#gimmick special edition

[theguffbin]

here have some more yumes yall

[kyostarrtv]

Going Live With Gimmick!

Checking out this blast from Sunsoft's past!

Twitch: KyoStarr

[every-sanji]

[randomisedgaming]

Brand new promotional artwork for the 2023 re-issue of the Sunsoft NES classic, from Bitwave Games.

Gimmick! Special Edition

Bitwave Game have kindly provided us with a copy of the game for us to look at for this and next week on the blog. Gimmick! Special Edition is available now on all major formats.

More details on their official website: https://www.bitwavegames.com/games/gimmick-special-edition

Follow Randomised Gaming on Tumblr, for video game, art, reviews, features, videos and more. You can also find us on YouTube, Twitch & Twitter for even more gaming & video content! Buy us a tea on Ko-fi

[rednorka]

ITS OUT YALLL

[tempural]

Pertinent community guidelines for artists on BlueSky, especially in regards to adult art AKA PORNography.

from the community guidelines:

no "content portraying minors in a sexually explicit context", so if you're Steven King don't write the kids from IT having an orgy in the sewers while pennywise dances

no "depictions of excessive violence, gore, torture, dismemberment, or non-consensual sexual activity". Using specifically the word "depictions" makes me think that they're intentionally covering cartoon art as well as real violence. But of course there's still a vibrant guro tag:

https://bsky.app/search?q=guro

there's stuff in the noncon tag

https://bsky.app/search?q=noncon

And I'm sure there's people posting horrific gruesome special effects makeup from horror movies in other tags.

Just because there's people posting in the tag doesn't mean it's allowed. And any faceless platform can pull the rug from you, or change the rules without warning, or, or…

So I'll happily stay on my current fediverse server and feel safe posting horrible gruesome centipedes in vaginas ☺ The finances seem stable, the moderators feel good (haven't seen any racists or nazis), and I can just link my art to anyone who wants to see it on other platforms. The rules are clear enough to distinguish works of art and writing from actual real videos and photos of death and torture and abuse.

But the wonderful thing about "federation" is that we can talk to each other no matter what site we are on :D Who knows if the bridge between fedi and bluesky will keep working with me if the content rules are different though :P

SO! If you are already on the fediverse (which includes Mastodon, misskey, ruffy, and other softwares), you can follow me on blorbo.social and we can talk to each other normally without any complex tech gimmicks. You can also dm/message/email me for an invite to blorbo.social. Or just sign up yourself!

If you're on BlueSky, you can follow me on the mirror of my Fediverse account :D (you can also create your own fedi->bsky mirror)

The mirror will post the same things I post that are public, which includes my art and other's posts that I share. If you follow the bridge account (which creates your own mirror), then you can reply to my posts on Bsky, and I can reply to you from my Mastodon account, and we can hold hands and sing.

It's kinda complex and full of tech jargon, so if you don't want to do all that, it's fine. It's an option if you have 5 minutes to spend. And my art will always be available to see on various sites including my own that do not require log-in to view.

Thanks for reading. This post was copy/pasted from my fedi account (woohoo 5000 word limit), then edited with more information lol.

[tubbytarchia]

session 5 Wildcard spoilers (negative lol)

So many of these questions are soooo fandom pandering and ship fuel and it sucks. I know half the fandom is gonna hate this opinion because it's called fandom pander for a reason but I'd really love for different people to work backstage other than basically just fellow fandom goers who kick their feet to ship fuel as much as any others and not people like Grian who actually know how to run a game series. sorry. There should be a division here, the Life series just loses so much of what made it special otherwise. I don't have anything against these people I just don't think they did a good job with this one

Edit: Sorry if this makes anyone feel hurt who did enjoy the gimmick. I didn't hate it either, just found a lot of the questions icky. Again, my opinion. If we disagree, whatever man! It's cool and this is not targeted at YOU, I'm not calling YOU a victim of pander or whatever the like. I'm referring to like, twitter kids and stuff. I like pander, I'm the same, just not to this extent within the main series

[shuuen-no-cimory]

Taking some breaks from my works by sketched this concept. I miss drawing PJM x DoL IVORY WRAITH E.G.O. "The Forlorn" HE (Gloom) - Sydney WAW (Wrath) - Kylar EDIT: FOUND MY OLD NOTE ABOUT THE EGO!!! So anyway, the EGO's name supposed to be "The Forlorn", but I forget so... yeah... lol.

About the EGO:

As an EGO, it has a special gimmick trait called "Blood Moon" Unique Sinking. It'll drain enemies SP by x each turns (for 3 turns)

[SYDNEY - THE FORLORN (Gloom)] For Sydney, the Forlorn gonna be HE with Blunt ST and "Blood Moon" trait. Will become AoE (Attack Weight 3) on Corrosion.

UT3 will gain Heal 3 ally's SP with the least SP, UT4 gonna give additional SP Drain from Blood Moon.

[KYLAR - THE FORLORN (Wrath)] For Kylar, the Forlorn will be WAW with Pierce Attack Weight 4. It'll have "Blood Moon" trait. Will become AoE with Attack Weight 6 on Corrosion.

UT3 will gain "Blood Moon - Haunting" which additionally inflict Bind x for 3 turn on the enemy.

UT4 will make "Blood Moon - Haunting" has additional affect on enemies with less than 0 SP, which give additional Bleed x for 3 bleed count.

[kafus]

the epic conclusion to The Freakylocke™

recently i did a hardcore nuzlocke of pokemon firered but with an extra gimmick layered on top to keep me invested: naming all my encounters after my friends, randomly chosen by spinning a wheel of names whenever i get a new encounter. this is not the same as a "friendlocke" as popularized by saltydkdan if you're aware of that btw, my friend's don't roleplay the pokemon or pick what they do, i just livepost my playthrough with my friends and they get to feel like they're involved and it makes it a semi-social thing, which is fun for me. i did one of these in emerald last year with friends from a specific group chat with "club" in the name that i fittingly called the clublocke, and this time in firered i deemed the playthrough the "freakylocke", based off of a running gag in the group chat of friends i named my pokemon after this time (the likodot server!! hi guys!!) tbh if i keep doing these i should really think of a name for this Type of nuzlocke but i haven't figured one out yet... anyway

i did not actively livepost the freakylocke on tumblr because i already had my hands full liveposting it on discord to my friends in question! but the ending to the run ended up being so much fun that i wanted to do a retelling of the E4+champion here to memorialize this run lol

so! after NUMEROUS hours of grinding, i finally got the whole team to level 60, which is the level of lance's highest leveled pokemon, and was ready to take on the E4. my copy of firered is in japanese so for convenience's sake, i've edited these photos of my team taken before the E4 to have the move names in english

a little more detail about the team: first off, they do all have hold items. frosty (frost in-game because frosty didn't fit the JPN character limit lol) the charizard has charcoal, bibi the golem has leftovers, zur the persian has a spell tag, motsu the jolteon has a magnet, mari the gengar has a twistedspoon, and vee the lapras has a mysticwater. multiple of these can be obtained easily, but i had to grind for the magnet, twistedspoon, and spell tag off of wild pokemon that only had a 5% chance of holding them, which was a bit of a nightmare lol. the spell tag had enabled zur to sweep sabrina (barring her venomoth which i swapped out for) by just clicking shadow ball, the twistedspoon was necessary for some damage ranges for koga with gengar's psychic, and i grinded for the magnet before the E4 because motsu's special attack was um... shit. i was making up for the minus special attack nature, careful lol

second, it's worth acknowledging that i half picked this team based on what encounters i thought i had that were strong, and half just because of emotional attachment, ESPECIALLY in the case of zur the persian - for some reason i got super attached to using persian during this playthrough and i was DETERMINED to get him to the end alive, even though persian was definitely not the most optimal pokemon for the job lol. i could go on about my move choices on these mons, but i'll spare you and let the upcoming fights speak for themselves, aside from quickly mentioning. Yes i put explosion on golem. ideally i wanted to go deathless but i figured it could be useful in a pinch if i was driven into a corner.

the first three members of the e4 were uneventful and i made pretty quick work of them, even with motsu's terrible special attack missing some thunderbolt damage ranges on lorelei's water types, forcing me to send out vee, lol. but when things really got heated was during the lance fight. at this point i was playing on my ds capture card to share my screen to my friends, so i have clean photos! (the layout is leafgreen themed, it's something i made literal years ago, i was too lazy to make anything new lmao)

one thing leads to another and i'm staring down lance's ace dragonite with frosty the charizard on half HP. my team at this point is incredibly healthy as i've maneuvered the battle well so far, but now i'm in a bit of a dilemma, because this dragonite has outrage AND hyper beam, both very powerful moves that will definitely get the KO on frosty if i leave him in, and to make matters worse, since both will KO, which one out of the two lance picks is random, so i can't accurately predict what he's going to do. i need to ideally get vee in to use ice beam, which should be a 1-shot, but it's risky... if i wanted to play fully optimally, i would scan my team for which member i would need least during the champion fight against blue and sacrifice them to get a clean swap into vee, but... i'm still dedicated to wanting to beat this E4 deathless at this point, so i decide, okay, vee is bulky, they can definitely live a hyper beam or two hits of outrage, i just need lance to not get a crit

and you won't believe what happens next when i hard swap into vee!

lance uses hyper beam on the switch and GETS THE CRIT, FAINTING VEE IN ONE SHOT... the reaction in the discord chat speaks for itself LOL

so at this point i'm kind of panicking since not only do i have to somehow make it out of this fight against lance's dragonite, i have to get out of it healthy enough to still handle the champion fight against blue, of which vee was my answer into his blastoise so that's. not good. and to make matters worse, while staring down my options and verbally reasoning out what i should do, i ACCIDENTALLY PREMATURELY SEND OUT FROSTY!! I LITERALLY JUST PRESSED THE WRONG BUTTONS BECAUSE MY HANDS WERE KIND OF SHAKY WHILE TRYING TO OPEN THE SUMMARY SCREEN SINCE I WAS INVESTIGATING WHETHER FROSTY (THE PERSON IN THE CHAT) WAS RIGHT ABOUT THE DRAGON CLAW 2HKO 😭

my one saving grace is that dragonite is now in hyper beam recharge, so now that i've accidentally sent out frosty i'm able to fire off a single dragon claw for free...

and it's not even a two hit KO 😭!!! so the dream of just outspeeding dragonite and 2 shotting it with dragon claw is in the dust now and i have to make some tough choices.

ultimately, i decide frosty could potentially be too important for the champion fight to let them go down, and i decide to switch into bibi the golem... my thought process was, i definitely needed bibi the least for the fight against blue, so if dragonite picked outrage and bibi went down, i would be able to get a clean swap into something that could take on the last of dragonite's HP, or if dragonite picked hyper beam, bibi would tank that like a champ on account of resisting normal and having high physical defense, and be able to get a free hit in during the recharge turn.

i send out bibi holding my breath AND...

LANCE CHOOSES HYPER BEAM!!! YES!!! and HILARIOUSLY it was ANOTHER CRIT, but bibi still shrugs it off like it's NOTHING

so now i'm in one last dilemma: i have two options here, taking the KO with a super effective rock slide, or taking the KO with an incredibly powerful explosion. rock slide seems like the obvious choice, but the issue is... it's only 90% accurate, and if it misses, bibi definitely dies next turn, and living the hyper beam would have been for nothing. on the other hand, explosion ensures the battle is won, but bibi definitely dies, in that case. i'm excessively indecisive on what to do so i ask my friends and their answer is pretty damn clear

so i click rock slide. AND!!!!

BIBI, THE ABSOLUTE CHAMP, LANDS IT!!!

bibi clutching up against lance lets her not only live another day, but it means that i get to fight blue with a team of 5 instead of 4 or even worse! ...this does NOT mean the blue fight is going to be free, though.

blue's team is actually pretty threatening at this point, especially without my lapras to tank blastoise's potentially rain-boosted hydro pumps. before jumping into the fight, i think very carefully about my options, but ultimately my prep work amounts to taking the charcoal off of frosty and giving them a chesto berry, just in case i have to hard swap into exeggutor and take a sleep powder, so i can one-shot it with flamethrower easily in that scenario.

my lead is pretty straightforward, i just take out pidgeot immediately with thunderbolt from motsu.

next, blue sends out Rhydon. i debate on what to do for a moment, since obviously i need to swap out, but i'm unsure if rhydon will use earthquake or rock tomb - if EQ 1-shots motsu, it will definitely use EQ, but otherwise there's a huge chance it could use rock tomb since the gen 3 AI loves to use moves that lower speed if you currently outspeed them. ultimately i realize with a quick bit of thinking that there's no way EQ doesn't KO motsu, even from full, so i send out mari the gengar on it, who has levitate and takes no damage from it, letting her outspeed and fire off a massive psychic attack into rhydon's pitiful special defense

unfortunately not pitiful enough for Mari to get even close to a 1 hit KO, forcing her to take a rock tomb in the process. but despite the speed drop, she still outspeeds and is able to take out rhydon with another psychic on the next turn.

out next comes alakazam and i decide alright, i can handle the rest of this fight without gengar, and i don't want anyone to swap in on the obvious upcoming psychic, i don't have any mons that can tank that... so i decide to sacrifice mari

...but then blue just... goes for future sight??? LMFAO so the hail mary hypnosis that i clicked just in case something like this happened fires off and actually lands!

this massive luck plus some lucky sleep turns allow mari to take out alakazam with two consecutive thunderbolts, leaving her alive when blue sends out arcanine next... but she takes the future sight damage at this point and is left too low to survive a flamethrower from the arcanine, which outspeeds her because of the rock tomb speed drop from earlier... ultimately, mari is still sacrificed. but taking out alakazam was a MASSIVE help, she performed amazingly

my next move is fairly straightforward - i send out bibi the golem who can survive any move arcanine tosses out and KO it with an earthquake (something i couldn't have done as easily if she fainted against lance!)

unfortunately, this brings in the pokemon i was afraid of, Blastoise, and considering bibi is weak to and doesn't outspeed both of blue's remaining pokemon, blastoise and exeggutor, there's no reason to preserve her life over getting a clean swap into another pokemon, so i let her go down to a hydro pump.

MASSIVE salutes to bibi though, her surviving hyper beam during the lance fight and landing the rock slide against his dragonite pretty much saved this run. coolest golem ever

at this point, i have just motsu the jolteon, frosty the charizard, and zur the persian remaining, and even though motsu cannot get the 1 hit KO on blastoise with a thunderbolt, even with the magnet item due to their pitiful special attack, it's still the most obvious choice to get guaranteed damage off, so i send in motsu and use thunderbolt. at this point, i'm pretty relieved because i've essentially won the fight - even if motsu faints from a hydro pump (i'm unsure if they can live one or not), the thunderbolt will get enough damage for zur and frosty to clean up the remainder of his HP, and then frosty can 1 shot exeggutor with flamethrower like planned. but, there's still a little more left to this story...

motsu actually does live a single non-crit hydro pump on the red, so they're able to finish off blastoise with another thunderbolt, leaving blue with only exeggutor. the answer is obvious - if i just swap into frosty right now, i can win the battle instantly, not even risking getting put to sleep because of the chesto berry i put on them before the fight began. BUT...

remember how i said i was really emotionally attached to my persian? i'm overjoyed that zur was going to live to the very end like i wanted, but they also didn't get to do anything in this fight and i thought that was lame. i knew they had spell tag boosted shadow balls which were super effective into exeggutor, so surely they might be able to take it out instead of frosty, right? and beating blue's final pokemon with a persian in a hardcore nuzlocke was HILARIOUS in my opinion.

this is in addition to zur using shadow ball being a running joke during this run; back when i fought sabrina, i mentioned this before but i was able to grind for the spell tag and 1-shot all of her psychic types with zur, making the fight super easy... and back when i was liveposting that to the discord server, my friend babs said this in response to me making a typo on shadow ball

zur "blasting bals" became a running gag from here on out so it would be ACTUALLY poetic for me to finish this run with a shadow ball. i HAD to try.

issue: motsu's special attack was still GARBAGE and the bite i used (a special attack in gen 3 as a reminder, all dark type moves are special there) to get some damage on exeggutor first wasn't enough to ensure that zur could follow up with a clean shadow ball knockout. my friends were encouraging me to send out zur anyway, but i really didn't want to because it could go south so fast and if zur DIED in the champion fight i'd be REALLY UPSET. but THEN. i REMEMBERED.

ZUR! HAS! FAKE OUT! I JUST FORGOT!

and so, with a combination of the free fake out chip and the spell tag boosting shadow ball's power, zur is just barely able to ensure a KO onto blue's exeggutor, winning the fight and the entire run, resulting in maybe one of the funniest nuzlocke end screens ever (to me at least)

and that is how i managed to beat the freakylocke despite some terrible luck while taking a massive risk against lance LOL. this file is no longer in "nuzlocke mode" and i've been using it for other gen 3 shenanigans, which i will post about eventually...

special shoutouts to the four deaths other than vee the lapras of the run as well:

kris the kadabra, who fainted to an easily avoidable crit from a koffing because i was playing tilted and tired (oops)

serena the gyarados, who fainted to a crit from a random trainer's weezing (less easily avoidable but still sucked, i had put a lot of time into training her!!)

kay the paras, who was sacrificed nobly against sabrina's alakazam to allow a free swap back into zur for the shadow ball KO after the rest of my team handled her venomoth

babs the growlithe, who i was really excited to use because it's a version exclusive and i almost always play leafgreen instead, but who died to a random crit from ANOTHER koffing that i didn't think they'd faint to (the koffing line was enemy #1 of this run i guess)

oh and in speaking of babs, to commemorate the run, they drew this.

it's incredible. i'm cherishing this art forever. you can see more of their art on their blog @vulturevanity LOL

[clubdionysus]

[DRABBLE] Last Christmas

warnings: alcohol aisle but no consumption lol

wc: 1.2k

bd total wc: 540k (on-going)

minors dni | AO3 | series masterlist 

4 MONTHS EARLIER

"No," you say with a stern look in your eye as you clock Danbi's latest suggestion. At the opposite end of the supermarket aisle you've been down for the past ten minutes, she holds up a dark bottle of overpriced port.

"Oh, c'mon-"

"Absolutely not," you laugh as she walks towards you, shaking your head with playful disapproval. "We both know what happened last Christmas. We're not repeating it again this year."

While Danbi knows you're right, she still pouts. Doesn't even like port that much, just knew it would get a laugh from you, which is why she suggested it.

Late December, you're in need of drinks for the festive little gathering that you're hosting that evening. It'll be a small crowd, just a few friends and other halves, but you're looking forward to it.

You hadn't even been planning on drinking that much, but your boyfriend cancelled earlier in the week, so now you're thinking of just getting wasted. Bars are always open, and Danbi's been whining about a mistletoe kiss all week, so you might even hit the town.

Nothing is set in stone, except for Danbi's need to keep a smile on your face, 'cause Lord knows your 'good-for-nothing, sack-of-shit boyfriend' (her words, not yours) doesn't seem to care about it.

"I'm thinking vodka," you muse, looking at the shelves ahead of you. It's a small section compared to the rows upon rows of wine, but you're not after anything classy.

The aisle you're in is crowded; people stocking up last minute for supplies that will last them for the rest of the festive period. You really should have known better than to leave shopping until the last minute, but had also spent the past two days at home together, with the last of your wine supply and the entire Christmas movie collection on Netflix to see you through.

Christmas is the time to indulge in unhealthy habits, and indulge you have, but you think it's okay if it helps to heal your heart a little bit. So does Danbi. In fact, she's the enabler, here.

"I'm thinking you wanna get shitfaced," Danbi assesses as she meets you, and joins your contemplative gaze towards the clear bottles of alcohol.

The labels are all fairly similar - red, primarily. Shiny. Inherently festive, you think.

There's one bottle that's really grabbing your attention, though. Top shelf. Limited Edition Christmas bottle. Covered in glitter. Comes with a complimentary pot of shimmer dust to pair with the liquor. Is practically calling your name.

"And you don't?" You tease, glancing across to her, pleased to see that she's clocked it too. "What do you reckon? Worth the price tag?"

Nearly three times the price of your regular vodka, you only ever go for top-shelf on very special occasions - important birthdays, your graduation. Christmas doesn't qualify.

"I reckon with the money we'd save by getting the usual bottle, we could get edible glitter from the baking section and just make the bottle glittery at home," she reasons, but is also a sucker for a gimmick. "It is a nice bottle, though. And the vodka is better..."

Her thoughts linger in the air and have you contemplating just saying 'fuck it,' and going for the overpriced chaos of the glittery bottle - until you hear the clearing of a throat beside you.

"Word to the wise," the guy perusing the shelves next to you says, leaning slightly closer so you know that it's you he's talking to, then passes you a bottle from the middle of the self.

Though you can see him in your peripherals, you haven't really bothered to look in his direction - was too focused on the alcohol. The movement of his body spreads the silage of his aftershave, and you're reminded of why you like men so much.

He's dressed in all black, that much is certain, and the hand that passed you the bottle was covered in tattoos. Part of you fears looking in his direction, for the knowledge that you probably won't be able to stop.

"It's made in the same distillery as the top-shelf one," He continues. You don't look at him, still, too busy reading over the label. It's not one you've ever tried before, but it's in the same price bracket as your usual one. "It's just filtered one less time, and doesn't have the marketing budget. You can barely taste the difference. Most of the bars downtown swap the bottles, and no one ever notices. I never told you that, though. And Dionysus definitely doesn't do that. Merry Christmas."

Studying the bottle, you take a second before glancing up across to the man beside you - but he's already walking away.

"Nice to meet you, too," Danbi whistles under her breath as you both watch him head towards the next aisle. Didn't really get a good look at him, either. Didn't realise he was talking to you until the last second. "God. He was like a sauve, sexy Santa, delivering presents and dipping like that. Delightful."

"What does that make us then?" You laugh, still holding the bottle. "His little elves?"

"If that's what he wants us to be, sure," she playfully jokes.

"Well then- ho, ho, ho," you hum in agreement, looking to the now-empty end of the aisle. Broad, tall, and dressed for a funeral, you've no idea what your mystery vodka man actually looks like, but it doesn't really matter. You know he's hot. It was laced in the way he walked away. The way he spoke. The way he'd definitely been eavesdropping and waiting for the perfect time to bestow a little wisdom to you.

If there's one thing you like in a man, it's competence. It's why you're with Seokjin. He has it in abundance. And so did this mystery man, it would seem - or at least, he knows far more about obscure vodka brands than you. Maybe he's a bartender, you hypothesise. Or maybe he's just hot. Maybe both.

"Our very own Christmas miracle," you say with a smile, then turn to Danbi. "Baking aisle? We need edible glitter."

"Baking aisle," she nods, grinning just as brightly as you are. "Shame there wasn't any mistletoe there."

"I have a boyfriend," you remind her, shoulders knocking together as you walk.

Danbi holds her tongue. Could say all sorts of things about Seokjin and his less-than-saintly behaviours. It's Christmas after all. No time for discussions of such unpleasantries. One day, his horrible qualities will just be a memory of the past - as will the presence of your mystery supermarket Santa, and the club he mentioned. You'll think nothing of it as the word Dionysus rings in your head when Hoseok and Danbi insist on going to bars in a few months time to nurse your impending breakup.

You're none-the-wiser now, though. Ignorance is bliss.

Danbi just shrugs. Wraps an arm around you and squeezes you tightly. Giggles. "Bah humbug."

AO3 | MASTERLIST | NEXT

[theguffbin]

I do

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Kitchensink callithump linkdump

On July 14, I'm giving the closing keynote for the fifteenth HACKERS ON PLANET EARTH, in QUEENS, NY. Happy Bastille Day! On July 20, I'm appearing in CHICAGO at Exile in Bookville.

With just days to go before my summer vacation, I find myself once again with a backlog of links that I didn't squeeze into the blog, and no hope of clearing them before I disappear into a hammock for two weeks, so it's time for my 21st linkdump – here's the other 20:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

I'm going to start off this week's 'dump with a little bragging, because it's my newsletter, after all. First up: a book! Yes, I write a lot of books, but what I'm talking about here is a physical book, a limited edition of ten, that I commissioned from three brilliant craftspeople.

Back in March 2023, I launched a Kickstarter to pre-sell the audiobook of Red Team Blues, the first novel in my new Martin Hench series, about a forensic accountant who specializes in unwinding tech bros' finance frauds:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865847/red-team-blues

One of the rewards for that campaign was a very special hardcover: a handmade, leather-bound edition of Red Team Blues, typeset by the typography legend John D. Berry:

https://johndberry.com/

Bound by the legendary book-artist John DeMerritt:

https://www.demerrittstudios.com/

And printed by the master printer JaVae Berry:

https://www.jgraphicssf.com/

But this wasn't a merely beautiful, well made book – it had a gimmick. You see, I had already completed the first draft of The Bezzle, the second Hench novel, by the time I launched the Kickstarter for Red Team Blues. I had John Berry lay out a tiny edition of that early draft as a quarter-sized book, and then John DeMerritt hand-bound it in card.

The reason that edition of The Bezzle had to be so small was that it was designed to slip into a hollow cavity in the hardcover, a cavity that John Berry had designed the type around, so that both books could be read and enjoyed.

I offered three of these for sale through the Kickstarter, and the three backers were very patient as the team went back and forth on the book, getting everything perfect. Last month, I took delivery of the books: three for my backers, one each for John DeMerritt and John Berry's personal archives, one for me, and a few more that I'm going to surprise some very special people with this Christmas.

Look, I had high hopes for this book. I dote on beautiful books, my house is busting with them, and I used to work at a new/used science fiction store where we had a small but heartstoppingly great rare book selection. But these books are fucking astounding. Every time I handle mine, my heart races. These are beautiful things, and I just want to show them to everyone:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/albums/72177720318331731/

As it happens, the next thing I'm going to do (after I finish this newsletter) is turn in the copyedited manuscript for the third Hench novel, Picks and Shovels, which comes out in Feb 2025 (luckily, I had enough time to review the edits myself, then turn it over to my mom, who has proofed every book I've written and always catches typos that everyone else misses, including some real howlers – thanks Mom!):

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels

Of course, the majority of people who enjoy my books do not end up with one of these beautiful hardcovers – indeed, many of you consume my work exclusively as electronic media: ebooks and (of course) audiobooks. I love audiobooks and the audio editions of my books are very good, with narrators like Amber Benson, Wil Wheaton, and Neil Gaiman.

But here's the thing: Audible refuses to carry my books, because they are DRM-free (which means that they aren't locked to Audible's approved players – you can play my audiobooks with any audiobook player). Audible has a no-exceptions, iron-clad rule that every book they sell must be permanently locked into their platform, which means that Audible customers can't ditch their Audible software without losing their libraries – all the books they purchased:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/25/can-you-hear-me-now/#acx-ripoff

Being excluded from Audible takes a huge bite out of my income – after all, they're a monopolist with a 90% market share. That's why I'm so grateful for indie audiobook stores that carry my books on equitable terms that Audible denies – stores like Libro.fm, Downpour and even Google Books.

This week, I discovered a new, amazing indie audiobook store called Storyfair, where the books are DRM-free and the authors get a 75% royalty on every sale:

https://storyfair.net/helpstoryfairgrow/

Storyfair is a labor of love created by a married couple who were sickened and furious by the way that Audible screws authors and listeners and decided to do something about it. Naturally, I uploaded my whole catalog to the site so they could sell it:

https://storyfair.net/search-for-audiobooks/?keyword=cory+doctorow&filter=any

These books are DRM-free, which means that no matter who you buy them from, you can play them in the same player as your other DRM-free audiobooks. You know how you can read all your books under the same lamp, sitting in the same chair, and then put them in the same bookcase when you're done with them? It's weird – outrageous even! – that tech companies think that buying a book from them means that they should have the legal right to force you to read or listen to it using their technology exclusively.

If you let your Storyfair audiobooks touch your Libro.fm audiobooks, they won't get cooties! Audible is like a toddler that won't let their broccoli touch their peas – only that toddler is also a rapacious monopolist that keeps 75% of every sale.

The fight for fair audiobooks is one of those places where the different parts of my professional life cross over: activism, digital media, art, writing the web, and breaking down complex technical subjects for a mass audience. I've just signed up to a six-year project to combine all those facets in a structured way, in collaboration with Cornell University.

Cornell just named me as their latest AD White Professor-at-Large. This is a six-year appointment that involves a series of week-long visits to Ithaca to lecture, run seminars, meet with colleagues, collaborate on research, and do community performances:

https://adwhiteprofessors.cornell.edu/

We've tentatively scheduled my first visit for early September 2025, to coincide with the Ithaca Book Festival, and we've got big plans, roping in multiple departments at Cornell, the local alternative school and local colleges, doing talks at the fair as well as at the university, and (we hope!) squeezing in a stop in NYC on the way home for a day at Cornell Tech. I'm so excited (and honored) to be working with Cornell (and getting a chance to visit Moosewood Restaurant, whose cookbooks taught me how to cook!). Watch this space.

Authorship has always been a political act, but never moreso than today, with waves of book-bans sweeping the country. One of the heroes of those bans is Maggie Tokuda-Hall, who made headlines when she publicly excoriated Scholastic for demanding that she remove references to racism from her kids' books in order to make them more palatable to reactionaries:

https://www.npr.org/2023/04/15/1169848627/scholastic-childrens-book-racism

Tokuda-Hall has stepped up the fight, co-founding Authors Against Book Bans, an org that provides training and support for author/activists so they can fight back against book bans at library board and city council meetings:

https://www.authorsagainstbookbans.com/

Authors Against Book bans is looking for members! I signed up last week, within seconds of having Tokuda-Hall give me the pitch when we ran into each other in Oakland at the Locus Awards. Are you an author? Sign up too! They're especially interested in branching out beyond YA and kids' authors (though they want those kinds of writers, too!).

Book bans affect us all. Even if you personally are never stymied when you visit your library and discover the book that you want to read has been removed by a swivel-eyed loon with terminal groomer-panic. The bans sweeping our country mean that our neighbors and loved ones are being denied literature by these cranks. There are people in your life who are losing out on the possibility of a life-changing literary adventure (which is why the far right hates these books – they want to be sure no one encounters the ideas between their covers).

The realization that you have to live in a society with people who are harmed by injustice, even if you personally escape that justice? It's the whole basis for solidarity.

Americans are living through a multigenerational project of stamping out solidarity and insisting that we only ever view ourselves as individuals, with no stake in the plights of our neighbors. That's how the US got the most expensive, least effective health care system in the world. And even if you are in the vanishingly tiny minority of Americans who are happy with their health care, you live amongst people who are being killed by the system around you.

The health system is a perfect example of how monopolization drives more monopolization, and how that comes to harm the public and workers. Health consolidation began with pharma mergers, that led to pharma companies gouging hospitals. Hospitals, in turn, engaged in a nonstop orgy of mergers, which created regional monopolies that could resist the pricing power of monopoly pharma – and screw insurers. That kicked off consolidation in insurance, which is why most Americans have a "choice" of between one and three private insurers – and why health workers' monopoly employers have eroded their wages and working conditions.

A new study in American Economic Review: Insights puts some quantitative spine in this tale, tracking the relationship between hospital mergers and skyrocketed health-care prices:

https://harris.uchicago.edu/news-events/news/consolidation-hospital-sector-leading-higher-health-care-costs-study-finds?itid=lk_inline_enhanced-template

The researchers investigated 1,164 acute-care hospital mergers, finding that while the FTC only challenged 1% of these, they could – and should – have challenged 20% of them, based on the agency's own criteria for merger scrutiny. The researchers blame the rising costs of hospital care directly on these mergers, and point out that Congress has historically starved the FTC of the budget it needed to investigate these mergers. The annual additional costs to the American people from these mergers exceed the entire annual budget of the FTC.

It's not just hospitals: the entire investor class is hell-bent on spending their way to monopoly. Nowhere is that more true than in AI, where hundreds of billions are being poured into bids to attain permanent dominance through scale. Writing for their excellent AI Snake Oil newsletter, Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor inject some realism into the AI scale hype:

https://www.aisnakeoil.com/p/ai-scaling-myths

Narayanan and Kapoor challenge the idea that throwing more data at large language models will make the better: "With LLMs, we may have a couple of orders of magnitude of scaling left, or we may already be done." They are skeptical that this can be fixed with synthetic data (whose use is limited to "fixing specific gaps and making domain-specific improvements"). They also point out that if returns from data slow, then returns from adding more compute or making bigger models might also be throttled.

They reserve their most skeptical take for "AGI" – the idea that LLMs are going to achieve consciousness. This is a fundamentally unserious idea, one that they unpack in detail in their forthcoming book:

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691249131/ai-snake-oil

One thing I'm hoping for from the book is some analysis of the material usefulness of AI hype – what purpose does the hype serve? I mean, obviously, hype is useful if you're looking to suck up investor capital, or flip an investment to a greater fool. But there's a specific character to AI hype: namely, the claim that AI will displace labor, which is really a claim that a bet on AI is a bet on the increasing wealth of capital at labor's expense.

In other words, AI is a bet on oligarchy. In America, that's a pretty safe bet, and the odds just got even better, thanks to a string of brutal Supreme Court decisions that legalized bribery, banned most regulatory enforcement, and made being alive and unhoused into a crime (Poor Laws 2.0):

https://prospect.org/justice/2024-06-29-whos-gonna-check-supreme-court-chevron-separation-powers/

But amidst all those gimmes to the rich and powerful, there was one notable exception: the SCOTUS ruling on the Purdue Pharma bankruptcy. Purdue was the family business of the Sacklers, a multigenerational dope-peddling dynasty that went from super-rich to stratospherically rich by kickstarting the opioid epidemic with their blockbuster drug Oxycontin.

The Sacklers sold mountains of Oxy the old fashioned way: by lying. The lied about its efficacy and they lied about its safety, and they helped kill hundreds of thousands of Americans. Eventually, this caught up with them, and Purdue lost a bunch of court cases and was forced into bankruptcy.

That's where things get gnarly: the Sacklers took the already-sleazy world of elite bankruptcy to a whole new level, with a set of breathtakingly sleazy maneuvers that ensured that their case would be heard by the one judge in America who would let them off the hook:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/11/justice-delayed/#justice-redeemed

That judge was Robert Drain and the Sacklers were the blow-off to a long and shameful career in public "service." The Sacklers incorporated a subsidiary in White Plains, NY (in Drain's turf) precisely 181 days before filing for bankruptcy, then claimed that this empty small-town office had been the company HQ for more than six months. Then they hid machine-readable metadata in their filing that tricked the court's database into assigning the case to Drain:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/07/hr-4193/#shoppers-choice

The reason the Sacklers were so horny for Drain? He was a notoriously generous source of "nonconsensual third-party releases." These would allow the Sacklers to permanently end every lawsuit against them without having to declare bankruptcy. Instead, they could take their (ruined, hollow) company through bankruptcy, throw a small fraction of their personal fortunes into the pot, representing fractional pennies on the dollar of what they owed to their victims, and walk away with tens of billions and eternal protection from any future suits.

In other words, they could stiff their creditors and keep the loot. Which is exactly what Robert Drain gave them – before retiring from the bench to get a two-orders-of-magnitude pay raise at a white-shoe firm that specializes in representing corporate mass-murderers like the Sacklers.

That's where it would have ended, but for a surprising ruling from the Supreme Court, which threw out the nonconsensual third-party release deal and put the Sacklers back on the hook to pay the victims of their many, many crimes.

As ever, the best source of analysis and explanation for elite bankruptcy shenanigans is Adam Levitin of the Credit Slips blog:

https://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2024/06/purdue-pharma-decision-a-big-win-for-mass-tort-victims.html

Levitin has a prediction for what's going to happen next. He rejects the predictions of Sackler apologists, who say that this is going to add years or decades to the already too-long wait for compensation that the Sacklers' victims have endured. Instead, Levitin says that the Sacklers will almost certainly transfer billions more from their personal fortunes to the settlement pot and beg for consensual releases from their victims. In other words, they'll go from dictating terms to asking for them.

So the settlement will stand, but it will be larger, and victims who don't want to take it won't have to – they'll be able to sue. In other words, this ruling "does not prevent deals in bankruptcy. It just changes the terms of what those deals."

This has implications for other mass-murderers and corporate criminals, like Johnson and Johnson (who tricked women into dusting their vulvas with asbestos):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/01/j-and-j-jk/#risible-gambit

And the Boy Scouts of America, who let pedophiles abuse children for decades:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/05/third-party-nonconsensual-releases/#au-recherche-du-pedos-perdue

Both J&J and BSA carved out nonconsensual third-party releases in the mold of the Sacklers' deal, and both briefed the Supreme Court, warning that if the Sacklers were forced to pay what they owed, J&J and BSA's victims would also be entitled to far larger sums. Go ahead and threaten us with a good time, why doncha?

The Sackler decision is a real bright spot at a dark time for corporate impunity. It's always nice to see big corporate bullies getting a bit of a comeuppance. Another one of those comeuppances was just delivered thanks to a classic fatfinger error.

A Microsoft engineer accidentally released the sourcecode to Playready, the company's flagship DRM product:

https://borncity.com/win/2024/06/26/microsoft-employee-accidentally-publishes-playready-code/

Microsoft's DRM doesn't do anything to protect the interests of creative workers or even the companies that employ them. As a Microsoft rep admitted on stage at a presentation in 2006, the purpose of Microsoft DRM is to prevent small startups from entering the market, ensuring that Microsoft and its "rivals" can safely divide up the world without worrying about disruptive competitors:

https://memex.craphound.com/2006/01/30/msft-our-drm-licensing-is-there-to-eliminate-hobbyists-and-little-guys/

I was there that day and reported on the remarks, prompting both Microsoft and its rep to furiously deny that they'd ever said this, despite multiple witnesses who heard it. This was just a couple years after I gave a viral talk at Microsoft about why the company shouldn't use DRM:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/18/greetings-fellow-pirates/#arrrrrrrrrr

By 2006, it was clear that the company was all in on DRM, and today, DRM is the centerpiece of Microsoft's anticompetitive strategy, and Playready is the centerpiece of Microsoft's DRM. The source-code leak is doubtless going to give rise to lots of grey-market tools for stripping DRM from all kinds of media:

https://security-explorations.com/microsoft-playready.html

You love to see it! Now I'm doubly looking forward to this summer's security conferences, including Defcon, where, for the first time, I'll be emceeing the charity poker tournament to benefit EFF:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/betting-your-digital-rights-eff-benefit-poker-tournament-def-con-32

This should be very fun – and funny – especially given how little I know about poker (I have been specifically selected on that basis, for the comedy value). Every player gets a custom EFF poker-deck, and the winner gets a treasure chest filled by EFF board member Tarah Wheeler, including "emeralds, black pearls, amethysts, diamonds, and more."

I like to close these linkdumps with something fun and uplifting, and I'd planned to end things with the poker-tournament, but then my pal Raph Koster announced that his game studio Playable Worlds had dropped its first announcement of Stars Reach, an open-world MMO like no other:

https://www.raphkoster.com/2024/06/28/announcing-stars-reach/

Raph is a legend in MMO design circles, whose credits include Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies. He wrote the definitive text on how games work, A Theory of Fun, that's does for games what Understanding Comics did for comics:

https://www.theoryoffun.com/

Stars Reach is stupidly ambitious. It consists of truly open worlds, modeled to an absurd degree of fidelity:

We know the temperature, the humidity, the materials, for every cubic meter of every planet. Our water actually flows downhill and puddles. It freezes overnight or during the winter. It evaporates and turns to steam when heated up. And not just our water — everything does this. Catch a tree on fire with a stray blaster bolt. Melt your way through a glacier to find a hidden alien laboratory embedded in the ice. Stomp too hard on a rock bridge, and watch out, it might collapse under your feet. Dam up a river to irrigate your farm. Or float in space above an asteroid, and mine crystals from its depths.

The game is fundamentally a climate story, whose lore has humanity seeded around the galaxy by a powerful alien race called the Old Ones, only to have humans bust through the planetary limits of every world they were given. Now the Old Ones are giving humans another chance to try smarter ways of sustaining ourselves on new worlds, with the aid of powerful robots call "Servitors."

Because this is a Raph Koster game, it's got a bunch of extremely satisfying play dynamics:

A classless skill tree advancement system, where peaceful play matters just as much as combat

An intricate player-driven economy where players can craft their way to fame and fortune

An accessible yet deep combat system, where you can choose whether to play using action aiming or more forgiving homing shots or lock-on targeting

In-world player housing that lets you build and customize your home and form towns… and enough room for everyone to have a house

A single shardless galaxy, with both space and ground gameplay… in fact, you can build that house on an asteroid, if you want

The ability for a group to govern a planet, and define its laws, whether you want a peaceful home or a PvP free for all

Stars Reach is not playable yet, but the company's looking for gamers to give them feedback and steer the development:

https://starsreach.com/

OK, that wraps up the week's links. I'm gonna get one more edition out on Monday, god willin' and the crick don't rise, and then I'll be off for a couple weeks. Enjoy your summer!

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/29/pasticcio/#professor-at-large

Image: James St John https://flickr.com/photos/47445767@N05/40894047123

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[postalignments]

Intro Post :)

Hi, I’m Squeaky, I’m a minor and I use she/they pronouns (but you can call me either).

This is a gimmick blog dedicated to assigning posts to D&D alignments! If you don’t know those alignments, here’s a guide!

The first word in the name indicates how they feel about the law. I indicate these using color. Purple - Lawful - They follow the law as much as possible. Not expecting to see it much here on the “become ungovernable” site. Blue - Neutral - They follow the law when they want to. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. Orange - Chaotic - “The law doesn’t exist if I ignore it enough.” / They do not care about laws whatsoever.

The second word in the name indicates their morality. I indicate these using font. Plain - Good Bold - Neutral Italics - Evil

And the special alignments: Green - Chaotic lawful - Strict moral code, but no one can figure out what the fuck it is. Pink - Lawful chaotic - Malicious compliance, basically.

If you’re wondering, I myself am true neutral, and when I mention things that are part of D&D worlds, the character speaking is an elven druid of the same name and alignment. Essentially, think of me as a character in a D&D world who documents the supposed alignments of random conversation snippets she overhears.

What I WILL align: - Users on tumblr - Posts - If you send in images I won’t align them unless specifically asked so but I can align images

What I WILL NOT align: - Music - Fictional characters - Users on other medias (I’m only allowed to have tumblr and YouTube)

TAGS: There’s a tag I use for each of the nine alignments! There are also: #the tavern roars for answers (answering asks) #storysqueaking (the adventure Squeaky’s going on as they assign alignments to random sentences and snippets of conversations) #travelers evils and disasters talk (TED talk but D&D edition, when I explain the alignment of a post or post something that isn’t an alignment or answer or anything like that, but still related to the D&D theme of the gimmick, it might be tagged with this) #user alignment (for when I get asks about what certain people’s alignments are)

I’d also like to mention that you may tag me in any post you want to see the alignment of! I love receiving tags :)

Also, asks don’t have to be about your alignment, though that is the most common type of ask I get. You can just go and say anything, I promise you that there’s no ask I haven’t answered :)

[rednorka]

July 6th!! I better see you all play Gimmick! after this comes out.

[haveyoulistenedtothisalbum-poll]

Tracklist:

Devil May Cry 5 Titlescreem • The Qliphot (Prologue) • Introduction • Demon's Throne • Unbearable Pressure • Unbearable Pressure (Rush Percussion Version) • A Sword Shatters To Pieces • It Absorbs The People's Blood • Reflection (Mission Clear) • The Heaven Of My Hell (Openning) • Devil Trigger (Openning Remix) • Devil Shocker • Enter The Devil Shocker (Mission 01 Start) • Devil Trigger (Devil Shocker Remix) • Devil Trigger (Instrumental Edit) • A Man's Face Peeks Through The Robes • Garage (Main Menu) • Ugh, Come On (Nero Mission Start) • Devil Trigger (Game Edit) • Rain R Ain • Echoes-Oes-Oes • Heading For Catrastrophe • Any Special Orders? (Nico's Shop) • Interview • Blazing Muscle • End Of The World (Gameover) • Mysterious Stranger • Flying Outdoors • Nice Scissors! • Floating Indoors • A Date With Corruption • Lunatic Ray • Enjoy The Taste Of Despair (V Mission Start) • Wave Street • Crimson Cloud (Game Edit) • Five-Four Time (Secret Mission) • Splitting Fool (Introduction) • Spliting Fool • Lucky Fall • It's Kind Of Chilly • Abyssal Time • The End Of The Stillness • I'd Also Like To Jump • My Dear Friend • It's Time To Get To Work • Hand Picked Noise (Character Select) • Dark Ruin • Feel The Shock • Mysterious Stranger Returns • The Blood Soaked Ground • Divinity Statue • More Fear • Unavoidable Despair • Perfect Timing • This, I Like (Devil May Cry Office) • Dead Tired • Anarchy In The Uw (Dmc 5 Remix Intro) • Anarchy In The Uw (Dmc 5 Intro) • Beyond Defeat • How Do You Like This! (Dante Mission Start) • The World Is Screaming (Version 1) • Subhuman (Game Edit) • The World Is Screaming (Version 2) • Pitch Dark • Disgust • Voltaic Black Knight (Introduction) • Voltaic Black Knight • It Becomes Cavaliere • V's Beginning • Dance With Cavaliere • Too Much In Love To Hear • Legacy (Instrumental Version) • Birth Place • The Demon's Face • Unwavering Bravery • "00:00" • Dr. Faust • Piece Of Cake • Same Old, Same Old • Sick! • 3 Goddamn Hags • Faded Tone G • Faded Tone A • Faded Tone C • Critical Moment • Hellish Gimmick • Diabolical Incantation • Diabolical Incantation (Chaotic Version) • Reckoning • Falling Into The Crevice • Gatekeeper Unleashed • Roar, Roar, Roar! • Breaking The Icy Ground • True Wishes • Liar Landscape • Undeniable Fate • Undeniable Fate (Rush Percussion Version) • Rebirth • Sword Fight • Under The Atmosphere • Collapse • Entering The Gelidium Jelly • Grilled Tandoori Smoke • Silent Siren • Psycho Machine • Farewell • Complex Emotions • The Duel (Introduction) • The Duel • Massive Power • Your Legacy • Resolve • Improvisation For Violin On A Main Theme "Legacy" • Silver Bullet • Inherited Intentions • I'm Not Crying! • Legacy (Dmc 5 Main Theme) • Legacy (Piano Improvisation Version) • Here Goes!! • Devil Trigger • Crimson Cloud • Subhuman • The Crunching Rhythm Of Chiba Rakkasei • Any Special Orders? (Tropical Devil Night Remix) • Devil Trigger (Tropical Devil Night Remix) • Nero's Dance Music • Nero's Guitar Music • V's Dance Music • Dante's Dance Music • Gate To Hell • Special Music Outro (Nero) • Special Music Outro (V) • Special Music Outro (Dante) • History Of Dmc • E3 2018 Announcement Trailer • Main Trailer

Spotify ♪ YouTube

[decepti-thots]

Can you turn the Onceler or Minimus Ambus into a fountain pen pretty, please? 🥺

i'm not recovering from comparing him to the onceler, anon. oh my god.

ANYWAY. THAT ASIDE.

Okay, so to my deep sadness, this pen doesn't have a colourway that matches like I would want. But I cannot NOT say the Kaweco Supra because of the pen's special feature. It's a pen that is able to convert between a standard, full sized pen and a pocket pen; you can unscrew the middle section and then screw the other two sections together to switch between the two 'modes'. COME ON. I have to!

(Their 'normal' pocket pen in this style, the Liliput, does come in green, but isn't quite as on the nose with the 'convetable size' gimmick, alas. You just post it to make it a larger pen while writing.)

As a bonus, which fits a little better for the green/white colourscheme, there's this Pelikan Souveran M605 edition that comes in a very classy white-and-green version.