iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by CMOT Diablerie

Costa Koutsoutis @costakout.bsky.social · 2h

New pinned post. Hi there, I’m Costa, a writer obsessed with the void. My new short story collection SUCH EARLY FANGS is out now. Get everything you need @ - costak.wordpress.com

041

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 2h

So they're undoing the good narratives to save the bad narratives? Typical Marvel W, I fucking guess.

010

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 2h

Yeah, but it also smacks (haven't had the pleasure, currently on W3, Desktop Explorer, 2077, and Songs of Glimmerwick for a variety of reasons partly related to work) at least in the marketing of "ok so is this what everyone wants?"

010

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 2h

Which is its own can of worms because it's weird, the trend is that a smallish studio makes an ambitious game that plays to their strengths and it ends up being such a runaway hit that everyone mistakes it for AAA, meanwhile a smallish studio tries to make an AAA game and it's the worst excesses.

110

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 3h

It's Remedy trying to finally make a mainstream game again after their last attempt, Quantum Break, was oh so memorable and successful. When their bread and butter is weird forty-dollar action adventure games set in a nonsensical cosmos with a polarizing reception

110

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 3h

I'd say by way of the commons personally because I think a lot of the MCU crept into modern culture. Also I have a soft spot for the Annihilation movie but that's because it annoys the piss out of Jeff VanderMeer, though it's whitewashed to fuck and targeted at late 2010s tumblr and youtube.

120

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 3h

But I keep thinking about the idea of haunting as presence-with-absence and that a lot of these games distrust their material and trust their branding so heavily when the average "cozy" game is already filled with strangeness and moments of weird, quiet horror.

120

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 3h

It's an expansion of that Lovecraft piece I did that's now three years old and needs an update but if @doriandawes.bsky.social has the idea, I'd rather it itch their brain and come from them, because I think it'll at the very least be a more immediate, forward-looking, and passionate piece than mine

140

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 3h

Skylar Spence's Prom King is an all-time pop album from an experimental electronic artist.

000

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 3h

Though my take is more "we need to cool it with the elder gods and tentacles as well as not using public-domain horror for branding purposes and remember that most of this stuff has built-in qualities of the strange that don't need the extra horror elements which often explain the unexplained."

140

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 3h

Knowing more about the tragic late-life accident of Hartwell, I wish I hadn't used "a boom upon our bookshelves"

010

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 3h

Had such an impact on me I wrote a biweekly column about it

110

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 4h

Been working on and off about this, especially in light of the glut of "horror farming game" games, but nothing published yet (Sorry, had to delete the accidental snitchtag)

130

Reposted by CMOT Diablerie

Shugunou @shugunou.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

"Please, my twins—whom I was blessed with through IVF after ten years of waiting—are in need of medical care, baby formula, and diapers. My mother also has a foot injury and is in urgent need of treatment. Please donate to help my mother and my innocent children." whydonate.com/fundraising/...

11317

Reposted by CMOT Diablerie

Haneen11 @haneenyy46.bsky.social · 5h

Our tent is pitched on land we do not own, and we have to pay rent. Tomorrow is the deadline for the $150 payment, and we are being threatened with eviction—leaving me and my young children homeless on the street. What little I manage to earn barely covers our daily😭 www.spotfund.com/story/1e6b0f...

spotfund.com

Donate to Help Hanin & Her Family Survive In Gaza, organized by Todd M Doty

My name is Todd and I launched this initiative for my friend Hanin and her children who are struggling to survive in Gaza. Please read her story... “I am Hanin

02945

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 18h

Yeah, a lot of that tends to be focused on whether or not the man is gay when his girlfriend has a dick, which is stupid.

110

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 18h

C'mon, T.E.D. Klein. Decide Nighttown is basically done and shove it out the door.

010

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 19h

Granted, you put things out, he's put out one thing that wasn't a reprint collection in the past 20 years.

020

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 19h

I'm reminded of how T.E.D. Klein talked about frantically scribbling corrections on The Ceremonies on the way to give it to the publisher and then in the introduction to the author's preferred edition was like "this is the best I could get it and I still see mistakes."

130

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 19h

He's on here and he used to respond, if you wanna tell him direct.

120

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 21h

Tex and Molly in the Afterlife or Views From the Oldest House are the ones I've read and I stand by them at least having interesting premises even if I haven't read them to completion

010

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 22h

I have one, I just wasn't in the mood for it when I started it.

020

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 22h

I feel like there was a John Brunner story about how bad an idea that was

110

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 23h

It's boredom. The thing happening is boredom.

010

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 23h

one of my favorite things in the world is to watch people realize a problem, misdiagnose it as obviously caused by someone they hate, speed by it, and make the same mistake they did the last time that allowed their enemies to gain more ground and power

040

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 23h

I admit I never finished Tex and Molly in the Afterlife. I also admit that the book fuckin' rips as far as weird surrealist pilgrimage novels go, and the sequels at least sound interesting.

120

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 30/09/2026

I want more people to read Richard Grant. The guy wrote weird as fuck books and then jumped to historical fiction all of a sudden and I understand why he's not talked about that often when his last genre offering was a quarter century ago, but still.

360

Reposted by CMOT Diablerie

Ed Burmila @edburmila.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

[SENATOR ERIC SCHMITT]: So you’re telling me under oath that you’ve never spoken with a bestselling author who is insane [JACK SMITH]: No [SCHMITT]: WELL THEN *unveils poster* please explain this picture of you with Naomi Wolf! [SMITH]: That is Naomi Klein sir

231481201

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 30/09/2026

But I think in general there was a move (can't imagine what that was /s) that caused people to kind of abandon the gaming public as an audience and essentially make things specifically for other writers/critics/artists as a sealed off ecosystem, a more insular community where ideas sometimes escape.

020

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 30/09/2026

Especially because the first main quest in Control is a riff on the title.

010

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 30/09/2026

It's amazing, though these days I prefer The Familiar for reasons I can't adequately explain. But the thing I REALLY wanna dig into with regards to literary allusions and Control is Views From the Oldest House by Richard Grant.

110

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 30/09/2026

This is why I'm trying to get out of my habit of spite counterprogramming.

110

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 30/09/2026

What I love about the idea of "the unreliable narrator only lets you see what they want you to see" is that it weaponizes available wisdom and mores for or against what they want you to see. They operate on the beliefs they already know you're primed to accept.

020

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 29/09/2026

It doesn't, because I didn't. Rip to those other people. Skill issue, couldn't be me.

031

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 29/09/2026

Only a little about F for Fake.

020

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 29/09/2026

You know an idea's good when it survives a twelve hour sleep and brain drain, and so what's up I'm gonna replay both versions of Silent Hill 2 because there's a piece in there about The Shards, F for Fake, and unreliable narrators only letting you see what they want you to see.

160

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 29/09/2026

They let them pet you or is that just a "me when I'm in the nursing home parking lot" thing?

000

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 29/09/2026

For a moment I confused Rogan and Rogen and that was a scary 30 seconds

010

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 29/09/2026

I feel like if you don't like Hill House, there's Hell House. If you don't like Hell House, there's Hill House. If you don't like either, there's House of Leaves, and if you like both, well, good for you, dude, I don't know what the fuck you're looking for here.

371

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 29/09/2026

It's relative frame of reference. Games got bigger and longer because bigger and longer games are considered worth more in terms of time/enjoyment/price calculations. Plus, everything's bigger when your choices are limited. It's why I think scarcity breeds imagination.

020

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 29/09/2026

I only trust Gillen working on his own work, and even then, Uber burned up part of that goodwill when it became a meaningless slog through heavily illustrated atrocity

110

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 29/09/2026

I just did what I always do for a top five. First off the dome, line of sight for tiebreakers

010

CMOT Diablerie @strangelibrary.com · 29/09/2026

"All the Ken Russel movies and you pick Gothic?" THEY CAST JULIAN SANDS AS LORD BYRON YOU PHILISTINES

030