life would be incomplete without Person in it;

the desire to share a household with Person (meaning shared finances etc, not just roommates);

wanting Person to like you more than they like anyone else and prioritize your needs and well-being over everyone else's (or at least putting you very very very high on their priorities list);

being pathetically attached to Person and feeling you are worthless without their approval;

obsessing over Person (worrying about them, wanting to know all about them, finding them fascinating, etc);

wanting to care for/serve Person and ensure all their needs are met;

wanting to be allies/comrades with Person for life;

being absolute besties who get each other in ways no one else does;

fighting constantly but always making up again;

It's a pick and choose list. They aren't all necessary and there's no magical "romantic if checks this many boxes" number. Probably no one is going to feel all these things for their Person at once. (I left out sexual attraction and oxytocin-induced-infatuation on purpose, and I'll circle back to them.)

Still, feels like a pretty good list, yeah? These are, if nothing else, the sort of things I see people go "there's no platonic explanation for that" about.

Here's the fun part:

Everything on this list is something folks feel about their close kin. These are all things normal people feel about their parents, children, and siblings. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assume we agree that none of this would indicate romantic love in those situations. (Which is why I specified close kin, rather than friends.)

I'll go further and say there's almost nothing (again, I'm getting to the sex part) you could add as a necessary element of romantic love which would set it apart from an emotional state a normal person could experience toward a sibling, parent, or child. Because the thing we call "romantic love" isn't a specific, unique thing by itself.

Which is fine. What's the point of setting apart something we call "romantic love" in the first place? How does doing that help us? What benefit do you get out of being able to categorize all your emotions this way? Would it change how you approach finding friends, choosing roommates, deciding who you want to fuck, or raise kids with, or share finances with, if you didn't have the amorphous concept of "romantic" hanging over you? Would you love more easily if you didn't feel the need to grasp at one, imagined category so tightly it shredded you every time someone went away?

I can't see anything to lose by tossing the category, as long as I get to keep the feelings and see how they're actually so much richer and more varied and colorful than I could've imagined. The way they show up in so many more places in my life's tapestry, and the way I get to be so much freer to be honest about giving and accepting love.

That's why I'm quoiromantic.

And why I'm going to bite the next person who says I just can't tell the difference between emotions. _____

Post-script:

OKAY FINE let's talk about sexual attraction and infatuation, the two things people always bring up when I say romantic love doesn't exist.

Sexual Attraction: Outside the queer tumblr scenes, this is the delineating factor for romantic love generally. It's some combination of things on the list up there + sexual attraction. Honestly? If that's really the entirety of your definition, I'm fine with that. It makes romantic love into something quite trivial when you think about it though. "I wanna fuck you," is quite the mundane sentiment all told. But if you're willing to separate it from everything else, I'll accept your definition. Oh, but one more thing. Could you tell me. Does all sexual attraction to someone indicate romantic love? If not, you're right back in the same problem as before you brought this one up. If sexual attraction does always indicate romantic love, then you're just made romantic love and sexual attraction the same thing. Which. I guess you can do. But I'd suggest having a good sit-down-and-think before you make any life choices based on who you wanna fuck today.

Oxytocin/Infatuation/Being in Love: This is an interesting one, becuase it does point to a specific emotional state, which we can sorta "measure" (the way we'd measure anger or fear via brain chemicals, not measure subjectively). This intoxicating cocktail of hormones does a number on your brain and yes, is responsible for the "in love with" feeling of infatuation. Do we want to use it as the defining feature for romantic love? Well, it'd be good to remember that this is the same thing experienced by new parents bonding with their infants. It's the "glue these two humans together because one of them stands to immediately die without the other one" cocktail.* It's heady and exhilerating and absolutely not sustainable long-term. As in your-brain-cannot-physically-manage-that-it-would-be-bad-for-you. With this one again, I'd actually say if this is your whole definition of romantic love, then I'll work with it. I'll also say that if this is your whole definition of romantic love, then you need to entirely rework what place you think romantic love has in your life. Making decisions based on this state of mind is about as reasonable as me making decisions during a manic episode. *("Caretaker not paying enough attention to me" is a literal existential threat to a baby. Cigars be cigars but it's hilarious to me that "Person not paying enough attention to me feels like an existential threat" remains an effect of this chemical state in adults, and it's considered a Normal Way to Feel.)

[specialagentartemis]

hello there! i saw your post and it made me want to ask you (feel free to ignore) if you decide aromanticsm is a stance you hold, what would u consider the difference between aromanticsm and simply being avoidant?

Does there have to be one?

Like. I do think there is something inside me that goes “hhhgghhhhhhhh no” when I think about trying to Do Romance. Is that Lack Of Romantic Attraction? Well, I assume yes, because I do not feel a draw to do romance. So I guess definitionally there is nothing inside me that makes romance feel like an attractive prospect. So saying “there is something fairly fundamental to my personality that makes me not want to pursue a romantic relationship, and makes me uncomfortable when I consider trying, that makes me much happier when pursuing non-romantic relationships” is I would say an accurate descriptor of the part of myself that I identify as “aromantic.”

The fact that I identify it as “aromantic” is the stance I’m talking about. I’m identifying this as an important aspect of my personality and way I move through the world. Could I call myself avoidant instead? I mean, sure I could. Would that benefit me or anybody? I don’t think it would. However it is accurate that I avoid romantic relationships. So does that make me avoidant? Maybe. Is that a bad thing? I don’t think it is. “Avoiding romantic relationships because you don’t want them” is a neutral thing worthy of acceptance whether you identify that proclivity in yourself as “aromanticism” or not.

This is why I don’t like models of a-spec identities that reduce the whole thing to being about Attraction Only. Stressing over whether I was really aromantic or just Afraid Of Commitment, whether I was really asexual or Just Repressed, was making me stressed and unhappy. Reframing it around what I wanted—“What kind of relationships do I want? What life-path will make me happy?”—it felt like a weight lifted off my chest. It didn’t have to be about sussing out my True Attractions. It could be about determining what I wanted in my life and living it.

People are different and differences don’t have to be separated into “biologically innate and can’t be fixed, so must be accepted” and “just a choice where you are able to be realigned with the Norm, and so therefore are required to be.”

[violet-phoenix-nebula]

This is easily the most interesting take I've ever seen discussing why the older generations seem to struggle so much with the discussions and changes with gender identity, and I think it's absolutely worth reading.

Obviously it doesn't cover 100% of intolerant people, but I think it explains a decent chunk tbh.

[cat-mermaid]

was speeding up this footage to make a gif, but the audio is fucking golden, so its staying a video

[sealsandlacenet]

aaauhhhauaggahha aughhhhh auagshhagah ayagahhagagagha ahahhahauyagah augahagjshsjkshagshsgahgahgsha hsgshgahagsh

[prokopetz]

It's actually a bit surprising to me that we haven't seen contemporary meta brainfuck indie games do more than they have with 1990s point and click adventure games' penchant for developer-intended softlocks. That feels like something you could very easily spin as Saying Something.

[prokopetz]

Honestly, having grown up with this bullshit is probably a big part of the reason I'm fascinated with player-hostile game design. Giving a puzzle three different solutions with fully voiced and animated reactions to each, except two of those solutions render the game unwinnable in ways that won't become apparent until hours later is a level of "fuck you" that most modern games with pretensions of player-hostility can only dream of!

[prokopetz]

@lunchm34t replied:

what adventure games softlock you like that?

I'm usually loathe to suggest TV Tropes as a resource, but given that only a person who's entirely unacquainted with the genre would be asking that question, a primer is probably warranted. Check out the Unwinnable By Design article and read the preamble for context on the types of softlocks we're discussing, then hit either the "Sierra" or "Infocom" links (yes, those two publishers each have their own dedicated sections!), pop open the "Cruel" tab, and get ready to read some stuff that makes you mad.

[sd-d0-l1y]

There really is only one correct way to play some of these games huh.

[prokopetz]

A critical piece of context that a lot of modern gamers completely miss is that Douglas Adams' adventure games are works of parody not only in terms of their narratives, but also in the sense that they're rather vicious parodies of adventure games as a genre. Each of their absurdly obtuse puzzles is lampooning some puzzle design trope or set of tropes that was legitimately commonplace at the time they were made, and many of the really nasty bits are crafted specifically to piss off experienced adventure game fans who otherwise wouldn't get caught out by that sort of thing. They're outliers in the genre only in the sense that they're putting forth extra effort to be annoying about it – most games of the type pull the exact same shit entirely without remark!

[prokopetz]

(Honestly, the player-hostility of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy tends to be tremendously overstated owing to a combination of effective marketing and the fact that it's the only adventure game from that era that any significant number of current-gen gamers have ever actually played. In terms of sheer fuckery it's considerably friendlier than stuff like, say, Codename: ICEMAN.)

[dana-ategina]

were these like, rented out blockbuster-style and the devs got a cut out of said rent, or

[prokopetz]

It helps to understand that point and click adventure games are one of the first genres the Git Gud crowd really fixated on, and a lot of these early design trends revolved around catering to that crowd. It only got reframed as a genre for filthy casuals in the wake of a demographic shift in the mid 1990s that saw the genre's player base skewing strongly female; it's practically the only example of a video game genre's reputation flipping directly from "hardcore" to "casual", and one of the most striking illustrations of the fact that which kinds of games are considered "real" games is more about identity politics than mechanics.

[vesperosy]

this tweet has been fucking killing me

[grison-in-space]

Why [do some biological mothers of children born into lesbian relationships cut their exes off from their children after divorce]? Why are so many lesbians willing to act so crazily and destructively? “It comes,” she said, “from a place that is so victimized that you don’t even understand when you’ve moved from being the victim to the oppressor. I’m convinced that the reason most of these cases proceed is that by and large, most women who take this terrible position do have a cadre of friends supporting them. Most of them are not completely alone. They usually have a cadre of close friends who say, ‘Oh yeah, she was a bitch. I never liked her.’ Not appreciating that there is a child in the center of this family. Generally the biological parents who take this position have at least a handful of other lesbians who support her in her actions. The community needs to be able to put sufficient pressure on the bio-mom’s friends to tell her, ‘We can’t support you in this strategy.’” This is what makes Kendell so interesting. She has articulated a community-based approach to the problem. Since the relationship between lesbians and the court system and lesbians and the state is an ever changing relationship, creating a stigma within the community is the way to regulate people’s behavior. To make amoral lesbians realize that actually someone does care about how they act and that there is someone who notices and cares enough that the woman in question has to be accountable. To tell her that she does live within a moral system. It’s about the responsibilities of not being alone. It’s kind of brilliant.

Ties That Bind: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences by Sarah Schulman. 2009.

[asthedeathoflight]

Finally finished my reread of The Raven Tower and I love the Strength and Patience of the Hill soooo soso much. More books should have narrators fondly going oh youre so smart youre so clever yes you did it you solved my riddle <3 at the protagonist while the protagonist is screaming about how the narrator is gonna kill everybody. And then the narrator kills everybody.