#this is every interaction the two of them have in the game

[writingwithfolklore]

I Cut Out Social Media for 30 Days and It Changed My Life

Okay hefty title, but I mean every word of it.

Over January I followed a book called Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport. I'm sure you've already been lectured to death about how bad technology and social media is for you, so I won't repeat the statistics here. What I will say is that Newport suggests that there are also positives to technology and that abandoning it altogether is not realistic. Instead, he proposes that we define our values, and then use technology to attain them--rather than allowing technology to define what values we should hold.

To do this, Newport suggests a complete "detox" of non-essential technologies for 30 days. That means abstaining from social media, netflix and other streaming services, videogames, etc. But of course still being able to phone loved ones, email for work, and use google maps if you're going somewhere new, etc. In doing this detox, he proposes that we will be able to better understand what values we hold as people, not just as consumers of technology.

He was right.

At first I found it really hard. Right away I noticed that any activity other than doomscrolling and watching endless hours of Youtube took a lot more brain power. I started doing puzzles, reading, writing (a lot!), cooking and baking, and taking many walks with my dog. By the end of the day I'd be fuzzy and exhausted, and all I wanted to do was curl up on the couch and watch my favourite shows. I didn't, but I wanted to.

But then I started to notice my "brain stamina" (I'm sure there's a better term for it but oh well) started to improve. Instead of writing for two hours before getting fuzzy, I could write for four. And then six. And then eight. Slowly, I found myself being able to do more in a day, to focus for longer on one task, and I didn't feel as drained by the end of it. I had a clearer mind, I could remember things a lot better, I was no longer struggling to find really easy words--they just came to me.

This all also resulted in me spending so much more time with my friends and family. I realized that I really valued this time--and that it wasn't something I could replace by hitting 'like' on an instagram post from them. I rediscovered community, passion, and in many ways, humanity.

It was like I was looking at the world in a new way. I started to notice more, be curious about more. I kind of remember being this way as a kid, and I couldn't believe how I had ever let that go. Now, the idea of sitting on my couch and watching hours and hours of Youtube in every moment of my free time feels inconceivable.

However, my 30 days are up, and so Newport suggests setting some rules to reintroduce what technology I believe supports my values. I've decided not to return to Instagram, but that I do value keeping up to date with the gaming community and pop culture, which I do on Youtube. Now, Youtube is something that I watch for a couple hours on weekends, instead of eating up every bit of free time I have. I also value interacting with other writers and the writing community, so I've created a couple hours in my schedule to check Tumblr and my Discord and keep up to date with you guys here.

But now most of my free time is spent reading or writing, or being with my family and friends, and I value that most of all. To demonstrate how much has changed, in the months before my detox, I wrote maybe 2500 words. Since my detox, I've written 40 000. Last year, I read about four books. In just one month during my detox, I read 10.

If this sounds like something you'd be interested in trying for yourself, feel free to reach out to me! I'd love to talk more about my experience and things that worked or didn't work for me. I'd also really recommend the book, it was incredibly helpful in determining what rules were healthy to set and how to get out of technology and then back in with success.

Back to usual content soon :-)

[rbtlvr]

anyway i went through all of loops dialogue to see how many times they let something slip that hints at their identity and. holy shit theyre so bad at it yall

not counting the 'what should i do next' section because theres a million different little ones for every single point in the game, and not counting the tutorials because thats usually just really generic text. also not counting twohats because thats just straight up revealing it theres no hints there lmao

but. outside of those there is a grand total of 32 out of 65 dialogues that have some kind of hint or clue to loops identity

breaking it down more:

11/23 'lets talk about something'

7/14 'i had a question about...'

6/16 predialogues

3/7 item interactions (counted the silver coin pre and post incident as two separate interactions, otherwise its 2/6 if you count them both as the same)

and a whopping 5/5 story dialogues. good lird

in conclusion: theyre so fucking bad at this and i am fully convinced there was some part of them, whether conscious or subconscious, that wanted siffrin to figure them out

[xiibiibby]

The Veilkeepers ~ Progress Post

An episodic interactive fiction that spans across four seasons. Each episode features a new mission, set in a new world with new objectives, new stakes, and a new cast of characters. 

◊ The Story

As a Keeper for a powerful, interdimensional organization, you are tasked with journeying to distant realities on the brink of collapse, using your skills to restore balance and prevent their destruction. Armed with advanced tools and accompanied by skilled allies, you’ll navigate alternate worlds and make choices that will shape the destiny of entire civilizations.

Each decision you make tips the scales, determining whether a world will survive or fade into memory. With the fate of countless dimensions in your hands, your actions will have dire consequences. Will you rise to the challenge, or will the weight of your mission prove too great? The choice is yours.

◊ Customizable Hero

You will have various options available to customize your character as you see fit.

Choose your Gender: Be a Man, Woman, Trans, or Non-binary.

Decide your Sexuality: Be attracted to Men, Women, Both, or be Asexual.

Customize your character's descriptive appearance!

Choose from three unique backstories: Legacy, Survivor, or Anomaly.

◊ Create a Skill Set

Pick from several skills in-game to create a skill set for your character! Every skill is unique, and opens up a variety of new choices & interactions throughout the game. Your options are:

Strength

Athletics

Endurance

Dexterity

Ranged Combat

Melee Combat

Persuasion

Intimidation

Perception

Intelligence

Stealth

Luck

◊ Romance Options

As you travel through the multiverse, you’ll be joined by companions from different worlds, each with their own story to tell. Along the way, you’ll have the chance to get to know them, share experiences, and build meaningful relationships, whether it’s friendship, rivalry, or romance.

◊ Planned Features

Character Creator: I want to have a visual character creator like the one from my DBD Fan Game, but this one would use entirely new assets and match the style of the other characters' portraits. This isn't a guaranteed feature, as this sort of thing tends to be VERY tedious.

Companion Selection: Be able to choose which two companions join you during each mission. This would significantly alter the course of that episode, and open up new choices or routes to take throughout your mission.

◊ Current Progress

The demo, which contains Episodes 1 and 2, is a work-in-progress and currently sits at around 25,000 words. What I haven't yet decided on is if I'll release updates by the episode, or if I'll release them season-by-season...

I'll figure it out! Anyway, this is just a lil' peek at what I've been working on outside my fan game :D The demo's close to finished, and I'll keep y'all updated on its release!

[mdemn]

“I’ve been thinkin’..” “Oh yeah? I’ll call the papers.”

a literate passion: letters of anaïs nin & henry miller, 1932-1953 - anaïs nin, mafia: definitive edition (2020), intifada incantation: poem #8 for b.b.L. - june jordan, mafia: definitive edition (2020), tumblr user heavensghost, no light no light - florence + the machine, mafia: definitive edition (2020), a self-portrait in letters - anne sexton

my kofi!

[dykedvonte]

I hate the stretch lines in the front of Curly's uniform because that means the devs rushed to make a model in like a month or so and thought "They gotta at least know he has huge knockers, gotta know he's got back pain." Cause like what is the thematic importance of his tits having overhang?

What responsibility is that representing? Breast reduction? It shows an inherent greed in his character due to the excess and heshouldletmeholdone and that he clearly is blinded cause if he tries to look down his damn ladder all he's seeing is his own cleavage.

[spectacledraws]

skrimir and soren are so eventually friends in my head !

[calciumcryptid]

Decided my proposal for a We Are Series ghostship is Beer and Kleun. They could make a very chill couple.

[writesology]

a few weeks ago i made a heartslabyul text-based adventure game (where you're yuu and you go into heartslabyul gathering everyone for the unbirthday party that day) for my python class and it's just been sitting in my computer files since then. which is sad because i spent so long working out special interactions and bonus dialogue lmao

so that being said here y'all go! have my funny little heartslabyul adventure game :D

do not mind the documentation. that was required and i can't be bothered to go in and remove it bc there's just so much of it lmaooo

please download both adventure.py and custom.json! the adventure game will not work without the dedicated json file. map is optional but it does have cool graphics

i made and tested this game on vs code, but it does work in this online python terminal! have fun with the game and if smth doesn't work please lmk 🫶

[svtskneecaps]

i'm mourning the loss of purgatory's Government Assigned Team Dynamics (because i'm a sucker for shaking up dynamics and the forced interactions of people who may not otherwise have spoken) so please indulge me with your dream egg parenting group i'll start, bagi tina and rivers [i'm right]

[hassianlovebot]

i wish there was more of an in-game reason to talk to npcs after you complete lvl 4 friendship/romance with them. i know there's the weekly wants but,, i don't know about other players but for me that's really not enough as there's no real incentive to do it once the relationship levels are full. it's like, yeah i can do it but also like, i don't have to. it's not a need.

i guess for some players it might be nicer/calmer that there's no pressure to keep talking to npcs? but for me, i just think it'd be nice to have an in-game reason to keep talking to them. as it stands now, the only reason i do talk to npcs is cause i want to, not because i need to.

[icewindandboringhorror]

The evil slow creep of it being like "haha these will just be quick little side quests, not much effort at all!" and then noticing each one is getting progressively longer than the last, thus no longer being minimal effort.. auGh....

[sonknuxadow]

I'm not too big a Sonknux shipper (I don't really ship anyone with Sonic full stop) but for the sheer amount of Sonadow and rabid Sonadow shippers that popped up, I'm half tempted to create a 2:30 hour long Sonknux cinematic animation out of spite. It would be a quirky romcom with musical scenes which starts with Knuckles first meeting Sonic and ending with them kissing in front of the Master Emerald at their wedding.

i dont really have a problem with sonadow necessarily or people making jokes about them being gay in the new episode, i also went "🏳️‍🌈?" a few times while watching it. im mostly just annoyed that its everywhere at all times and so many people seem to have sonadow as their number one priority always and dont care about anything else.. like if you search sonic prime on here its just sonadow sonadow sonadow with not nearly as many posts about what actually happens in the episode or theorizing about what might happen next or even discussing sonic and shadows interactions beyond just going "omg sonadow!"... like is that really all you guys took from it? you dont care about anything else? just shipping? ok...

[goblin-enjoyer]

I swear why are half the things i like/fandoms im in made of mostly younger people while the other half are mostly older people? what are the zoggin odds with that?

How it feels being 20 in a fandom with a bunch of 30-40 somethings.

VS how it feels being 20 in a fandom with a bunch of 14-17 somethings.

like am do i just have extremely odd luck with things i like or is this just what being 20 is like?

[thrilling-oneway]

Also shout out to the person who said in the tags of that airi post who said that half the debates in this fandom are over gender or sexuality because that’s true and it pisses me off immensely

[deus-and-the-machina]

xenoblade 1 is interesting because when I first played it I had really mixed feelings. mostly I think because it had been slightly overhyped for me. there were so many videos with masterpiece in the description and people saying it was their favorite.

there was a lot that first turned me off during the story (namely the way it handled its female characters made me frustrated at multiple points) and also how they handled the revenge arc because I have very very specific taste in revenge arcs and I just dont think it landed for me. 

I think I appreciate it a lot more now that im fully deep into the series. I do like a lot about it, from its gameplay to its environment to a lot of the little cast interactions, to just shulk existing. yeah. yeah its alright

[sunny-m00n]

Drawing robots <3

(Ignore the giant space lol-)