James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 06/10/2026An A Team and a B Team (and eventually a C Team) were regular features of the New York Red Box. Early edition is not quite as paralyzing, so it at least gave a chance to goof around with weird character concepts 000
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 04/10/2026For what it's worth, I don't think that what they're doing is that weird at all. Each of them has been terribly wounded by their partner and they live in a time & place where they cannot express the depth of the pain or humiliation except to each other 000
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 04/10/2026I read that whole thread and re-watched In the Mood for Love last night based on it, so you're reaching somebody 110
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 04/10/2026Sort of OT but as someone playing this game for the first time, are you just supposed to nova every encounter and take a full rest? Every fight in Act 1 has taken multiple tries to the point where I feel utterly disgusted 110
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Giving up on Baldur's Gate 3--too doggone hard. The storyline is too slack, the world is too boring, there aren't any meaningful choices--all of which I could tolerate--but the combat is not remotely fun (for me) 010
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Also, there's a (relatively) new Museum of the American Revolution that is pretty well done, but that's more toward the Old City 111
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Mutter Museum of Unsettling Medical Problems Rodin Museum Barnes Foundation 122
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 27/09/2026It was the 70s. These guys were as ubiquitous as panel vans with fantasy paintings on them 000
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 27/09/2026I get this damn shot every year and it steals a weekend from me each time. 110
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 27/09/2026I have just now playtested this, and I think the rule should be "Roll 2d6 + THING" otherwise the chance of GOOD HAPPEN occurs 16.6% of the time compared to 58% for BAD HAPPEN Which seems to model my lived experience extremely well honestly so maybe keep as is (SO SO HAPPEN) 020
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 26/09/2026It seems like the "power" is to harness the sympathy of bleeding-heart whites, who betray racial solidarity because they're so obsessed with appearing "just" and "not horrible" The implication is always, "You lily-livered [ ]-lovers are ruining it for the rest of us." 000
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 25/09/2026No Planescape: Torment? I realize it wouldn't have existed without BG1&2 but it was extremely well done. I feel that fantasy games should feel fantastical--weird and strange and unexpected--and I think PT delivered on that in a way BG couldn't (being stuck with a very conventional setting.) 120
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 24/09/2026It's amazing is how hard the incumbents will fight when there's a threat to THEIR situation. 0131
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 24/09/2026"Anti-immigrant protestor Danny Tommo damages emergency worker's boat, gets arrested" I mean I know the reporter is on deadline but this took all of 10 seconds 000
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 22/09/2026One of the things I find baffling about this Ed Sheeran business, or Tim Apple kissing up to Trump, or any similar thing: why did you work so hard to become rich, if the goal was not to amass fuck-you money? 000
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 22/09/2026Everybody* is for equality until it means taking things from their own kids and giving it to the children of someone else. I guess the big moment for this was the busing debacle in the mid 70s, when Joe Biden launched his career * not everybody 111
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 22/09/2026Are school districts in every state funded by local property taxes? It's true in NY and PA. It seems utterly bananas. "The state does not have an interest in making sure people have an equal opportunity for education--all you poor people are gonna have uneducated kids." In character, but bananas 111
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 21/09/2026It's kind of wild how, for animals that have a reputation for being high strung, they're pretty good at recognizing mistakes like that 010
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 21/09/2026What I think the film doesn't quite do is bridge the gap between "Hey we've all pined for a crush" and "That impulse is adjacent to rape and/or murder." It is for Bear because we find out he's always been an irredeemable psychopath, but that garbles the movie's relevance a bit 000
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 21/09/2026Honestly after the talking-in-her-sleep scene, there's nothing else about Bear you need to see (if there ever was). He's intentionally gone over the moral event horizon, the movie is over except for the logistics of karma. 100
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 21/09/2026There's a huge gap between, "Oh fuck, I worded my wish wrong in the spur of the moment, but I definitely did not mean to have to be tortured in hell! Oh fuck!" and "What's so bad about me that it's like being in hell?" And so rather than have an arc, I think Bear gets *revealed* - which sucks b/c 100
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 21/09/2026But what happens is that, because this is a problem we all remember, we spot Bear a little bit at first. His cowardice in the car--well, we all choke sometimes. And although we realize his wish removes her agency, we also think he's too dumb to realize that-- 100
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 21/09/2026Phrasing it as whether Bear's relatable misses what's happening: early on he has a very recognizable problem--he likes someone, it's high stakes, and he's frightened. This is, to be fair, a problem most of us outgrew in high school, but it's hardly alien-- 100
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 21/09/2026On the laziness of the Monkey's Paw and Bear's lack-of-arc, I think it goes to a core problem discussed early on about whether Bear is relatable as a character (you are right, he is not) -- 100
Reposted by James NostackOlúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 21/09/2026imagine trying to write innocently about Your Struggle in the midst of today's cancel culture 945917
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 21/09/2026One way to think about this is, "How is creating an AI *morally* different from having a baby?" and if the answer is, "Morally there's no difference" than what's going on at all these tech companies is incomprehensibly horrific 000
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 21/09/2026This is how you know none of the people talking about AI superintelligence (or even ordinary intelligence) believe a single word of what they're saying. 110
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 20/09/2026"Sorry everybody I meant police drones and police snipers and police alligators in police swamps around police Alcatraz." "Hey everybody, let's stop this dystopia!" "What are you, an abolitionist??" 0202
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 20/09/2026Yes! If Trump had said from the beginning, "I'm gonna give more money to the police so that they can round up immigrants and shoot protesters," it would have like 80% support. But b/c Stephen Miller's fetish specifically does NOT include police uniforms, it freaked out a whole bunch of people 1244
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 20/09/2026Somebody figured out that his White House Fortress Playset won't be ready by Jan 21, 2029. Who the fuck is so gleeful about having snipers in a domestic military spot? 1283
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 20/09/2026I think you can probably spot the Christians Halloween--it's All Saint's Eve or something. Or, in some countries, the Day of the Dead, depending. 111
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 19/09/2026People whose job it is to argue and ask awkward questions, who are (often) driven by money, and who think "you're abrasive" is a compliment? 000
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 19/09/2026TPK after TPK, often twice in the same session, and he never breaks that smiling expression 190
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 18/09/2026Supposedly Newtown invented indigo as a color between blue and purple for what amounts to numerological/astrology reasons. (I do not know if this is true.) 110
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 17/09/2026Yes, but so does a movie starring George Lucas directed by Vin Diesel 1131
Reposted by James Nostack🎃 Imani Gandy Corn 🎃 @angryblacklady.blacksky.app · 16/09/2026Trans rights is inherently a bodily autonomy issue. Just like abortion rights is. We can't have gender equity or reproductive freedom without trans rights. Full stop. You can yell at me and make up shit that you claim I've said if it makes you feel better. I don't care. I'm right. And you know it. 6673022111
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 14/09/2026Yes, that doctrine is very much at fault and that may be the specific case. I vaguely recall Milton Friedman was involved on the theoretical end of this, and reconceptualizing the theory of the firm 010
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 14/09/2026The trajectory we've been on since Reagan got started when investors who couldn't pass the Marshmallow Test were told that they were correct, the Marshmallow Test was anti-capitalist. Good luck enduring long-term prosperity when the whole economy is built around finding a sucker to shiv 1153
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 14/09/2026We talk about "enshittification" now but with all respect to Doctorow, juicing Q(x+1) profits at the expense of everything else was ALWAYS going to lead to companies eating their delicious, delicious seed corn 1151
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 14/09/2026This is a little tangential to your point, but whatever the fuck the Delaware Chancery Court did circa 1980 to make *every corporation* fixated on their next quarter profits as opposed to decades of viability, pretty much ruined the American economy 2252
Reposted by James NostackLupita Nihongo @otsumamiboy.blacksky.app · 14/09/2026‘My kid coulda been Caitlin Clark but a trans person existed’ was tested in a lab called ‘I can’t go to the school I deserved to go to because a Black person has my spot’ 631381
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 14/09/2026The doctor keeps saying I'm imagining it, but my dorsme REALLY hurts 0330
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 12/09/2026After some play, I admit that Astarion is written & acted well, but wow is he mouthy. Just... I have worked a full day, man. I do not want to deal with your shit on top of my own I ended up listening to Gale's bullshit and now Shadowheart thinks I am gay, so I had to go on a date with her 101
Reposted by James NostackSoraya Nadia McDonald @soraya.press · 12/09/2026Zohran is extraordinarily gracious, but he should not have to be. Why is it acceptable to ask people to accept buckets of gutter bigotry as the inevitable price for being Muslim in public life? And then news media legitimates this bigotry by presenting it as a debate! 6768105
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 10/09/2026I used "beg the question" correctly for the first time and was so proud I created a footnote pointing it out. 170
James Nostack @semsu.bsky.social · 10/09/2026This weakness is especially terrible because interviewers can't legally ask how tight an applicant's pussy is now, because Woke 051
