Also, I've downloaded 21 other Adobe products for you. They are now hard-wired into your operating system. Upgrade now to get the functional version (don't worry - none of them are really that functional!). It's only $529.99 per month. We've also stopped using Windows Explorer because we hate you!
a soft looking and somewhat worn felt swan with a big beak and trailing feathers
thinking about this 1500 year old plush swan made of reindeer wool
we all know I have no life, so:
Remember when I started this experiment back in the autumn? I can now finally share that this is probably an extremely RARE case of most vile tasting Tudor food. I can conclude that it works as a preservative but the pear ended up being bin fodder. Don’t try this at home! 😂
A grey tabby staring into the distance
A grey tabby looking at the camera in confusiom
Skittles is such a beautiful dumbass
Cat Distribution System strikes again
Babies
When someone explains something to you for the seventh time and you still don't understand.
Une main transparente marche sur ses doigts dans une ville en ruines envahie par la végétation. elle pense: "Les cheetohs sont à 7$. Le taux d'emprunt immobilier grimpe de 1%. Le S&P 500 baisse à 476,23..." La légende dit: "Après que l'humanité se fut auto-annihilée, la main invisible du marché continua à parcourir le monde, ajustant tristement les prix."
Un autre @zachweinersmith.bsky.social pour la route ?
Un mécanicien regarde sous un capot de voiture où se trouve un bordel sans nom fait de touches de piano, de marionnettes, trompettes, un hamster dans une roue et autres objets en vrac. Il dit à son client: "Il est là , votre problème: le dessinateur n'a pas la moindre idée d'à quoi ressemble l'intérieur d'une voiture."
Un autre @ellisjrosen.bsky.social que j'adore.
Comic of the beetle from the cover of Massive Attack's "Mezzanine" meeting the crab from the cover of The Prodigy's "Fat of the Land".
Hi this joke is for me
(Caveat: sorry, I am not a game designer or game narrative expert. I am just a literature and linguistics person who likes video games! )
I think my point is that a lot of players will say that they like a game's Story, when what they mean is that they liked the experience of playing the game, or they liked being immersed in its environment, or they enjoyed the process of reconstructing its history from found fragments
A scene of the Elden Ring manga in which the Tarniahed encounters Blaidd chasing and catching a Scarab (he's just a dog chasing a ball) HEY... WHAT'RE YOU CHASING? WAIT UP! THIS GUY'S NO WOLF. HE'S JUST A BIG DOG... AHH, SORRY, FRIEND. WHEN I SEE SOMETHING ROUND, I JUST CAN'T HELP BUT CHASE IT...
I really liked the Elden Ring manga, though. It leans into being a journal of playing the game, and as a result it is silly as heck.
It's why I dislike many lore videos: they collapse things into a Canonical Text that is only one reading of the information, and it's often one that relies on speculation and assuming a completeness and coherence of vision that the games just don't have (blasphemy, I know).
It's just that the part we like is piecing together the clues into something that is often full of holes and unanswerable questions and implied richness. Having a narrative kind of collapses much of that into A Story.
It's a pretty nice writing job in that it's so broad that you could either try to synthesise the impressionistic history that counts as a From game's only real traditional narrative, or just do your own thing in the setting.
On the one hand, Fromsoft does not make games that lend themselves well to our concept of Story in other mediums.
On the other hand, 1) Elden Ring is maybe the closest any of them gets to having a story, besides Sekiro (which is getting an anime), and 2) Alex Garland.
I haven't played that one, so it's interesting to hear it's noticeable in that game too.
It's so bad. I think that these games' beautiful, dense environments often hide what is interactable, and then they use dialogue as a band aid to try to fix it. While the writing in general in that game is really good, it's just annooooying when so much of the dialogue is those 'hints'
Poor Sam has an injured toe he needs to leave alone. In the meantime, he keeps calling me Mr. Wayne in a very silly voice.
It seems to be a special problem with many open world games that when they have linear sections they do this:
I absolutely loved Aloy in the first game. In the DLC for the first game and in Forbidden West, I was actively shouting "shut up, Aloy" at my screen. Please, stop bothering us and let us play your game!
This game is lesson for game designers not to become too anxious that the player won't know what to do. Or at least not to deal with that anxiety by telling us what to do before we've had a chance to even think about it.
The children are simultaneously offended, rejecting the ideas they are presented with, while being passively indoctrinated by their education.
Oh no, the children are "offended" to hear that there are only two genders. They need to face facts.
vs.
We should refuse to accept this ridiculous indoctrination of our children!
It's important to consider which views are framed as an issue of "offense", and which are framed as valid concerns or violations of the law.
They’ve constructed this entire edifice of what education should supposedly look like, with a regulator and fucking financial penalties, purely to coddle a few bigots. Whose views are not remotely hard to encounter in everyday life, because they are so fucking noisy and also *the establishment*
Being shocked and offended is *not* ‘part of the process of education’. It is *not* actually essential to learning that you be shocked and offended. The reason this meme exists on the culture war right is because students won’t put up with transphobia on campus. That’s literally the whole thing.
