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Nicol Smith

@ashenv.bsky.social
110 followers 133 following 271 posts

Digital culture student, player of games, watcher of cat, he/him

PostsRepliesMedia
Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Man, that looks really good. I'm so jealous of people who are good at pixel art. All my game projects are text forward because I can only really do photo edits.
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I had the pleasure of having Jordan Magnuson as a guest lecturer once, it was inspiring. This game poem jam sounds really cool.
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Definitely. I rewatched it very recently to show a friend and it still hit for me.
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Future Dr. V @vgtxresearch.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Playingwithemotion.com recruitment is well on its way with 454/1650 to go! I’ve been told it’s an ambitious goal, but I’ve faced down bigger bosses than this⚔️ Be apart of the squad that helped me do my biggest study to date! 18+, 10-15 mins, play an indie game built by me, you don’t have to game
playingwithemotion.com
Playing with Emotion
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Appreciate the alt text regardless. I feel like not enough people are cool about bothering with it.
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Is exactly what I asked myself before I got stuck on wikipedia for a good hour. Maybe I'll save you from the same with this image, or maybe I just doomed you.
Three tennis balls captioned: Vintage, original white tennis balls (Slazenger Lawn Tennis Balls)
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
my9animes.com/en
my9animes.com
My 9 Animes | The 9 Anime That Shaped Who I Am
Choose the 9 anime that shaped who you are and create a shareable 9-panel image.
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Just got my diagnosis for the low, low price of almost three thousand pounds. I put off going private for years, but I'm going for a master's degree and it felt like things would fall completely apart if I didn't do something different.
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
More information about the events.
aftermath.site
Fired Rockstar Games Workers Rally As Employment Tribunal Begins
The group says their dismissal was 'unlawful'
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
If you like video games and can afford it, consider donating to support game workers who had the audacity to want to unionise and were subsequently fired.
crowdfunder.co.uk
Defend union rights: Support the Rockstar 31
Justice for 31 Rockstar employees who formed a union and were fired en masse
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Elle Cordova @ellecordova.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Rough Draft vs Final Draft
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
I've heard this comparison quite a bit too, and it's so dismissive. Imho since at least III, this series has given us some of the most interesting and genre-defining interactions in mainstream game culture. I'm not saying that means R* get a free pass, just like, tf has McDonald's done for culture?
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
This is not the point here, obviously, and I do appreciate the article, but respectfully, shouldn't Emily Blunt at least be mentioned if you're naming the stars of Sicario?
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Gode regler for noe jeg funderer mye på. Jeg liker å tenke høyt med KI når jeg skal skrive, men bekymrer meg for hvordan det påvirker både læring og selve teksten.
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Wait, you mean Danish, right? Or were the devs Dutch but working in Denmark or something?
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Played this in Norwegian when it came out. So glad to see it releasing in English. I highly recommend it as a game way ahead of its time with a unique aesthetic.
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Shiiiiit! I played this game back then in, I think it was Norwegian. A really dark and interesting story. The puppets do a lot of work for the atmosphere. I didn't even realise it never got an English release, glad to see it's happening now though.
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
A wonderful piece of writing. I love this movie, seen it many times, but I've never heard it's themes expressed so clearly. Thank you so much for writing it. Another rewatch seems due for me.
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Woah 😯
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Haha, yup. Fortunately there are others, even if they're not as popular. I also think DE is one of those games with a far-reaching but nebulous legacy.
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
"If we could have devised an arrangement for providing everybody with music in their homes, perfect in quality, unlimited in quantity, suited to every mood, and beginning and ceasing at will, we should have considered the limit of human felicity already attained."
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
That was really good. Relatable on many levels even though I've never been as deep into that type of game.
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Interesting thread. It's a feeling I chase in new RPGs. So much so that whether the game enables it or not I try to force it by banking levels. I'll save up points so I can experience that big jump where a challenge becomes trivialised as my build's potential suddenly and significantly increases.
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Got em both too. Had to go back for yesterday's because that image looked so familiar I wanted to guess. Had it on VHS back in the day.
A walled in sandy courtyard attached to some low structures with five tan figures surrounding a figure in white. In the background are palms and the ocean.A dark robed figure with a headdress and indistinguishable brown item slung across their back, walks next to another figure in a dark cloak on a beach with rocks and seaweed. White cliffs loom above them.
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Loving this little adventure, it's really funny. Just wanted to say I found a typo in this node. Cheers :)
A screen of text from "Terror of the Alien Mindmasters" with the word "use" underlined in a sentence that looks like it should be "us".
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Hmm, image seems broken but there's info in the alt text
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
That disappeared for me too a year or two ago, but I use this now and I like that it lets me choose which search engine I want search through.
Review card for "Search by Image" by Armin Sebastian, a Firefox browser extension. It has average rating of 4.6 stars out of 5.
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
Nice, var det SF du deltok i?
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rat dad ==> GATEway Fate @splinterhamato.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
oh god oh fuck
A bluesky notification reading “Tonberry followed you”, from three minutes prior.  Their icon is a picture of a Tonberry from final fantasy, a weird little green dude in a brown robe with a featureless face consisting of only two yellow dot eyes.  It’s holding a lantern, for being spooky, and a knife (for ending your life). It offers me the option to follow the tonberry back, which is generally not how this works, but can be useful in getting through the ARR bonus dungeon Wanderer’s Palace (Hard).
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Without saying your age, what's your favorite movie that came out when you were 18?
static.klipy.com
Lost Highway David Lynch
Alt: GIF of headlights moving quickly down a dark road divided by double solid yellow lines. Captured from Lost Highway.
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
my face when I googled something about my game darkwebSTREAMER and the genAI response declared that a man designed the pioneering language system that I, a woman, designed we were talking about erasure of women's achievements by LLMs YESTERDAY and today i see this? goddamn.
post shows a screenshot of google's AI response, then a question, then another response, with the following text:

Would you like to know more about how they built the procedural internet, details on the game's Twitch integration, or its estimated release date?


(human reply)
howo did they build the procedural internet

(google AI)
The development team behind darkwebSTREAMER bypassed standard game design templates to build what they call the "world's first procedurally generated internet". Instead of relying on static, pre-written text, the studio created a dynamic, reactive ecosystem using a custom-engineered blend of linguistic frameworks, anthropology, and proprietary Al systems.

Rather than utilizing modern Large Language Models (LLMs) which can break immersion or hallucinate incorrectly, they engineered a highly controlled, rule-based simulation from the ground up. Natural Language Processing (NLP) Architecture
• Dynamic Content Creation: Lead programmer Tony Li used his background in linguistics to design a bespoke NLP system. This system constructs text elements on the fly-including dark web forum posts, emails, and chat room logs-ensuring that grammar, syntax, and phrasing match a 1990s internet dialect.
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
Wtf? As in it would be cheaper to buy it at the actual cinema? That's insane. Reminds of a similarly crazy thing here (in Norway) where you pay a lot more for shipping to an automated box you just open with an app, than to a shop where an employee has to spend time and find your package.
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
Saw Robocop when I was 9. A friend's dad rented it for his birthday after I was captivated by the standee in a video store and told my buddy about it. "50% man, 50% robot, 100% cop". We were 200% in. Still one of my favorite movies.
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
It's both funny and kind of tragic to me that The Birdcage was r-rated. Where I live it was basically pg.
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Did it not ship with that? I played last year and it had what I expect from a GT career mode. Licences to unlock harder races, car markets, and tuning. The new thing was this weird car nerd café and quest book stuff which is cumbersome but works. It still felt like GT career mode though.
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
For a moment there I thought your finger below the cover was a leg folded beneath her
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im jared @mightnot.fail · 17/06/2026
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abby (sports) @stabbyabby.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
Everyone shut up I finally got a video of Jyn doing her cartoon snoring thing
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
Consider donating to one of the last remaining pieces of the internet we were once promised.
donate.wikimedia.org
Make your donation now - Wikimedia Foundation
Donate to the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that hosts Wikipedia and other crucial free knowledge projects. Each year, the generosity of the 2% of readers who donate allows us to expand the reac...
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CrimethInc. Ex-Workers' Collective @crimethinc.com · 04/06/2026
To our dismay, the artist and author Marjane Satrapi has passed away. As she wrote, ordinary Americans and Iranians have more in common with each other than we do with either of our governments, which have far too much in common with each other. We honor her memory and oppose the war.

NO WAR WITH IRAN!
The world is not divided into countries. The world is not divided between East and West.
You are American, I am Iranian, we don’t know each other, but we talk together
& we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you
& your government is much bigger than the difference
between you & me.
And the difference between me
& my government is much bigger
than the difference
between me & you.
And our governments are very much the same...
—Marjane Satrapi
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
Just no racist jokes about vegetables. I've seen those backfire.
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
Go for a walk during the day. Play my new twine game
ashenvictor.itch.io
Picking the Path by AshenVictor
A short twine fiction about daring to go for a walk
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Josh Mathews @vandalheart.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
Good morning.
Life is hard, but at least I’m not dumb enough to think it’s hard because of immigrants.
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🥖Kekeflipnote🥖 🔜 NFC @kekeflipnote.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
Animating on one 3DS is fun but using 2 3DS is even more fun :)
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Tauriq Moosa @tauriq.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
Palestinian shortlisted for PhD program in Australia has Visa rejected because, it seems, of inscrutable, arbitrary and racist Visa policies. Again: What purpose does a Visa serve except continue the colonialist project of keeping basically anyone not from Western countries from study & travel?
instagram.com
hareth_palestine on Instagram: "Rejections from jobs and schools are part of life. This one is different.I’m sharing it because it was too dishonest to leave unque…"
Rejections from jobs and schools are part of life. This one is different.I’m sharing it because it was too dishonest to leave unquestioned, and because I have since found others who were handled in the same way by the same university.PhD programs were never my first plan. But I put real work into this one because the topic was mine. I spent weeks writing and revising the proposal, made the shortlist, interviewed, was told I was among the top candidates, then submitted the formal application and received this rejection around 12 hours later.What bothered me was not the rejection itself. We know the passports we carry. We know how borders think before people do. What bothered me was the language: “genuine student.”That phrase is doing dirty work while pretending to be neutral. It suggests the problem is my intention, my credibility, my honesty. It turns a political and administrative exclusion into a character judgment.If there is anything here whose genuineness should be questioned, it is not the student. It is the scholarship, the institution, and the performance of inclusion that invites people shaped by displacement to apply, only to reject them through the very structures it claims to study.The topic was acceptable. The person living it was not.
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
Top 15 shows, gut instincts only Halt and Catch Fire Carnivàle Andor For All Mankind The Wire Reservation Dogs Homicide: Life on the Street Freaks and Geeks Millennium L.A. Law Mad Men Better Call Saul It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Black Books The Knick
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
That was so great, especially appreciated the little blurbs adding context. I don't have room for an extraction game in my life right now, so thnx for the vicarious thrills.
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 25/04/2026
I know right?!?!? I'm so jealous of you getting to experience that shit for the first time. At least I still have two more season to look forward to. Sitting on my hands trying not to get started on the one that's aring now until the whole season's out 😅
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
I used to love imdb, but it's fallen off a cliff in terms of ux. For years now, I just default to wikipedia for most of the stuff I used to get from there
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Nicol Smith @ashenv.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
Oh man, I can think of many, but The Thing and maybe Talk to Me seem like they belong at this theater
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