It probably helped that a lot of those lawmakers are old enough to remember Korea under autocratic rule. That was 1987! They remember the massacres, protests, police/mil refusing orders that it took to democratize and refused to go back. Meanwhile the US is just waking up to its autocratic reality.

I hate how mfers use the phrase "dark humor" to mean "being shitty to people." The best dark comedy is gallows humor. But you can't go around saying "I'm into gallows humor" without reminding people we're the ones at the gallows.

My favorite holiday vibes. Merry merry, Space Cowboy.

I’M LOSING MY SHIT THIS IS SO FUNNY

More recently, Shadowrun's Japanese Publisher, RoleandRoll, also put out a series of "Replays" (リプレイ): which are basically TTRPG Actual Plays, transcribed and cleaned up into a sort of light novel, often with illustrations. It's taking ALL my willpower not to grab a stack of these off Mercari.

Tell me about the silly little songs you sing to your pets.

Whenever I travel to a country where I can't speak the local language well, I imagine the narrators from Old Enough/はじめてのおつかい narrating my life. "Today's task is to take the train and buy lunch at the store." "She said hello to the clerk!" "Ah! She's not good with numbers yet!" "Oh no, don't cry!"

Tell people when you like their work. No, they really don't know. No, you can't assume others are telling them. Yes, it means the world.

People keep telling me I need to watch K-Pop Demon Hunters. If I did, I'd want to drunk live-skeet it. ...problem is, I'm dry for the next few months, (or at least dry-curious, since it's just a health/diet thing.) Maybe I'll make it a reward for getting caught up on all my overdue projects. >>

Slightly diminished a band: They're Probably Not Giants

“I’m an equal opportunity offender. I make fun of everybody.” - Guy whose identities all align with the systemically dominant power groups in his cultural and geographic context

In my ajumma era. 🧑🏻‍🦱

One of my favorite things about this drop is that it introduces Dokkaebi, AKA Korean Goblins, into the Sixth World as playable Shadowrunners. Hopefully, they'll be an exciting option for those who've wanted more impish/goblin-like metas without the HMHVV baggage.

[My best Bialystock voice] Step 1! We find the worst game ever designed! Step 2! We fire the dev team! Step 3! I kickstart 2 million dollars! Step 4! We shit out AI slop graphics and code and launch early access! And before you can say Step 5, we drop support, take our 2 million and go... to RIO!

Omg, absolutely incredible reason for AO3 to have been down hachyderm.io/@vashti/1147... (alt text at original)

If you have anxious dogs, a helpful trick I learned is that playing Taiko drum music can help cover up fireworks or construction sounds. It probably won't work for everyone, but it helps my nervous little dudes get down to a manageable threshold when meds and distracting treats aren't enough.

As someone who hobby-writes for the kind of "elf games" with both, I think about this a LOT. The whole thread's worth a read, even if there are points where I disagree or think need nuance. But it underscores why we must think critically about media we create/consume, including "anti-fascist" works.

🎵 life is like a hurricane / here in duckburg / flat beaks, quackers, budget cranes / those are duck slurs 🎶

I keep seeing people driving Teslas with the emblems pried off, which has the exact same energy as "Maybe if I take the swastikas off my uniform, people will just think I'm just really into Hugo Boss."

Me: Oooh, I should commission art of all my OCs! That way I can bring them to all the big TTRPG cons and show them off. (Starts filling out request) Me: ...never mind. My ideas are bad. I admire this artist too much to subject them to my terrible, terrible ideas. ^ FFS I NEED TO STOP DOING THIS.

The shittiest part about writing dystopian sci-fi is that whenever when reality starts echoing fiction, the real-life version ends up being waaay more stupid.

...gone.

"Wrapped him a handkerchief around his gun, Said, "Nothin' wrong about what I done. Some men have everything and some have none, That's by design. The idea wasn't mine alone, but mine— And that's the sign." Funny enough, this has been stuck in my head since December. Can't imagine why.

These guys think they're spewing cutting-edge posthumanist theory and it's all just the corniest, shittiest science fiction that actual writers wouldn't waste a minute on.

It's obvious that nobody involved in DOGE has ever met a shiba IRL. Memecoins aside, shibes are the most stubborn, spiteful little shits to walk this earth, the living incarnation of "NOT GOING ANYWHERE LOL" and thus the perfect mascot for actual federal workers.

LucasArts point-and-clicks taught me to read! I started with the Monkey Island commands: pick-up, use, talk, etc. Since Sam & Max was voiced, I could actually keep up with it. My parents were thrilled with me reading so early, less with me learning to say "facilities be damned, I need a bathroom!"

It's frustrating when we talk about "western fantasy" because even that term removes the flavor of an entire continent of folklore and history Brittonic fantasy is more wonderous than just "fantasy" I love tolkien, but he isn't europe, or even england. Fantasy has so much more diversity than that.

One thing that still brings me joy right now: watching my dog dream. I always love seeing animals dream: a subtle reminder that they, too, have inner worlds. THUMP THUMP THUMP. His tail drums against the sofa, hard. He's sleep wagging. I damn near start crying. Whatever he's dreaming, he's happy.

DOGE claiming to have "no authority" to fire massive swaths of the federal workforce and demolish literal life-saving programs is the governmental equivalent of "if they got hit, it was their fault."

"In our meeting today, Elon Musk clarified that he has no authority to take your money. Rather, he makes recommendations that you hand over your wallet while holding a loaded gun to your head."

ADHD people: if you're stressed/anxious and find that mindfulness/meditation/breathing exercises make you LESS relaxed, you're NOT broken or doing it wrong. Some brains actually need more ~engaging~ activities, like gentle gaming, puzzles or drawing to feel better. This is actually a thing. 🧵

Every time I try to finish my writing before deadline: (...or cosplay, or any creative project, really.)

In love with the work of illustrator Felicia Chiao. She sneaks up on you with simplicity and warm tones and hits you hard with a bat. Current mood: "Afternoon Slump"

I don't know what the manosphere influencers are banging on about, but I grew up with a sense of healthy masculinity. I believe in a world where a guy can ask his bros for honest personal feedback, like "Am I original?" "Am I the only one?" "Am I sexual?" And they can answer "yeeeeaaaah".

My doctor asked how I've been handling the chaos, and I answered with "stress cleaning and meditation". She was eager to praise these healthy new habits, which seemed completely beside the point. It's like hearing, "I see you've taken up running. That's great!" when you're being chased by a lion.

This is why I'm not allowed to get a Costco membership. Right now, that's the only thing standing in the way of me going out and acquiring a cake-slab physically larger than I am and proceeding to eat it on the couch in one sitting. wapo.st/3X6pbo6

I'm constantly surprised Shadowrun doesn't get more love as a TTRPG. (Even if I totally get not wanting to play in a dystopia right now.)   I guess I just have a special love for a system where "ork mage in a lesbian biker gang that gives bashies to fashies" is actually a pretty typical PC.

Be wary of messages berating those who still hope for a better world, or that claim democratic ideals are inherently naive and that corruption is not only pervasive but inevitable. Hope is not sufficient to escape this nightmare, but it is -necessary.-

Introduce yourself with four vidja games:

Stay strong my friends. Rest. Recharge. Dig deep. We need each other and the country needs us. I have no idea what's awaiting me, or what will happen when this all ends. For the moment I know this: there are sick people and they need curing. Albert Camus, The Plague

One thing that sucks about sci-fi writing these days is that whenever I gush about an AI character, I have to go out of my way to clarify that I'm not talking about some predictive text chatbot or an image shat out by genAI. I mean a character who is literally a little dude living in the wi-fi.

*BOOP* #selfcare #birds #memes

One of the hardest life lessons I've only started to grasp is that it's actually okay to just ~let~ people be upset. Like, especially with neurotypicals, sometimes they just need to be mad or sad, regardless of the situation, and nothing you say or do will make a difference until they ride that out.

Explaining musicals to my non-theater-kid friend: So the musical Cats was what you get when you combine soulless, unfiltered capitalism with a boatload of psychadelics. Take Cats, remove the drugs, and you get Six. Remove the capitalism, and add even more drugs, and you have Ride the Cyclone.

There appear to be at least three separately operating heel factions breaking things within the government in wholly different ways right now. There's the Miller-headed immigration one, the DOGE/Elon one, and a Project 2025 OMB one. This dynamic hasn't showed up in mainstream reporting at all.

I've been thinking of this scene a lot lately:

This is what the government did with 120K+ Japanese Americans in 1942. I know. I was there in those camps.

In today's episode of "Cooking with ADHD" ... Seriously though, I somehow misplaced a whole stick and a half of increasingly soft butter somewhere in my house. I've now spent over an hour looking for them and am now deeply concerned just where/when/how these rogue buttersticks are going to turn up.

새해 복 많이 받아!

No one does gov work for the money. On the contrary, many accept jobs knowing they could easily end up working w/o pay whenever Congress throws a budget tantrum. They choose public service knowing full well that a job at Amazon is literally a metro stop away and would pay 5x as much.