iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

There is a moment at the very very end of Abdul El-Sayed's podcast with Ezra Klein (book recommendation section) where he talks about the idea of "speaking truth to pain" and this will be staying with me for an extremely long time. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/o...

But there’s also something about truth to pain. We talk a lot about truth to power, but I think it’s actually a lot harder to speak truth to pain. I say that as someone who went to medical school, realizing that in a lot of our politics right now, we’ve got to get a lot better at speaking truth to pain if we’re going to get through some of these challenges that we have.

What does “truth to pain” mean?

It’s one thing to look power in the eye and say: You’re wrong about this. But there’s a way in which pain is very difficult to reason with. Because when somebody is in their pain, they’re in their trauma. They see that pain, and they may not see what’s causing it.

I remember just very explicitly being in a trauma ward with a gunshot wound patient and watching this big guy with his hand on his gunshot wound. All the folks are trying to pull his hand off his pain, that point of his gunshot wound, this clear vulnerability.

And this emergency room doctor had the presence of mind to be like: Everyone, stop. And she looks him in the eyes, and she’s like: I get that really hurts, and I’m so sorry that you’re here. You don’t want to be here. We don’t want you to be here. But if you don’t let us fix this, you could die. So I’m going to take your hand, and I’m going to move it off, OK? Because I need to get there so that you can live.

She was speaking truth to pain. He understands he’s at the hospital, he needs care, but he also doesn’t want anybody to touch the wound. Which is a natural thing. And I think it is a really great metaphor for how we think about a lot of these challenges we talked about today.

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CW Griffen @cwgriffen.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

OK, this looks really cool. I don't play online much but might use this for solo RP or something like 5PFH. Also "no ads, no AI, no telemetry." www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlbP...

youtube.com

Obsidian Is Now a Free Virtual Tabletop

YouTube video by Atlas VTT

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Adrian Tchaikovsky @aptshadow.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I've been reading Hot War from @handiworkgames.bsky.social , which uses a system that Tyrant Philosophers will have a variant of, and I did want to post about how fun it looks as a narrative tool.

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Justin Mikulka @justinmikulka.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Why won't a US diesel export ban lower diesel prices in America? Because the oil industry will simply stop making as much diesel and force US prices higher. Isn't that illegal collusion and market manipulation you say? Are you familiar with the US oil and gas industry, I say?

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flyingrodent @flyingrodent.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Ten years of relentlessly hateful, comically elitist anti-democratic politics across the white people world, helpfully summarised. The wrong people are talking, the wrong people are deciding and it’s harming the careers of important people who actually matter. Smithers! Release the hounds

The incident fits a broader pattern in the discourse around 'free speech' and 'cancel culture': whatever comes from the top down is freedom; whatever comes from the bottom up is bullying and censorship. When Macklemore is dropped at the behest of the billionaire stadium owner Robert Kraft, it's an exercise of the freedom of businesses to 'demonstrate their values' by deciding whom to platform. But when Ed Sheeran's fans decide not to buy tickets to his performances, or even demand refunds, it's bullying, mob behaviour. Since most people are not billionaires and do not own stadiums, they can exercise meaningful power only collectively. The collective exercise of power must therefore be demonised.

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Heart of the Deernicorn @heartofthedeernicorn.com · 23/09/2026

Tomorrow, Thursday September 24th, is our Solo RPG Book Club! We will be meeting at @altitude15oly Altitude 15 in downtown Olympia Washington from 5pm-8pm to play a solo RPG together! This month's game is Song of the Scryptwyrm.

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Evan Torner @guyintheblackhat.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Very important that we protect everyone's space and right to be anywhere from bad to "mid" at stuff, so they feel more reason to grow and less reason to use computers to fake ability and expertise.

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Daniel Kwan @danielhkwan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Putting a call out for TTRPG artists! Doing an initial discovery for an artist to work on a new cyberpunk, body horror action game I'm designing. Please link your portfolio! NO AI.

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Serenity "🜔🝆🜌🜂" Dee 🍜 @sapphixy.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

oh my god why does anyone take this fuckwit seriously when we say LLMs et al. aren't thinking we aren't saying that only living beings can think, we're saying they're not thinking because they literally *can't* the difference is not one of degree but one of kind; biological brains aren't just…

Skeet from Will Stancil:

Once you’ve conceded that there’s nothing magic about humans or “living beings” that makes them the only entities allowed to think, it’s really hard to figure out an intellectually honest dividing line where the entities that are exercising creativity and solving complex problems aren’t thinking

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BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

fully laughed out loud at numerous points "As the Army, you play a cabal of deranged lower and middle officers who joined the army as a fallback when their promising careers as serial killers failed to get off the ground."

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Kat Abughazaleh @katmabu.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

🚨 THE KAPOW HANDBOOK IS FINALLY DONE!!! 🚨 6 months, 5 authors, and 60 pages later, we’ve written a guide on how to integrate mutual aid and direct action into electoral politics. And we’re not gatekeeping this info either. Get a free digital copy on 9/21 at kapow.works/handbook !!!

Me, holding a spiral bound notebook that reads “how to KAPOW the system”

Two pages of the book, one is an FAQ asking why campaigns haven’t been doing this the whole time. The other is a black intro page for PART 1: INFRASTRUCTURE that reads “Cynicism is for losers. We can build the world we want to see.”

Two pages on how to make a mutual aid hub in your campaign office with loads of
Polaroids of our office and volunteers

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Doctor Memory @blank.org · 16/09/2026

I believe it was @dsquareddigest.bsky.social who noted that the only way to survive an argument with Milton Friedman was that when he said “let us assume” to immediately interject “no, we will not assume that” and it’s an equally valid approach to discussing “AI risk”.

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CW Griffen @cwgriffen.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

"Let's assume there's a 10% chance Zoroastrianism is the right religion, aren't you at risk of condemning yourself to eternity in a hell library by not converting?" (Yes I just finished A Short Stay in Hell, how'd you know?) To the point: yes, refusing these baseless assumptions is indeed critical

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Ross Cowman @rosscowman.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

soft launching UK-based shipping on heartofthedeernicorn.com right now. Free shipping on orders over $200 to the UK and Republic of Ireland. Duty paid shipments to most EU countries. If you want to do me a solid, try ordering something DM me to let me know how it goes.

heartofthedeernicorn.com

Heart of the Deernicorn

Publisher, distributor, and manufacturer of tabletop games including RPGs, Solo RPGs, and Story Games.

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Prem Thakker ツ @premthakker.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

New: Macklemore says Robert Kraft — who owns Gillette Stadium, where Macklemore & Ed Sheeran were to perform later this month — called Sheeran. Kraft rallied other owners together behind an ultimatum for Sheeran: if Macklemore stays on the tour, you won't be allowed in our venues.

I'm not sure how to start this. So I'm going to speak from the heart and share the truth. Ed Sheeran and his team have made the decision to remove me from The Loop tour.
But before I get into it, I want to say something that should be obvious. In this moment I think it matters. I am not a victim. Ed Sheeran is not a victim. Pink is not a victim. We have careers, money, opportunities, safety and audiences around the world. Whatever consequences any of us face for what we say, we get to go home to our families.

The victims are the Palestinian people. The men, women and children who have been killed, starved, displaced and forced to live through unimaginable violence. More than 20,000 children have been killed in Gaza alone. People are being killed today, and people will be killed tomorrow. I want to make sure that as I tell this story, we don't lose sight of that.

Ed is my friend. I've known him for 13 years. We've shared late nights, studio sessions and stages. He has this infectious magic about him that I've grown to love. I consider him a brother. And because of that, we've had some difficult conversations this past week. The type of talks rooted in love and respect for one another that still end in a place of fundamental disagreement. Nothing I'm writing here is out of spite or because I want to tear down his character. But as I told Ed multiple times on the phone, our friendship can't change my responsibility to tell the truth about what happened.

Last Monday, in the middle of all the media attention surrounding Pink and what I said at MetLife, Ed told me that Robert Kraft called him. We were scheduled to play Gillette Stadium later this month, which is owned by the Kraft Group. Ed told me that Kraft said I would not be allowed to perform in his stadium. Ed also told me that Kraft had rallied some of the other
stadium owners and collectively they gave him an ultimatum: if Macklemore stays on the tour, you will not be allowed to play in our venues.

Ed was in …

What I said at MetLife I have been saying on stages around the world for almost three years. So why is it an issue now? Because now I'm sharing a stage with one of the biggest artists in the world, in some of the biggest stadiums in America. At a certain level of exposure, "Free Palestine" becomes too much of a risk. If I kept doing the shows, saying Free Palestine, with Ed implicitly supporting it, the crowd getting loud and showing undeniable support for Palestinian liberation, what artist might speak out next? The stage becomes resistance. Maybe that's why this time it became so important to silence me.

And one of the most effective ways to enforce that silence has been to weaponize the accusation of antisemitism. Antisemitism is real. And that is exactly why the word matters too much to be used as a shield against criticism of the Israeli state. When criticizing Israel, opposing Zionism or saying "Free Palestine" gets conflated with hatred of Jewish people, it doesn't protect Jewish people. It protects Israel from accountability.

I hope this isn't the end of my relationship with Ed.
Thirteen years of friendship doesn't disappear because of one painful disagreement. I hope we both continue listening, studying what is happening in Palestine and wrestling with what neutrality means in a moment like this. My door will always be open to continuing that conversation.

When my brother Omar was doing the subtitles for the video I posted from MetLife, I thanked him. He told me there's a phrase in Arabic:
لا شكر على واجب
"La shukra ala wajeb." There is no thanks for a duty.
That stayed with me. Because that's what this has become for me and millions of others around the world. A duty. Not something deserving of praise or gratitude. Not brave. Human.

Who is winning the internet, who is getting canceled, who gets to play the stadium and who doesn't, all of it becomes so small when held against what we are actually witnessing in Gaza and the West Bank. An entire people be…

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A.J. Wilden🏳️‍⚧️ @wcwit.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

"They're not misunderstanding the film; they're co-opting a message"

Screencap from the interview linked in the quoted post

Marlow Stern (the interviewer): You have one of the most renowned replies in Twitter history. Elon Musk tweeted out, “Take the red pill,” then Ivanka Trump enthusiastically wrote, “Taken!” to him, and then you replied, “Fuck both of you.” I’m curious how you feel about the co-opting of “The Matrix” by those on the right who don’t really seem to understand its messaging.

Lilly Wachowski: I mean, I can’t sit in a room and explain the movie to every single person who watches it. Even if I did sit in a room with Elon Musk and Ivanka Trump — yikes — it doesn’t matter. They’re not misunderstanding the film; they’re co-opting a message. And that’s what fascists do: They co-opt the messages of progressives and use it to their benefit to confuse and obfuscate what is going on and the intention of their ideology. They do it with everything. They do it with Martin Luther King Jr. Look at how they’ve changed the idea of what antisemitism is.

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CW Griffen @cwgriffen.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

LLMs are like Ouija boards and somehow a large chunk of the population has been persuaded that there really are Mysterious Spirits Imparting Great Wisdom when it's really just reflecting your own superstitions* to you. *(and of course also the will of the technocrats via built-in magnets)

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Claire Willett @clairewillett.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

I often find, in fact, that the rush to disavow ever having Liked the Bad Thing is counterproductive. it's more useful to sit in the messy nuance of having once deeply loved something that you cannot love the same way now. monsters aren't all immediately apparent. we will all get conned by someone

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Evil Hat @evilhat.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Grab a cup of coffee, sit back, and try not to get caught up in @seannittner.bsky.social 's relentless enthusiasm for gaming. It's the State of the Hat! ...fully time-stamped for your convenient. www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbB3...

youtube.com

State of the Hat - September 2026

YouTube video by Evil Hat Productions

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Elizabeth Hargrave @elizhargrave.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Layer upon layer of ugh. Treat artists like a precious resource. Ask permission and then once you have permission, credit them and jfc, don't run their creations through the plagiarism machine. Better yet, learn a skill. Make an art. It may not be beautiful but it will be *yours.*

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gamera obscura @ohrobin.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

There’s a term in psychology called naïve realism, which is the tendency to experience your own perception as an objective reading of reality. Instead of thinking, “I do not find this funny,” they conclude, “this is not funny, and therefore the person who posted it must account for the discrepancy.”

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Iron Spike @ironspike.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

In other words: My attention (and everyone else's) is a privilege you have no inherent right to, and if you can't deal with that, I encourage you to just block me and I am dead serious

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Heart of the Deernicorn @heartofthedeernicorn.com · 03/09/2026

Today is very special because we have Andi Licht in the studio with us, running her game that she created! We play Between Clouds, specifically the Cat's Paw Couriers addition. Join Andi, Momo, Carla, and Avery as they hop aboard some giant pigs and go on an adventure!

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KJ Charles @kjcharleswriter.com · 03/09/2026

Back in the day when I worked at a well known publisher, there was a person who'd hang around the building entrance and tried to shove her MS into editors' hands as they came out to get lunch, like a process server. I don't know if she felt that would constitute a contract or what.

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KJ Charles @kjcharleswriter.com · 03/09/2026

Just proofed the self-editing section of Think Write Edit Romance with a fine-tooth comb. I'm exhausted. Anyone who puts the advice into practice will be exhausted, because it calls for multiple passes of careful, thoughtful work. I *know* someone's going to say "why not just use an AI editor?"

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Elle Cordova @ellecordova.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Rough Draft vs Final Draft

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The Verge @theverge.com · 02/09/2026

As a new Harry Potter trailer makes the rounds, it bears repeating that there’s no way to watch this show without supporting J.K. Rowling’s bigotry and the structural violence she’s inflicting on the trans community.

theverge.com

There is no ethical consumption of HBO’s Harry Potter series

You can’t without supporting Rowling’s transphobic bigotry.

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Ash the Stampede @ashthestampede.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Mars Watch is now LIVE on Kickstarter! Re-skinned 2nd edition of The Watch - an award-winning TTRPG about women and NB people literally destroying patriarchy. 📚 Revised rules, incl. new playbook 🚀 New setting & art ✨ Future genders 🔪 Destroy space capitalism Back now: www.kickstarter.com/...

a second edition nearly 10 years in the making - Mars Watch, now live on Kickstarter

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Heart of the Deernicorn @heartofthedeernicorn.com · 30/08/2026

Have YOU played Fall of Magic yet? . Fall of Magic is a GMless TTRPG that's hand made in our very own workshop! Gather your friends, embark on an epic journey, and discover why this award winning game is so beloved. . #ttprg #ttrpgcommunity #tabletopgames #roleplayinggames #fallofmagic

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Indie Game Reading Club @indiegamereadingclub.com · 28/08/2026

Hey friends, Been threatening this almost from the beginning, so more than a decade later we're finally getting to it! We've posted the first episode of the Indie Game Talk Club, a monthly (for now) podcast. If you know IGRC you'll dig it. Huge thanks to our friend @olddog.games for the sick logo!

indiegamereadingclub.com

Welcome to the Indie Game Talk Club

We’ve been threatening to do a podcast for years. That time has finally come. Let us know what you think: email us at hello@indiegamereadingclub.com. Meet your hosts, Paul Beakley and Dusey (…

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Daniel Abraham @abraham.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

You know who else has an unfair advantage in sport? Naturally talented athletes. And people with high hemoglobin. And rich people with money for sports camps and coaches. Why should they be allowed to compete? “Fairness in sports” my ass. Never since NFTs have I heard such bullshit.

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John Harper @johnharper.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Back at it with more Ride or Die! This spread will be about how Drivers can always choose to have a Ride that's appropriate to the action (plane, boat, submarine, space shuttle) -- or very *inappropriate* if they want to get wild with it.

A page spread from the Ride or Die RPG, showing various types of vehicles (in a sunset-colored vaporwave style) by depicting a running gun battle between a car, a plane, and a boat.

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Adrian Tchaikovsky @aptshadow.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

The AI nanny, Mary Sloppins

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Quinn murphy @gamefiend.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Something about this is so appealing. Imagine: A ouija board contact gone terribly wrong. You are trying to avoid/escape/contain a released spirit before it murders you. There is a board of letters representing your ouija board (not an actual board), and you are flipping cards to spell words...

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Scott Lynch @scottlynch78.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

If I want to start arguments I sometimes say that science fiction isn't a literature of prediction, it's a literature of extrapolated consequences. If it's 1890, "in the future there will be cars" is boring-ass mere prediction. "Because of cars there will be vast traffic jams" is extrapolation. 🧵

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Ann Leckie @annleckie.com · 20/08/2026

and lots of folks jumped on it. And it's always the most vulnerable who get hurt. Actual trans folks, or members of other marginalized groups. "But they deserve..." they do not. Think very hard before you decide that anyone "deserves" being harassed.

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Ann Leckie @annleckie.com · 20/08/2026

I don't want to put anyone on blast, so I'm going to say--my "don't go publicly demanding an author explain why they did something you don't like in a work" is true even for people you think have done something truly horrible in that work.

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Banana Chan 🔜 Portland Retro Gaming Expo @bananachangames.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

I’m prepping to launch Sample on BackerKit, a solo journaling game set during Y2K about a musician who needs to create a song before he performs at the Times Square Ball Drop…so he makes a deal with a demonic muse to get over his creative block. Please follow before we launch! tinyurl.com/2af9nnte

tinyurl.com

Sample

Get notified when Sample launches on BackerKit!

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Alex Falcone @alexfalcone.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

This fall I'm taking my silly blend of fun facts and jokes on the road. If you like what I do online but wish it was longer and there was a person to order french fries from, you'll love this. alexfalcone.ninja

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CW Griffen @cwgriffen.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

I found a Rarity-82 word worth 94 pts in OUTLIER. SHARPSHOOTER · 802 points · 10 rare words. No one else in Outlier has ever found it. 2 finds no one else found today. OUTLIER: the daily word hunt where the rarest words win. playoutlier.com/s/QJDW7J

playoutlier.com

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Starfire’s Deranged Neocon Foreign Policy Podcast @irhottakes.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

I heard Spider-Man 4 was the best MCU movie in a while and it turns out it's because Spider-Man learned what a script was and shared this discovery with his coworkers.

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Karen Twelves @ktwelves.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Hire me to edit your games I will remove about 75% of the instances of "that" if not more but I still charge by the word pre-edit so yeah sorry you still gotta pay for each "that."

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CW Griffen @cwgriffen.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

This is a nice reminder, especially for folks who read novels in a second language. No matter how fluent I've become, my English reading speed is still significantly slower.

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John Rogers @johnrogers.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Not only was One Shot a pioneer and is STILL great, but it feels like a lot of current AP analysis just blows right by Felicia Day nearly working herself into an early grave to start Geek & Sundry, which was 2012.

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