"I don't know, but it seems like [hobby gaming] is feeding [its budding designers] to [travel, shipping, exhibition, and warehousing costs]." And then [several grown adults] started to cry.

About 1/2 into editing the next ModernMythology.net episode. This one'll be exploring character death. Or starting to, at any rate.

Ah, we're back in that 2024 vibe where every metric seems to bode really well except the part where we actually win the election lol. Very nostalgic.

Alright. I've got an article scheduled to run every 5 days on the Narrative Machines podcast until June. If you're interested in my nonfiction writing and "insights" on systems, cascades, memetics, myth and propaganda, etc. give it a follow. All free. narrativemachines.substack.com

So what's the current guess on when the actual effects of the Iran war hit US energy markets? I've heard May, June, September, October... it's kind of all over the place. Wild because this is a physical commodity we're talking about.

open.substack.com/pub/narrativ... It shouldn’t be surprising that if the Eschaton were to be immanentized, it would arrive through the lowest common denominator of consciousness...

as many jews on the left have said, over and over again these past few years, anti-zionism isn't antisemitism except when it is. this is what swapping in "zionist" in the place of "jews" looks like. and this is what many folks are doing when they claim they're just condemning zionism.

There’s a lot of reasons people don’t like PBTA that I find very silly, but one that does make sense to me is the lack of a unified resolution mechanic. At the time it was written, AW was rejecting the idea that a game was just a single dice resolution mechanic and some other stuff. (1/19)

504 pages at 12 pt times roman on 8.5"x11". We'll see what I can prune & flag on the hard copy pass.

open.substack.com/pub/narrativ... It shouldn’t be surprising that if the Eschaton were to be immanentized, it would arrive through the lowest common denominator of consciousness...

New article runs tomorrow, part one in a Decade of the Shitpost. narrativemachines.substack.com

Cut 10k words over the past 2 weeks, without losing anything I didn't want to lose. Honestly, a bigger accomplishment than writing twice as many.

Almost ready for a full hard copy edit pass w www.fallencycle.com/blackout-ter... Hard to believe I've been working on this thing for almost 4 years. #blueskybooks

Politically correct Odo can still happen if people want it bad enough

You once said Bluesky is a small, but it just isn't true. Once in a while you'll stumble upon an account you've never seen called something like "The Cum Catcher" who send 124 death threats a day to Will Stancil and they'll have 50k followers with no overlap with you.

The theater around here does a "secret movie" thing sometimes with cheap tickets on an off night, you can see a movie before release but don't know what it'll be. I was surprised, the premise sounds pretty niche at best but it was actually good. Great sound design. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuner_(...

Been mixing music for the next season of Fallencycle.com/podcast Def taking a hiatus after season 6 is scheduled... doing a full soundtrack fiction thing is on par w my insistence on doing illustrated novels. My favorite formats may not be very popular, but also, they're a ton of work. :p

Being skeptical of any media or journalism that is aimed at making you upset is how you stop yourself from becoming a fox news grandpa. You should not want to become a fox news grandpa.

"And now for something completely different..." www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

It often feels like a futile pursuit in the context of all that's happening, but I continue to work on the novel. 4 years into it now www.fallencycle.com/blackout-ter...

Welp, it took me a day or two longer than I thought it would, but I finished the post. Fair warning, it is a long one: aggregatecognizance.com/p/dead-lette...

We’re 200 dollars away from our final goal with 2 hours to go!!!???? www.kickstarter.com/projects/myt...

open.substack.com/pub/narrativ... Burroughs famously described language as a virus from outer space, an analogy not for linguistic panspermia but rather to highlight the strangeness of the construct’s language creates, akin to a fish swimming through water without awareness of its environment...

Alright. I've got an article scheduled to run every 5 days on the Narrative Machines podcast until June. If you're interested in my nonfiction writing and "insights" on systems, cascades, memetics, myth and propaganda, etc. give it a follow. All free. narrativemachines.substack.com

I don't know if it was our most instructive episode but it may be one of the more entertaining ones. Discussion of D&D alignment, and the weirdness of "morality as cosmology" in the most recent episode of the Modern Mythology podcast. www.modernmythology.net/podcast/epis...

My favorite thing about D&D is probably the maximalist approach of the settings, which appropriates literally every trope it can get its grubby little fingers on. Definitely a feature not a bug. My least favorite part is probably the system, which mostly operated on accumulated nostalgia and vibes.

I've been trying to improve my social media experience by differentially engaging with content I like and ignoring content I don't, even if it's from people I generally like. Results are trending positively so far.

open.substack.com/pub/narrativ... This wraps up the Cascade intro series for now. Other topics to get into next...

I don't know if it was our most instructive episode but it may be one of the more entertaining ones. Discussion of D&D alignment, and the weirdness of "morality as cosmology" in the most recent episode of the Modern Mythology podcast. www.modernmythology.net/podcast/epis...

Why have the Big 3 failed so utterly in their planned phase out of internal combustion engines? Well, it's two things, really. One is consumer sentiment - I'll get to that in a minute - and the other is government policy. The death of the $7,500 EV tax credit absolutely murdered the EV market. 5/x

What does alignment actually do in D&D and tabletop RPGs? We dig into character behavior, moral cosmology, evil campaigns, and whether alignment helps or hurts play. www.modernmythology.net/podcast/epis... #rpgpodcast

Covid acute symptoms seem to be improving, which is good. Because trying to check in on the outside world when the only means you've got at your disposal is a phone / pc right now is like

Let's do this! www.kickstarter.com/projects/myt...

open.substack.com/pub/narrativ... My aim here is to sketch that structure — drawing on basic principles from Critical, Systems, and Complexity Theory applied to climate research — without requiring an advanced degree to follow.

open.substack.com/pub/narrativ... In the past 4 days of covid I've edited 5 upcoming pieces (2-4k word length) for my substack, edited the next episode of the Modern Mythology podcast (we talk about alignment in D&D, "and beyond!"), and a few other things.

I think I've got the podcast portion of this setup / transfered. I'll do audio versions of some key articles, others will be text only. Subscribe at the thing. It's free, and only costs 1/4 of your soul. (Which is free, because souls aren't a real thing). narrativemachines.substack.com

Spent like 30 hours on this one last summer. Probably one of my favorite that I did for that book. Sharing apropos of nothing really other than surprise at how fast the time goes now.

I still mask on public transit and large gatherings. Nevertheless... covid round 4 now. Sigh.

Hey remember when I said that petty theft didn't tear the social fabric nearly as much as what the people in power do? Well, my post about how quickly blueanon brains have leapt into conspiracy mode and willfully ignored reality has quite a lot of comments about a zero-trust environment, so...