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Jo Berry

@joberry.bsky.social
2.1K followers 787 following 1.8K posts

English gal in Montreal and Senior Game Writer at Motive Studio (Star Wars: Squadrons, Dead Space Remake); formerly at BioWare. Short stories and novellas (latest here: www.amazon.com/dp/B0DW2Y5WH1) She / her. Opinions are mine.

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Jon Phillips @jowiph.bsky.social · 3h
One of the most underappreciated unforeseen consequences of the smartphone/streaming/social media era is the elimination of boredom as a key driver of creativity. Without boredom, there just isn't enough impetus for most people do go out and learn and do things.
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ArtButMakeItSports @artbutmakeitsports.bsky.social · 22h
Circus Performers, by Walt Kuhn, 1978, 📸 via @marisakabas.bsky.social
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MARC in a Cold Climate @marccold.bsky.social · 23h
nothing can go wrong if we tell the cataloger to teach a library instruction session for a comparative literature seminar on the Brothers Grimm, they said
A slide deck for a one-shot on the Brothers Grimm titled "My Mother, She Killed Me; My Father, He Ate Me; The Librarian Was Helpful, Though."
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Crispy-Ghee✨️ @crispy-ghee.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
DO NOT SEEK THE TREASURE One of my favorite scenes from O Brother Where Art Thou. I figured I should try to draw all 3 of the Soggy bottom boys, why not. #art #comic
🍳 A messy comic of a scene from O Brother Where Art Thou. Delmar and Everett are in a movie theater looking behind them in their seats. Delmar is saying " We thought you was a Toad" to a confused looking Pete (surrounded by question marks).
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R Del @delexical.bsky.social · 22h
They... called 999 themselves.
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Kingfisher & Wombat @tkingfisher.com · 29/09/2026
It’s Launch Day, darling! This one is not cozy or for the faint of heart, please note the warnings, but it’s here at last! And while you should read in the way you like the best—dude, Neil Newbon’s narration knocks it out of the PARK. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/813073...
penguinrandomhouse.com
Baldur's Gate 3: Astarion by T. Kingfisher: 9798217298594 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
The roguish charlatan Astarion will free himself from a centuries-long fate of servitude or die (a second time) trying—in this decadently dark fantasy adventure by award-winning author T. Kingfisher.....
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Premee Mohamed @premeemohamed.com · 29/09/2026
OK lemme see if this works (quickly recorded on desktop, LOL)
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🔥 Napalm ErAnn🔥 @annlemay.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Question (please share)! What games industry speaker and/or what topic (games or not!) would make you consider travel to attend a conference/convention? Or as a games industry person, what speaker from outside of games would like to see at a con? Or topics that are not games specific?
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Prasad Jallepalli, MD, PhD @prasad.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
5 potatoes cubed is still 5 potatoes because potatoes are root vegetables
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USEDUNIVERSE @useduniverse.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
A24's 'Blastrooms'
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Dr. Damien P. Williams, dread portent down from a mountain cave @wolven.blacksky.app · 29/09/2026
Seriously, just do not use muse
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Nighthawks has been out for a week! I’m happy people are enjoying it. Here’s a fun behind the scenes look, because sometimes the easiest way to get a good reference is to dress up and pose yourself…
Me dressed and posing as Gideon from Nighthawks.
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Ruo Shui @ruoshuiresearch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
this Pope quoted Gandalf in his first encyclical titled "Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence"
213. The twentieth-century Catholic author J.R.R. Tolkien, in the words of a protagonist in one of his novels, described our responsibility in this way: “It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.”
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Hannah Vardit @hannahvardit.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
i worry that men think being A Good Guy is dramatically and heroically intervening on behalf of an endangered woman and then being publicly rewarded on a grand scale when actually being A Good Guy is just usually saying, “hey man that’s not funny” or “wow that’s fucked up” and there is no reward
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Alex de Campi @alexdecampi.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
With alt text. I yelled
INTRODUCTION

The equities here could not be more one-sided. Defendants admit that they
provide a service without fully knowing how it works. 

This is not just any service. It is one that Defendants themselves concede poses an existential risk to the continued
survival of humankind. 

Defendants claim they cannot stop barreling forward with their potentially civilization-ending endeavors unless they are forced to do so by the
government. They have asked the government to tie them to the mast. 

Plaintiff brings good news to the Defendants: The Florida Attorney General is answering your
cry for help with a motion to enjoin you from harming Floridians with your reckless, unacceptably risky product.
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Benne W. Holwerda @benneholwerda.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Andromeda came out okay.
Seestar image of andromeda.
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John Rogers @johnrogers.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
It is extremely encouraging to know the Youngs understand Bookshop Girl is an erotic icon. Some things *are* eternal.
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Alanah Pearce @alanahpearce.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Are you or have you ever been a narrative designer (as your official job title)? I would like to interview you for a video! Pls reply to this if you’re interested ❤️.
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Davey Wilbury @daveishere.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
oh no, the scam everyone says is a scam may turn out to be a scam
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Mikki Kendall @karnythia.blacksky.app · 13/02/2025
So someone asked me to retell the story of the old lady that told me about killing her husband. Are we ready for a trip back in time to 1999? Some of you already know this story, but if you don't it is a wild ride. Apply all appropriate trigger warnings!
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Aura/Moom @moomanibe.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
subscribing increasingly to what I'd describe as the Chunky Peanut Butter theory of game design, which is that it solves a lot of problems for you if your core game mechanic, in its simplest form, still has something for the player to "chew on" - that they can fail at, be better at, think about
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Aftermath @aftermath.site · 28/09/2026
These AI companies should be responsible for everything they do, and they fact nobody is holding them accountable is driving me insane: aftermath.site/ai-agents-resp...
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Ursula K. Le Guin Bot @leguinbot.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
In that moment Ged understood the singing of the bird, and the language of the water falling in the basin of the fountain, and the shape of the clouds, and the beginning and end of the wind that stirred the leaves.
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Alex de Campi @alexdecampi.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
this audre lorde quote is never far from my mind:
Whenever the need for some pretense of communication arises, those who profit from our oppression call upon us to share our knowledge with them. In other words, it is the responsibility of the oppressed to teach the oppressors their mistakes. I am responsible for educating teachers who dismiss my children’s culture in school. Black and Third World people are expected to educate white people as to our humanity. Women are expected to educate men. Lesbians and gay men are expected to educate the heterosexual world. The oppressors maintain their position and evade responsibility for their own actions. There is a constant drain of energy which might be better used in redefining ourselves and devising realistic scenarios for altering the present and constructing the future.

- Audre Lorde, from Sister Outsider
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Kendra Mellifera 🏳️‍⚧️ @kmellifera.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
It’s kind of exhausting when there’s studies being like when women speak up, no matter how, the issue is dismissed and the women are fired but a man says “hey that’s gross” and entire companies change almost immediately And men go: but how can *I* help it’s hard to speak up what do I even say :(
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Micah @rincewind.run · 27/09/2026
Discworld QOTD, from The Wee Free Men
Witches are naturally nosy,” said Miss Tick, standing up. “Well, I must go. I hope we shall meet again. I will give you some free advice, though.”
“Will it cost me anything?”
“What? I just said it was free!” said Miss Tick.
“Yes, but my father said that free advice often turns out to be expensive,” said Tiffany.
Miss Tick sniffed. “You could say this advice is priceless,” she said, “Are you listening?”
“Yes,” said Tiffany.
“Good. Now...if you trust in yourself...”
“Yes?”
“...and believe in your dreams...”
“Yes?”
“...and follow your star...” Miss Tick went on.
“Yes?”
“...you’ll still be beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy. Goodbye.
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Carl Ballard @carlballard.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
One thing is you don't need to do like a whole monologue about why harrassment is bad. You can just say "really?" in a disappointed voice or "come on, man."
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Múmer @mumermao.eurosky.social · 28/09/2026
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mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
Our guy walks into a totally unfamiliar environment with the craziest possible shit happening all around him and still somehow manages to make the correct moral choice like 85 times in a row.
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John Rogers @johnrogers.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Every thriller and scifi writer in America: "Um, am I in trouble for having this in my Notes for like ten years?"
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Stjepan Sejic @stjepansejic.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
letters to the vampire queen the marrowsong it is a very important element to the story that first truly establishes the Duskmarrows a psychopomp type of a spirit meant to give comfort to the violently slain souls yearning for vengeance. they protect the world from revenant spirits seeking blood
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cornish person girl @gemma.transwrites.world · 28/09/2026
“By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak." - Umberto Eco’s List of the 14 Common Features of Fascism
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Mikko Rautalahti @mikkihel.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Anyway, yes, it is a reference to David Lynch whose work has been very significant to me, but I didn't pick it just because I wanted to do a shoutout, I did it because it's a reference to him very specifically and intentionally saying "trans rights are human rights" and that shit is fucking true.
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Mikko Rautalahti @mikkihel.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Also, I cannot overemphasize how small a task this was for me. A routine request. "Hey, we need a coupla movie names here, please write." But a good spot to slip in a reference to something I loved and found meaninful. I think the takeaway is that often even very small things can hit kinda hard.
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Mikko Rautalahti @mikkihel.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
I wrote a lot of this game and I suspect this is the thing that gets more attention than anything else I did for it. I'm okay with it. www.ign.com/articles/rem...
ign.com
Control Resonant Features a Powerful Twin Peaks Quote, Paying Tribute to the Late David Lynch Who Inspired Remedy's Games
Remedy's games have always had Lynchian inspirations, including its new open-world action game Control Resonant.
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Eric Ansley Díaz 🏳️‍🌈 @geekboyeric.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Fandom has always been toxic and leaned towards “This is gonna SUCK!” - they just didn’t have the bullhorn of the internet before. And everything didn’t become culture war ammunition.
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Walter Hickey @walthickey.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
this is one of the most inspirational photos i have ever seen www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
bloomberg.com
Japan Has No Space for Solar Farms Apart From Old Golf Courses
The perfectly manicured fairways at Minohara Country Club wind through the forested hills of Gunma Prefecture about two hours from downtown Tokyo. In a few years, they’ll disappear under row-upon-row ...
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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 27/09/2026
Women trying to succeed in Silicon Valley AI and effective altruist spaces are reporting feeling serious social pressure to attend sex parties - where people have reported being sexually assaulted, like below. Events like Aella’s “Slutcon,” which is happening again this weekend.
Ann Pierce
@itsannpierce
20h
I am disheartened by this as well. I already lost a bunch of followers for agreeing with @tautologer, but it's saddening to see local nerdy women being caricatured as Karen-like outsiders and getting pushed out of the scene. This is exactly why you hear so few concrete, names-attached stories of sexual harrassment and assault. I'm told there is a history of discrediting these because the "slut normalization" thing is top priority and these stories get inconveniently in the way of spreading this ideology.
I got roped into attending last year's Saturday Slutcon party because so many local and out-of-town friends were there (to echo sentiments @tautologer expressed about "slut events becoming central to the larger scenes). Mostly I hung out with people I knew and that was great. But in the course of my 3-ish hours there, there were 2 times my "no" was not accepted by a man I didn't know, and I was physically pushing a huge guy off of me who was rubbing his penis on me, who continued to do it despite my physical force against him, and after I finally wriggled away from him, told him I wanted to dance alone etc., he came back and did it again.
This was scary and bad, but it didn't even cross my mind to report this because one of the other people who didn't accept my "no" earlier in the night was the bartender (an officially sanctioned authority at the event), and I knew the event was organized exclusively by women into CNC (who are vocal about how rapey behavior turns them on), so I figured this sort of thing would just get me laughed at. And anyway, I heard there were a lot of other incidents like it. Later though, someone encouraged me to report this story to the organizers, and despite my embarrassment I did, so *they know* that this and other incidents happened. This is why they cut the Saturday night party this year and created a larger training program for the flirt girls - *because* of things like this last year. Yet the narrative bein…People who haven't been to Slutcon are saying "it's just group therapy," "it's just innocent flirting." But the environment is much like a sex party in that many people are nude, there is making out and sex acts happening out in the open. I think it's pretty unreasonable to expect that every nerdy girl who likes rationalist bloggers or is into EA/AI safety should automatically be comfortable with this! That if she's not, there's something wrong with her, we don't want her in our scenes, etc.
Not to mention, it's explictly an event *for men*, where men are the clients and the "flirt girls" are the product. Last year I overheard an exchange where a man felt "led on" by a flirt girl and was trying to get her punished/kicked out. (A dynamic that seems inevitable in this context!)
Anyway- it does sound like they've upped their consent education a lot this year, are more organized, and that's good! As I've told my friends who are attending: I hope they have fun!
I heard several accounts last year of women who had no problems and really enjoyed the event. That's great!
Just... can we live in reality about this? There are real reasons why male-female sexual dynamics are tricky.
Encouraging autistic men who can't yet read body language to go around asking to see womens' boobs is maybe a bit ill-advised. Maybe not everyone should be/identify as a slut; maybe it's not for everyone.
And yeah, filtering the Bay Area Al safety scene down to only women who are super comfy with this eliminates *most* women - including many of the really smart, nerdy, weird women who've been in the larger scenes for years. What a loss for humanity.
I absolutely understand why people with a minority sexuality would want to create belonging, would want to create spaces for people like themselves. But why do it like this/at this cost?
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Dr. Sarah Parcak @indyfromspace.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
So you can learn about engineering disasters
image of Bent Pyramid of Dashur Egypt against a blue sky with some clouds
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pmamtraveller.bsky.social @pmamtraveller.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
No one painted silk like Vittorio Reggianini
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Amalas @amalasrosa.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Me and my perspective grid against the world
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Jared Yates Sexton @jysexton.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Just helping with editing here. These bots aren’t sentient. They’re doing what they’re programmed to do. OpenAI, a private company supposedly bound by laws, committed federal crimes.
Screenshot of BBC article: OpenAI bots (struck through) meddled with multiple US government agency sites
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poorly drawn cats @poorlycatdraw.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
long legs
a poorly drawn cat lying down with its very long legsa black cat lying on a round gray rug in front of a white cabinet. the rug has a black cat design underneath the real cat, with printed legs sticking out and creating the illusion that the cat has extremely long legs
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Violet Blue® @violetblue.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
You can tell at this point that it'll be poor people who are stuck with AI doctors and faulty care/misdiagnosis/service denial while people who *can afford* human doctors/human services...
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Tim Gaedke @timgaedke.com · 26/09/2026
talent is a lie
a cartoon picture of a frog throwing a crooked looking clay vase with the words “talent is a lie, just do it anyway”
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Kate Gray @hownottodraw.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
whenever people say “cancel culture isn’t real, it’s just facing the consequences of your actions” I think about all the people who were the target of the internet’s hate for things they didn’t do, or for things that had much more nuance. it can ruin lives, over things that often do not matter
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Sanho Tree @sanho.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Happy Stanislav Petrov day! He saved the world from nuclear annihilation on this day in 1983. My freshman year in college would have been so much worse without his courage.🧵
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Jo Berry @joberry.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Happy birthday to meeeee 🥳
A floating round balloon with Happy Birthday! on it in with stars and sparkles
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Dinah Rose KC @dinahrose.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Magdalen water meadow this morning
An early autumn meadow. Light low mist. Deer scattered about.
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