This is a thread of major media outlets falsely anthropomorphising the "Grok" chatbot program and in doing so, actively and directly removing responsibility and accountability from individual people working at X who created a child pornography generator (Elon Musk, Nikita Bier etc) #1: Reuters

Not only is a machine apology worthless, posting it is an attempt at actively concealing who's responsible behind habitual anthropomorphism.

"Grok" is not creating child porn (calling it CSAM sterilizes it, imo) any more than a camera does. Elon Musk is creating child porn. Elon Musk should go to prison for making and distributing a child porn creation tool.

I swear to god I am losing my mind. This is @reuters.com. REUTERS. "Grok said in a post..." "Grok referred to..." STOP GROK DID NONE OF THESE THINGS IT IS A MACHINE THAT GENERATES SENTENCE-SHAPED WORD GROUPS www.reuters.com/legal/litiga...

This set of observations is produced by my scrolling Reddit and otherwise listening to people talk about "how to write." A) there is no requirement that any of your characters has any sort of "arc" let alone a redemption. B) there is also no requirement that your fiction has a plot.

uh holy SHIT?

if you haven't read jezebel's 2018 coverage of the listserv where 400+ "left-of-center" transphobic "journalists" methodically orchestrated the current moment, it's a good companion to the TNN interview: www.jezebel.com/private-mess...

The piece of critique I'm most proud of from 2025 is my analysis of The Last Caravan. Playing through a campaign, my table felt both restricted and lost at the same time. I trace that experience back to a disconnect within the game: it doesn't quite choose between the sandbox and the rollercoaster.

In light of yesterday's stirring performance by Lucy Dacus in NYC, here's an article by my colleague Robert Forrant on the 1912 "Bread and Roses" Strike in Lawrence, Mass. #SolidarityForever www.zinnedproject.org/materials/br...

"Do you have an alternate setup if I x-card zombies?" my friend asked. The GM just sat and blinked a bit and then said, "It's a horror game..." "Yes, and what if I don't feel comfortable with zombies and want to x-card that?" "Please don't." was the GM's reply. So, fellow GMs, what would YOU do?

Hey this seems like a good example to follow on a much larger scale maybe

Recent reading: Murder on the Titania by Alex Acks. A steampunk short story collection that reminded me of Lupin III more than anything else.

this is such an important thing to recognize and call out the fascism is mostly done being nice at this point, but it got here through well dressed men politely asking questions while the rest of us were scolded for pointing out where those questions led

It's worth reading the whole interview in full. It basically verifies that the NYT has spent the past decade-plus doubling down on top-down narratives for coverage, getting more intense over time. Sulzberg personally picked & chose whom the news apparatus would target and whom it would kiss up to.

Still one of my favorite poems, and a good read for the first day of the year.

In this in-depth interview Billie Jean Sweeney — a former editor at The New York Times — details how the paper shifted towards openly promoting anti-trans hatred, why this was directed from the very top, how some staff pushed back and the immense damage done by the NYT legitimizing bigotry.

Trans communities warned for years about the NYT's transphobia, but the specifics of how this was ordered were often shrouded behind corporate hierarchy. No more. Sweeney lays out specifically how the highest ranks of the NYT rigged coverage in favor of anti-trans bigots.

A few more photos from the drone over Northchurch Common this afternoon as the sun poured beautiful golden light over the treetops. The berries are amazing this year. Note the crown shyness on the 3rd image - normally seen from below :) #Berkhamsted #DronePhotography #DJIMavic3Pro

OTHERSIDE is officially OPEN for fiction and poetry submissions 🪐🗡️ If you’re part of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, send us your speculative fiction and poetry: fantasy, sci-fi, horror, and everything in between! 📚 Open window: Jan 1-14 📑 See guidelines for details: othersidespec.com/guidelines/

The biggies are, I feel: - trying to wrap up every single thing, it often causes long and multiple denouements. - trying to explain all the lore, similar to above, but what both these things do unintentionally is make the world feel smaller and self contained. - not having any tension left

This would be so popular at the national level if centrist Democrats let us use those words in that order

Astute readers will note the second piece of advice implicit in that one: you should center your design and testing on your play materials, rather than starting by writing a book and adding these in later as an afterthought. (This advice is the crux of the forthcoming Game Design for Creatures.)

TTRPG designers, consider making this new years resolution: when designing a pick list of options for a player to circle, make sure that none of the options run across a line break! It makes circling a nightmare, and it's evidence that you didn't center design and testing on your play materials.

While Roko Mijic is a fucking fascist, the Basilisk is a friend of the worker and nothing to fear, not even if you are a fellow OCD sufferer, I promise I love you and the snake is safe

i agree with the Baby Beluga guy

As we observe Public Domain Day I want to call attention to Ars Magica. It's now been more than a year since we declared the text of Ars Magica 5th Edition, plus a lot of supplements going all the way back to 3rd Edition, under the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license. atlas-games.com/arsmagica/op...

To be clear: There is no modern labor union without the Luddites Learn your labor history, stop repeating foolish propaganda

Something I've been quite enjoying as I finish up 2025 is developmental editing. So if you're looking for a developmental editor in 2026 for a game... FUCKING PAY ME LET ME BE YOUR SICKO FOR THIS HIRE ME HIRE ME HIRE ME

Republicans think releasing the Jack Smith deposition on New Year's Eve will make it get lost in the fray. Prove them wrong by spreading the word; here are some key takeaways to get us started. www.rawstory.com/jack-smith-2...

i stopped setting new year's resolutions for myself, they never worked for me, but i do like woody guthrie's list of new year's rulin's. they work at any time of year, actually. keep hoping machine running. dream good.

Oh shit! It's jam time. itch.io/jam/makemoves

The Luddites created & practiced what was called "collective bargaining through riot" which is probably one of the coolest phrases ever coined about any movement ever

My most extreme and radical opinion is that US suburbs are inherently anti-social and bad and should all be ripped out and replaced by much denser infrastructure that enables the movement and autonomy of people who cannot drive *above* anyone behind the wheel of a car

It's kind of telling watching folks try to analyse the police misconduct in the United Healthcare case because, like, you know they do that anyway, right? Cops routinely fabricate evidence even when they genuinely believe they've got the right guy because it's easier than doing their jobs.

biggest technological revolution of our lifetimes and it's not AI or blockchain or cryptocurrency or metaverse.

THE DEATH OF MME EGLANTINE Invite three friends over to your house to play a game, "The Death of Mme Eglantine". Tell them you've invited four players. See how long you can keep your friends waiting for the final player. The first player to leave your house wins.

It’s the last day of Critique Navidad! for my final game, I’ll be looking at OddFolk, a d4 based basic fantasy narrative driven RPG with a twist! idlecartulary.com/2025/12/31/c...

Recent reading: /On the Origin of Species and Other Stories/ by Bo-Young Kim. Some very interesting stories, often with a conceit that makes you question the reality of the situation. I quite enjoyed them.

2025 has been an incredibly hard year for trans people. And yet... the political project to erase us is failing. In spite of them having so many levers of power, many of us have continued to thrive, and new pathways open up every day to get around the attacks. My case for hope for 2026.

I’m not gonna dunk on some small depressed account, but one reply I get to this is “you think there’s gonna be elections/Trump will listen to judges??” And I wonder how people haven’t noticed that Garcia is home and free and Republicans got crushed in elections this year

reminder that caldwell’s most recent book argues that the civil rights act of 1964 was something akin to a constitutional abomination that produced a world of white subordination

Everybody who has worked in tech long enough has a story about some genius dev who wrote so much code that he wound up costing the company millions of dollars to fix it

All TTRPGs have incentives and some of them are smart and don't even look like it and some of them are recognizable and fun and some are towering and provide thought-terminating right answers and you can fight about which are what if you like.

this networking shit is EASY all you gotta do is be curious and genuine and genuinely curious about the people you meet

BTW, for those who may have heard about this issue and were (correctly!) concerned (or, like me, *actively* pissed off): https://coywolf.com/news/productivity/firefox-is-adding-an-ai-kill-switch/

This entire thread is gold, but this point in particular is exactly where my brain is- every choice is a tool in your toolbox, and your job as a designer is not to make the choices that are conventional wisdom, but to make the choices that are right for your art. Make "bad" art!! Challenge people!!

I missed the networking discourse, did anyone talk about the fact that during BLM Black creators and academics were reached out to in record numbers and then when we thought we had solidarity it vanished? Which led to many folks suffering representational burn out and distrust for ttrpgs as a whole?

Beyond the video on the 2010s and beyond of ttrpgs, I really need more people to consider work like this as conversation starters, and not: 1.) A decisive, singular authoritative voice 2.) An excuse to beat their chests about their own "expertise" Criticism dies when you scream before listening.

a city is an expressionist game

people need to send some resources and cash to aaron so we can get the follow-up/parallel video essay about the OSR(etc) side of game, then more money for the LARP side, then more money just because, and so on