#Twitter 140 Characters

[iamnathannah]

For a quick change of pace, have a new Twitter thread of Rory's lesbian awakening coming (multiple times) before her Yale graduation, which definitely wasn't ruined by Logan's proposal (though now she's wondering how many orgasms were ruined by his very existence in her life). Inspired by some random Wicked thread started this way, and with ALT text commentary.

(Yes I considered Glorbie for this one but I think we all know El Esposo would just congratulate Barbie for going down on Gloria properly because he never could out of fear he'd break her; he was too proper of a gentlemen)

[izu]

people are STILL arguing about the fucking liu kang thing it's been deleted for days

[boxkeith]

Top 10 Games I Played in 2024

In 2023 I wrote 72k words about 125 games. In 2024 I wrote 135k words about 145 games. This implies that in 2025 I will write 250k words about 160 games and by 2030 I will write 800k words about 0 games because games cut into my time spent waxing philosophic about interactivity as a concept. Much like jazz, it’s all about the games you don’t play.

My criteria for the top 10 are that it merely needs to be something I either played for the first time this year or experienced in a meaningfully novel way, and that it will inform the way I think about games going forwards. This ordering is chronological starting with games I played earliest in the year, with no ordinal ranking implied or intended.

Honorable mentions: Moonlight Pulse, Animal Well, Astor: Blade of the Monolith, Biomorph, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN, Thread

Zeno Clash II – I played Zeno Clash around release in the early 2010s, back when being on Steam was enough to garner an audience. For some reason I bounced off the sequel. I went back and replayed both of them after loving Clash in 2023, and I’m so glad I did. Games have forgotten how to be punchy, literally and metaphorically. Combat feels good, the writing is charmingly bizarre, and the worldbuilding is still bewildering. I’m in love with this series because it’s the same sort of grimy low-tech magical world as Vexx, and few things are playing in that same space. Fewer still make it feel anywhere near this good to punch a man in the head. Goddamn.

God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla – If Elden Ring DLC can be nominated for GOTY then I can put Dad of War 2 DLC in my Top 10 list. I had very low faith in this DLC. Ragnarok suffered from rushed development and having 50 pounds of shit shoved in a 30 pound bag, and so everything about the lore and gamefeel of a series I care deeply for felt discarded and underutilized. Valhalla shows the spark is still there, just buried. It had the lore callbacks I was craving for all of both Dad of War games. It had the payoffs for Kratos’ emotional arcs and an actual conversation about how it felt to be more godslayer than god, more god than father, and more father than husband. I realize God of War can’t be this all the time. Even this came dangerously close to cribbing notes from Hades directly on telling a story this way. But it’s a light in the darkness or a beautiful sendoff, and I’ll take either.

Chants of Sennarr – At some point I need to actually play a point-and-click adventure game because I keep liking games with those trappings. In either case I loved helping these little guys translate their shit. The last level falls apart a bit, the stealth sections suck, and I could do without the twee fakeout ending but when the game is throwing you to the wolves in a whole new area like your college French teacher greeting you at 7AM with a bonjour followed by several syllables you’ve never heard in your life? Positively unmatched.

Nine Sols – There’s a lot to love about Nine Sols. The eerie taopunk aesthetic of the ruined city. The soundtrack that drips with atmosphere and tension. The compelling story of hubris and redemption, backed up by intensely well written characters. The incest undertones. The variety and complexity of the boss fights. The crisp satisfaction of the parry. The incest overtones.  Positively phenomenal game, and it’s rather galling that it got snubbed so completely by every major awards ceremony for the sin of being Taiwanese. If I was ranking these ordinally it’d be far and away #1, and it wouldn’t shock me if I replay it within the year. The final boss was practically a 5 hour postgame DLC by herself, and singlehandedly altered my concept of what video games can do with their combat systems and structure.

Master Key – Almost every 2D Zelda knockoff has sucked. There’s a density and simplicity to their design that a lot of indies overshoot. This is one of the few that surprised me with its mastery of Zelda puzzle design, though the monochrome aesthetic rode the borderline between charming and visually incoherent. Chicory got away with it because the bosses were much simpler and the game was about painting. Despite its quality my favorite part of the game was the actually the picross mode, but a full 7% of players full-cleared it despite being it being 100+ puzzles so I’m not alone. It also taught me why the Link to the Past hookshot makes Link invincible because being knocked out of position while the hook is flying leads to some weird disjoints.

Metal Gear Solid – I could write a book about Metal Gear Solid. I don’t know if I can write two coherent sentences about Metal Gear Solid. I am late to the party on this but the Hideous Kojima is doing things with the concept of interactive media which no one else on the planet is even approaching. It says something about me that one of the series I’m reminded of most strongly is Prototype as that had a lot of the same tone surrounding militarization, similar use of real-world video interspersed with gameplay, and equally dogshit shooting. It also says something about me that I used claymore mines more than Fat Man.

Picross 3D: Round 2 – Allegedly I’ve played this for something like 65 hours over the course of the last few months. That feels low. Like any good puzzle game Picross 3D: Round 2 is engrossing, constantly growing in complexity without feeling unfair, and is genuinely challenging. I got through the first 255 puzzles and felt satisfied, then after the credits another 100 or so puzzles unlocked. I’m still chipping through it, and I’ll be sad when it’s gone.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice – Despite my love of shitty soulslikes Fromsoft’s homegrown designs don’t do it for me. Bloodborne at least had interesting things to say about Dark Souls 1 and was a meaningful divergence in design. Sekiro is stranger to me because it wants to pretend it’s asking the same questions as Dark Souls but despite the emphasis on parrying you’re actually rewarded for being viciously proactive. I beat Isshin and I still don’t know what I feel about this game. I don’t know how much of my impression came from playing this after Nine Sols. I don’t know if I would’ve played this if not for Nine Sols. I definitely wouldn’t have played it if not for Steam Family Sharing, that’s for damn sure.

Final Fantasy 1: Dawn of Souls – This GBA remake is older now than the original was when the remake was made. It’s also the only video game society has ever produced. I know of Final Fantasy through playing FFXIII in high school, watching Advent Children at least eight times in high school, and playing Kingdom Hearts in high school, college, post college, and this year. I only beat this game because autoattacks and emulator speedup let me essentially blip past most fights. Despite that, I don’t know if the game would be better without random encounters. It puts in a form of attrition that we don’t really see anymore in games outside of roguelites, and while that may be for good reason it’s an interesting puzzle.

Hyper Light Drifter – This shit should be in the library of congress. The soundtrack is one of the best in the medium, the map design and puzzles are superb, and at worst the combat is functional. Elements like the keys being cumulative collectables still feel ahead of their time, and while it wasn’t the first game to have ranged weapons recharged by your melee attack it feels like the bedrock other games built on top of. What a good game. Play Solar Ash too if you haven’t already.

[jonathanbyersphd]

I just know Nancy Wheeler-Byers' Twitter would go off

[bad-wolf-circe]

hello!!! i've just deleted my twitter. life is good and free and i am finally at peace :)

if you're a mutual from twitter: HELLO!!! welcome to tumblr! (or not, i know some of you guys have visited hell before). this is my blog where i sometimes post my thoughts -- but mostly reblog the thoughts of others. for the newcomers: reblogging is fun, and you should do it right now with this post by clicking the two arrows sign! it's easy and free and you can always unsubscribe later (sorry for that reference...). once you've reblogged something, the two arrows sign will turn green.

tumblr is not driven by likes the way twitter is, so liking a post really won't do anything. instead, it's what you reblog that makes the real difference. so if you like a post on here, your tumblr mutuals will not be able to see it on their dash! they'll only get it on their dash if you reblog it.

for added effect, you can use the tags option at the bottom of a post! (it'll say something along the lines of: 'add tags to help people find your post'). you can add popular tumblr hashtags here so that more people can see your post... OR you can adopt some of the local tumblr etiquette of rambling and spilling your thoughts there too! (1)

BY THE WAY: you can format text differently on tumblr! so you can italicize, bold, underline, etc. on here. And there's a huge character limit! (according to the tumblr help center, you can fit one third of Moby Dick in one tumblr post! pretty nifty!)

be sure to use tumblr etiquette! the phrase 'tumblr etiquette' might sound gatekeepy, but rest assured! tumblr etiquette is used by many bloggers here to help make the blogging experience as "pleasant" as possible. (i put pleasant in quotes because sometimes people say things on here that deal you irreversible emotional damage. truly, you don't get this anywhere else). the general rule of thumb here is: IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, DON'T INTERACT!!! Block and move on. you'll find that tumblr drama really isn't a thing here because of this principle. live by it, die by it, blog by it!

for me personally, I'm trying to keep this blog as impersonal as possible for privacy reasons (since this is a public blog), so if you want to chat, say hi, or talk about life i suggest you use the messages feature! i'm always down to chat over messages! :)

other than that, nothing else comes to mind. have fun on this atrocious hellsite and happy blogging! love you guys <3

[grasscore]

that scene in the shining but its me sitting on the notes app typing 'rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead and me i feel also not so good bela lugosi's dead and me i feel also not so good rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead and me i feel also not so good bela lugosi's dead and me i feel also not so good

[welcometoteyvat]

every day screaming crying because of twitter's tag/search functionality (aka nonexistent functionality)

[pomeraniandancer]

True story: I first began college at a university in New York(for context, I am from Maine). About a week or two into February in my first year in New York, I began to get a little concerned because I noticed the snow was beginning to melt and go away at a fairly rapid pace.

After about a week of observing this with growing concern, I finally just flat out asked my two college roommates, "Is it just me, or is the snow melting really early this year?" My roommates were from Pennsylvania and Oregon respectively. They both gave me an odd look and said, "No, the snow melting in February is perfectly normal." Me: ...Oh. (Me, Internally: "Must be a Maine thing.")

[teamdays]

I know character tax exists for a reason and certain characters are more popular than others for Reasons but I do think it’s silly how while looking for rui and tsukasa mochis they were always like $20+ (I saw them cheapest when sold together so they’d be like $10 each) meanwhile the wxs miku mochi im trying to order is like. 3 dolar.

[immoreofanideaskindaguy]

NaNoWriMo day 2!

I registered on the official site but I don’t really have anything to post or update over there yet so I’m gonna keep brainstorming out loud over here.

So as far as what the whole story is about and what main conflict is…. I still don’t know yet. But I do have one particular set piece in mind.

So in this sleepy mountain town there’s a mine that’s been condemned for years by the company that owns it. After an evening of drinking, the main character (who I’m going to name Clark for the time being) and one of the townsfolk he made friends with decide to go check out the mine.

They get a little deeper in than they mean to and stumble into this giant chamber where the floor is this swirling vortex (sort of like a portal, but for some reason I’m against calling it that officially). Drunkenly the friend falls in and Clark panics and blacks out, only to mysteriously wake up in bed the next morning.

He’s not sure if it was all just a dream but the friend is definitely missing and the town has already noticed.

Another idea I have for this vortex thing is that due to a mine shaft collapse, liquid or something produced by the vortex leaks out of the mine and into the river that runs through the town and it starts mutating the fish or something like that.

Idk that one is still in the super early idea development phase, but I like it so I wanted to throw it out there.

That’s it for now, more ideas to come tomorrow!

[warblingandwriting]

I know we all make jokes about being chronically online etc... but Nothing is worse than having a university professor who is chronically online and literally does not know how to interact outside of that framework

[wumblr]

i don't think it's possible to explain why "bluesky is like twitter" is an abysmally unappealing pitch in 140 or fewer characters

[pumpkinpaix]

Chapter Spotlight 8:

"'Censorship Made It Better': Anti-Fans and Purity Culture in English-Language Chen Qing Ling Fandom" by Abby Springman

Describe your topic/chapter in one sentence/one meme/140 characters.

Rejoice! MDZS has been cancelled!

What drew you to this topic?

When I got into CQL fandom and started lurking on its outskirts on Twitter, I started getting this weird sense of déjà vu. There was this bizarre similarity between the arguments I was seeing about the aspects of CQL/MDZS and their fandoms being "problematic" from a progressive, social justice point of view and the demands for censorship in American libraries that conservative groups were (and still are) making at an alarmingly increasing rate. In an attempt to make sense of this, I fell down what ended up being a really long rabbit hole, and, well, here we are.

Was there anything you were surprised to discover while researching?

I was surprised by the wide variety of fannish backgrounds found amongst members of English-language CQL fandom! I'm not used to seeing so many different "areas" of fandom intersect over a single piece of media like this. Some folks are primarily into the live action movies and TV shows side of things, some are mostly in bandom, some (like me) are traditionally a part of the anime, manga, and gaming contingent, etc. I think that's fascinating, honestly.

Did researching/writing your chapter change how you saw the text, the fandom, or the media? How so?

I didn't use the block button on Tumblr or Twitter for anyone in the fandom while I was working on my chapter. It definitely changed how I saw fandom on those platforms—literally. It really highlighted how much power social media algorithms have over what kind of content is presented to us front and center.

If there’s one thing you hope the fandom takes away from your article, what would it be?

I'll be thrilled if it makes people think about "problematic" content in less black-and-white terms. They don't have to necessarily agree with my conclusions! But if my words make even one person stop and think more about context before posting a reactionary comment, then that would be great.

If you were isekai-ed into MDZS/CQL, what sect affiliation would you choose and why?

The Lan. My existing skills are most likely to be applicable there (see: the library), it seems easy to find some peace and quiet when you need it, there are bunnies, and Hanguang-jun is there.

Chaotic one-sentence pitch to get your friends into MDZS/CQL?

My elevator pitch for CQL has historically been, "It's the adaptation of a book about a gay necromancer, except they can't actually show the gay romance or the zombies on screen."

What is one (1) book/media you would recommend to a MDZS/CQL fan? Tell us about it.

Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio by Pu Songling. It's probably the most accessible collection of Chinese stories of the supernatural available in English. If MDZS/CQL was your first exposure to traditional Chinese cultural beliefs about ghosts, exorcisms, and the like, this is a great introduction to the less xianxia-specific aspects. If that isn't the case for you, I still highly recommend it on its own merits!

Character you keep getting in those "which MDZS/CQL character are you" quizzes?

Wen Ning

Anything to say to potential readers of the collection?

Thank you, and I'm sorry—no, that's a joke. More seriously, I really am thankful for anyone interested in the collection. It's the product of years of hard work by many people, and I'm sure there's an interesting chapter in there for everyone.

(FAQ) (all posts on Catching Chen Qing Ling)

[abs0luteb4stard]

Wait, this is Tumblr? I thought this was X.com, the social platform formally known as Twitter. (Soon to be known as 'defunct'. 😂)

At least I don't have a tumblr

[showtoonzfan]

Awhile back, someone had dmed me, claiming that they were the creator of the Angel Dust Instagram account and had been mistreated as well. At the time I had asked for proof, and due to there being none, I didn’t make this info public. However, now that Kaz’s full statement and story is out and getting some attention, I wanted to say that I support Kaz and wish them the best. They did not deserve what happened to them and I hope they’re doing better things now with better people.

Kaz’s statement: https://t.co/DNQKLHcEms

Viv discord screenshots:

[chaifootsteps]

www.twitter.com/EnvyAndGreen/status/1694474145017250124

Not sure if you'd seen this already, but thought that you should know.

Vivzie seems to be incapable of treating any of her employees with even basic respect

-- Radio anon

Holy shit.