iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I'm pretty sure the Three Investigators deliberately engaged in a shenanigan to ensure Hitchcock's cooperation against his better judgment, so I think the real problem is that we stopped training pre-teens to be tricksters and con-men a la Tom Fitzgerald.

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

or the last two seasons, but yeah, there's a reason those were less popular

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Lyme @lymerpg.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Nic has always been incredibly helpful when I'm working with IPR. He's a pillar of RPG publishing.

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David J Prokopetz @prokopetz.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

I think a big shortcoming of a lot of fantasy tabletop RPG worldbuilding is the tendency to want to enshrine The Adventurer as occupying an eternal status quo even if the rest of the world is allowed to change. (1/3)

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

now you've got me imagining the Swedish Chef saying "dark and gritty" over and over

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daryl "rupert pumpkin" b 🏳️‍⚧️ @hypercubexl.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

GDT's reddit AMA spitting fire www.reddit.com/r/movies/com...

reddit comment:

Hello! Did you intend the ending of Pan’s labyrinth to be real or in Ofelia’s mind?

Guillermo Del Toro's reply:

My interpretation, and it's exclusively mine, is that it's real.

Because there's two things. One is what people call “The Shining Question.” The Shining Question is, Who opens the door for Jack to get out of the fridge? And Ofelia is in an attic with a guard outside her door, and she draws the door with the magic chalk, and she shows up in the labyrinth. So, the only way she could have gone into the labyrinth is the magic chalk. And the flower is real at the end. The flower that blooms in the dead tree. And the reason I think it’s real is because—and this is why I'm in favor of the human factor in art—I think that art does transform the world. You know?

Think about it for a second. One of the goals, with all this movement, is to make you believe that art is vulgar. That art is nothing special, and anybody can do art. That is like me telling you that I'm faster at running than Usain Bolt but I “run” in my motorcycle. Well, that's not the same. That’s not the same at all.

Art is important, and they want you to believe it isn't. It's part of the idea of control. The goal is not to have artificial intelligence. The goal is to foster natural stupidity. The goal is to foster you not looking for answers, and to trust yourself entirely to an engine. Look at the way we are dipping our toes into these things. We are starting to ask the machine, Is this true? For now, there's a correlation between reality and what the answers of the machine are. For now. But soon, we won't even investigate further. We will be told it's true. And if the machine is in the hands of somebody who should not be trusted, then your reality has been completely and utterly fucked. Because your intelligence ends at the question. You don't seek the answer. It's given to you.

Q: You recently mentioned that AI creates 'semi-compelling screensavers' and that you'd 'rather die' than use it. As a filmmaker who relies heavily on practical effects and creature design, what do you think is the biggest thing lost when a computer generates an image instead of a human hand?

GDT:

The three quarters of the process that gave you the chance to think of the idea that people don't think about without that process. Meaning, AI can get you to the middle really fast, but there's a dialectic with the process that gets you to that top 10%. I'll give you an example with the Pale Man.

We sculpted it as an old man, with a face. And then I said, Let's take out the face. This happened because I saw a photo of a manta ray and the poster for Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm. That combination, which happened at two different times during a week or a month, are not permutations that are chemically part of an equation. They are alchemy. And then I said, Take out the face, and then I said, Let's put the eyes on the hands. This triangulation happens because I spent a month or two months living with the idea of this creature. And it's not linear.

AI is like a super-fast engine that makes semi-sentient permutations of things that are already done. Creation is things that have never been done. Coming to exist.

And the second thing is the loss of the apprenticeship that one has as an artist. You're never a master; you're always an apprentice. This is a kinship I have with, for example, Chris Nolan. When he showed me The Odyssey, there’s a scene when Matt Damon is floating in the stormy ocean and I asked him—because we were talking about practical effects, and how great it is and that we both always use a maquette or a model—and I asked him, How did you do it? He said, “We put him in a storm in the ocean.”

And you're gonna find that 30% of a great image occurs accidentally. You know, either a drop of water hits the lens, or the camera shakes. I remember when in 1993, '94, Jim…

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

...I forgot: 5) compulsively withholds relevant information for no real reason all the damn time

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

4) an uncanny ability to get personally involved in the private business of total strangers Note that in the same way that you can be a dracula without having any supernatural powers, being a poirot does not necessarily imply any mystery-solving or problem-solving ability whatsoever.

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE COMMON POIROT 1) appearance so distinctly odd that looking weird was obviously your goal all along 2) arrogance, obviously, but *specifically* the air of vague omniscience and divine authority 3) copious free time and the ability to turn up vacationing more or less anywhere

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

So it's established that a dracula is a guy who meets all the *social* criteria of Count Dracula without necessarily being a vampire, right? Logically, the mystery equivalent of that would be a poirot.

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JRho @jrho.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

The most absolutely massive flex from the state fair exhibit. This quilt is made of 40 years of prize ribbons from various categories at the New Mexico State Fair won by Carol St. Clair Johnson. She also won a prize for this quilt.

Massive quilt made of prize ribbons in blue, red, yellow, and white

Center square of quilt made of yellow and red ribbons and yellow rosettes

Block of quilt made of blue, yellow, red, and white ribbons. Ribbons state the year. Some have the prize winning object written on in marker

Carol St. Clair Johnson
born 1954; resides Albuquerque, NM

O Fair New Mexico-41 Fair Years
2023
satin ribbons

After unexpectedly winning her first blue ribbon for a sewn cape in 1981, Carol St. Clair Johnson developed an enduring love for the New Mexico State Fair. The quilt Fair New Mexico-41 Fair Years incorporates more than six hundred of the ribbons she won at the fair every subsequent year except 2020 (when the fair was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic). Johnson earned ribbons for needlework, knitting, crochet, pies, cookies, cakes, canning, jewelry, flowers, vegetables, and potted plants. The title of the quilt is a reference to the state song, and the design places the state's Zia sun symbol at the center. The quilt earned Johnson yet another ribbon: Best in Category (miscellaneous quilt) at the 2023 New Mexico State Fair.

Courtesy of Carol St. Clair Johnson

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Technically we have no idea *why* Marika and Miquella have opposite-gender other selves, so we can't say for sure that they did it on purpose. But it's an *amazingly* fruitful ground for completely wild theorization.

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Helena Real 🏳️‍⚧️ @helenareal.northsky.social · 02/09/2026

I've said it before & I'll repeat it: Nobilis is my fav #rpg ever made. Its author, Jenna Moran, has a Patreon and she's previewed 200 pages of the game's upcoming new edition. Go ahead and support one of the genius of our hobby! (and get a great game in return) 😁 patreon.com/JennaMoran #dnd #ttrpg

patreon.com

Get more from Jenna Moran on Patreon

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

I remember the witches being fun and a Disney-appropriate amount of scary. I don't remember any other character in particular which probably says something.

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Jack Bernhardt @jackbern.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

THE GREAT BRITISH SEWING BEE: oh my this is fun, oh what larks THE GREAT BRITISH REAPING BEE: well this is a spot of bother and make no mistake, what on earth

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Please let me know if you have any questions as I am always glad to blather on about ePub and ebooks.

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Also it's probably the best RPG ever made, so, you might as well read it in any case.

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

If you want an example of what I would consider a good RPG ePub, I made the ePub version of Glitch: A Story of the Not, by Jenna Moran. I would consider it a pretty good example of a reasonably-complex ePub layout. www.drivethrurpg.com/product/337139 /Glitch-A-Story-of-the-Not

drivethrurpg.com

Glitch: A Story of the Not - Jenna Katerin Moran | DriveThruRPG

Glitch is the first modern installment in a long-running series of games (starting with the RPG "Nobilis") for people who like recreational philosophy and metaphysics and thinking about how their fund...

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Final note: Please do not indent the first paragraph after a heading, list, or block quote. Doing this means that your soul can find no refuge in either Heaven or Hell.

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

The Goudy Old Style that classic White Wolf books use is a good example of this; it looks great on paper, but is far too spindly to render well on e-paper and isn't that great on screens, as you'll know if you ever read one of their scanned PDFs.

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

In particular, don't try to embed the fonts you used for the print version unless you absolutely have to! At best, it's unnecessary; at worst, the font that looks fine on paper will be terrible for e-paper.

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

This is actually a perfectly fine way to get started; you're just going to need to move forward from there and define a "look" for your ePub that isn't based on the print layout.

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Exporting an ePub from your inDesign layout, if you're careful about telling it how to export the style tags, will give you a standards-compliant but thoroughly mediocre ePub file. This is what most of the RPG ePubs for sale today are.

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Sigil and Calibre are both perfectly fine programs for editing ePubs, with their own strengths and weaknesses. Use either, or more probably both.

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

A novel in ePub format can easily use less than ten CSS rules altogether. RPGs are going to need more, but in general, don't bother to specify anything unless you actually have to.

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

When it comes to styles, the less you use, the better. The software on the e-reader can use its own styles and the user will be happier just implementing their own idea of what a decent page margin is.

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Illustrations can work if they can fit into the layout, or just have their own page, but stuff like half-column illustrations that are meant to have the text flow around them are best left out.

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

The weakness of ePub is that it can't handle fixed-layout elements like page borders and fancy text arrangement, and if you try to make them fit, they'll look stupid.

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

The strength of ePub is that it can reflow text elegantly to fit on screens of any size. Or, more generally, the strength of ePub is that it can make your text very easy to read.

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

The first thing to remember is that ePub is not PDF, and if you try to make your ePub look as much like a PDF as you can, you will get a book that sucks as both an ePub and a PDF.

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

I've seen people talking about wanting guides for making ePub content for RPGs, so as the self-declared "ePub in RPGs" guy, here is my own advice rundown:

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

I've been asked to repost my guide to making EPUB versions of RPGs from the bad place, so here it is:

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

That looks good. Where can I find the recipe?

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

It's the gay thing but for Dorothea *specifically* it's also because she literally never stops doing little poses like she thinks someone invented the camera just now, just for her.

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

It actually takes a while to learn to talk properly with the mask running.

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

I feel like Hirohiko Araki comes close but is not quite the same.

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

I definitely remember reading a certain manga that shall not be named (until it got cancelled recently) and thinking "man, there's nothing in this Nozaki isn't doing better".

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

It's always funny to see media guess about how much a given person should weigh.

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Generally when I do that I start insisting that woke has not gone far enough and I can fix it by continuing to read webcomics until 9PM but I don't generally have the stamina to hold out that long.

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Charis draws @42paintbrushes.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

Cursed phone doodle #deltarune

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Dr. Fade @fade.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

I am reading _The Night-Bird's Feather_, and it is genuinely one of the strangest* books I have ever encountered. It slips through the logic of fairytales and discards it like an old snakeskin: too small, too dry, to keep living in, but suitable for leaving in one's wake. (* complimentary)

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Thank you for this information; I am calling to have the author arrested for his crimes.

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

gonna second the guy who said The Eccentric Family.

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

I haven't read it but I have heard of it to the point that there's a copy in the large cabinet of books I'm collecting for my niece and nephew.

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Also "you know, in retrospect I can see why they never finished the game where the narcissists are the good guys and the Continuum are bad guys, because that's the game they already wrote."

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

My reaction is more "if I lived in this universe I *would* be in favor of destroying it."

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

I hate Continuum but I can't stop thinking about it.

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

the hamster was evil from the beginning, yes

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Rand Brittain @randbrittain.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

If this random wiki is remotely accurate, it looks like they do share some inspiration.

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