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René Martin

@talkandplay.substack.com
854 followers 1.4K following 4.1K posts

He/him writer/game dev. culture/political posting, politics are in all aspects of life, including creative pursuits. #NAFO appreciator #BLM Writing sporadically @ talkandplay.substack.com

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by René Martin
Sam (ABeardedPanda) @abeardedpanda.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I have a hypothesis that a lot of entertainment is being "ruined" by optimization on the part of the people consuming it because the finite amount of time combined with the sheer amount of content means people have this psychological urge to accelerate to the end state as quickly as possible
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René Martin @talkandplay.substack.com · 28/08/2026
Right? I mostly remember him from references in old YouTube cringe
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René Martin @talkandplay.substack.com · 28/08/2026
I think OG Marx is salvageable as long as you don’t treat it like scripture and recognize it was written before electricity was really a thing and flight was something you did in dreams. Everything even lightly associated with Lenin and Co is pure rot though.
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René Martin @talkandplay.substack.com · 28/08/2026
I would definitely not trust him, he’s far more a lolbert who likes welfare (for him personally) than a liberal.
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René Martin @talkandplay.substack.com · 28/08/2026
Yeah, the right usually never had it to start. That said, Destiny started off as hard right and only picked up left positions once he started political streaming, and you see him regularly fall back into socially regressive takes like supporting Rittenhouse.
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René Martin @talkandplay.substack.com · 28/08/2026
Destiny used to be a major StarCraft pro but was booted for being too much of an asshole and has since aged out of competitive play, he’d get shredded these days and he knows it.
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Thomas Lecaque @tlecaque.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
We have lost someone who made the world a better place.-
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Thomas Lecaque @tlecaque.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Dolly Parton's impact wasn't her music--though it was obviously that!--it was her love of humanity and her willingness to show it, to put in the work and money and effort and time and energy to show it, locally and far away.
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Thomas Lecaque @tlecaque.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
When we say Dolly Parton changed lives, she did, it was clear, it was evident, it was everywhere. The Imagination Library was a supreme act of loving children and families and showing it through books and money and effort. The Moderna vaccines she funded. The money she poured into her hometown.
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Thomas Lecaque @tlecaque.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
The Imagination Library was a gift, a gift that meant anyone could have books delivered to their house, for their kids, for YEARS. Your kids would have books that were THEIRS, in THEIR room, so they would grow up knowing what it was like to live in a house where reading was valued.
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Thomas Lecaque @tlecaque.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
I started my PhD program with an eight week old at home, sole income being my doctoral stipend, in a history program, in Knoxville, TN. And every month we got a new book to read to my son, free, mailed to us, so my kid, my kids, grew up in rooms full of books even when I had no money. That's Dolly.
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Sam (ABeardedPanda) @abeardedpanda.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
The first step towards normalizing imperialism is normalizing jokes about doing imperialism
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Sky Marchini @sky.skymarchini.net · 23/08/2026
this is the same exact shit as well-off muscovite vatniks going "why would putin attack ukraine, it's going to make my [INSERT IMPORTED LUXURY GOOD] so much more expensive
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Thorne 🌸 - Play Cozysters! @ens0.me · 14/07/2026
Still doing interviews. Still writing Four Corners puzzles. Any help here is deeply appreciated, even boosting it, tysm.
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Neugin @lostcitymagic.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham thinking it's heaven they're seeing as they walk into the light
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Nathan Goldwag @goldwagnathan.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
Lindsay Graham was, I think, one of the most contemptible figures in US politics, a titan of respectable bipartisan foreign policy for years who displayed no principles, no insight, and no beliefs beyond a gleeful and vicarious love of violence. An indictment of every institution he served in. RIP.
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René Martin @talkandplay.substack.com · 11/07/2026
God in Heaven, I H A T E MiHoyo
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René Martin @talkandplay.substack.com · 11/07/2026
Harmony (buffers), Abundance (healers), and Preservation (shielders) are supposed to cover all of the available forms of support but they don’t and also don’t have a common purpose within or between them! Plus now there’s Remembrance WHICH COVERS ALL THREE AND MORE
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René Martin @talkandplay.substack.com · 11/07/2026
Ah, the Blackbeard Principle
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René Martin @talkandplay.substack.com · 11/07/2026
So you can’t tell what role a character is supposed to fill based on class! And it gets worse: support characters are split into *3* separate categories that both do not contain all support characters but also do not all ACTUALLY support! Some tanks are in a DPS category, DPS are lumped in support!
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René Martin @talkandplay.substack.com · 11/07/2026
This will be a rant, be ready. Basically they threw out unified class design and instead centered them on a particular characteristic. The relevant one here is the Preservation class: they all have shields as a mechanic, but this includes both support characters like disc priests and *some* tanks
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René Martin @talkandplay.substack.com · 11/07/2026
Oh god yeah, I heard about the keystone perverts: 5 seconds slow to pick up the next pack = a cornucopia of verbal abuse
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René Martin @talkandplay.substack.com · 11/07/2026
Yeah, that was a blast, though my favorite moment tanking from the xpac was in a heroic dungeon (solo’d the final boss in Maw of Souls after a near-wipe in the first 10%)
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René Martin @talkandplay.substack.com · 11/07/2026
I dunno, I both healed and tanked from WotLK to Legion and each role felt meaningfully different in how I engaged with both the party and the encounter. Honestly, I have never had more love for the Trinity than watching it get butchered in Honkai with their own approach to the “win/don’t lose” pair.
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René Martin @talkandplay.substack.com · 11/07/2026
You mean in FFXIV specifically or in MMOs in general?
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René Martin @talkandplay.substack.com · 09/07/2026
Possibly “lords Haw Haw for hire”?
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Sam (ABeardedPanda) @abeardedpanda.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
When Matt Stoller, Gallego, Sanders, the Pod Save Bros, Ryan Grim, and MattY were all on team Platner, you cannot possibly argue that this was one specific faction unless that faction is "misogynists" and no one wants to admit they have those in their camp, let alone do anything about it
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Sam (ABeardedPanda) @abeardedpanda.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
There's way too many people, including a lot of anti-Platner types, who are revealing themselves to just be campists by attempting to pass the buck to a faction they don't like and it makes you look like enormous fucking clowns
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Erika Ishii @erikaishii.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
This week, Microsoft GUTTED Bethesda, Zenimax, iD, & more. The C-suites treat the workers who make the games we love as disposable and don’t care they’re destroying the future of the industry! Let them know it has to STOP here: feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/ide...
feedbackportal.microsoft.com
Community
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Thomas Lecaque @tlecaque.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Build a world where all Confederate generals are hung for treason and all Confederate politicians for sedition and all organizations trying to memorialize them are treated as terrorist groups and we have a VERY different 20th century.
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Thomas Lecaque @tlecaque.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
I mean the Confederacy and the Civil War.
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Thomas Lecaque @tlecaque.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
This is what happens when seditious racism doesn't end in the execution of its leadership and sufficient fear and punishment in its base.
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Reconstructionist @unavaleable.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
to celebrate me posting some real content again how about another AMA about DVTL
victoryvignettes.com
Along the WATCHTOWER
On a Wing, a Prayer, a SHOESTRING, and a 70,000 ton Cargo Ship
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Sami @samitron.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
THIS STUDIO MADE THE FAMOUS IDTECH ENGINE AND YOU'RE FORCING THEM TO USE FUCKING **UNREAL**??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? FUCK YOU
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Sami @samitron.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
the studio that made the most important fps games of all time just got nuked into being a support studio you cant hate microsoft enough
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Sami @samitron.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
dude what the absolute fuck
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René Martin @talkandplay.substack.com · 09/07/2026
Write how you feel about it, even if it isn’t clean and thoughtful. There are a lot of people who can’t openly their rage and frustration at this insanity, I’m sure they’d appreciate someone able to honestly voice what they might not be able to.
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Rami Ismail (رامي) @ramiismail.com · 09/07/2026
I wanted to write something thoughtful about XBOX's wanton destruction spree of their talent, portfolio, and future - on how XBOX has destroyed so much trust from both of its audiences - from developers and players. But how can I write anything thoughtful about such thoughtless greed?
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doctober @docseuss.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
i feel like drop site should remind us that ryan grim used to support platner openly because platner was his bartender in dc and that grim would find it personally advantageous to clear platner's name in order to not have to apologize for his lack of judgement and support for someone based on bias
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Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Imprisoning Kennedy, despite his family connections, would be a powerful signal that Democrats are serious about imposing harsh consequences for corruption and misrule. It would send a shiver of fear down the spine of Trump cronies, precisely what you want for future deterrence.
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Mx. Dizzy — Human Generated Em Dash @emexdizzy.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
As a reminder, everyone needs to thank Jenny Racicot. Her courage was not making us choose between women's safety and progressive politics, she saved us from a very dangerous man with her bravery. She isn't simply a victim, nor survivor. She's our hero right now.
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open borders now @radtranslib.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
the gall of this man. "the dream" is dead? he is lucky he's not in prison, lucky to live in a society that privileges the dreams of white men over the nightmares of the women they hurt. enough is fucking enough. The time has long come to end male impunity before it ends us all.
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Erin Reed @erininthemorning.com · 07/07/2026
Incredible news. Illinois Governor Pritzker has signed a law removing testosterone HRT from the PDMP program, a program other states can use to access people's prescription records across state lines. It will protect trans people in IL from places like TX. Subscribe to support our journalism.
erininthemorning.com
IL Gov. Pritzker Signs Law Protecting Trans Patients By Removing Testosterone from Govt. Monitoring Program
Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs) could be exploited to carry out anti-trans attacks. Illinois just made it harder to do.
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Mat Piscatella @matpiscatella.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Imagine doing this to id and saying with a straight face "grow and extend an enduring portfolio of franchises players love"
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 08/07/2026
there is no new deal without the influence of actual socialists and communists within the larger roosevelt political coalition
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 08/07/2026
this is like the literal opposite of true. the most fruitful eras of the modern democratic party coincided with periods where the walls separating political radicals from the mainstream were way less solid
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hunter (comms open!) @hrpixelart.com · 06/07/2026
If you need a pixel artist for anything at all, long term, short term, or some secret third thing, I'm available for work! I've worked previously on titles like Songs of Conquest, Blasphemous 2, Perfect Tides Station to Station, and Scott Pilgrim EX! 📧 hunter@hrpixelart.com 🎨 www.hrpixelart.com
Songs of Conquest: YulanBlasphemous 2: The Third SinPerfect Tides: Station to StationScott Pilgrim EX
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rose @breadnrosie.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
this is fucking wrecker shit. are you fucking kidding me
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Denny Carter @dennycarter.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
this is really well said www.liberalcurrents.com/graham-platn... @liberalcurrents.com
There is also the elementary truth that Platner is but one man among millions; we are no more condemned to him than we are to Susan Collins. Neither has a right to rule; that is what democracy means. To say that we should have standards for those who govern us, and hold them to higher ones than we may hold a private citizen, is not elitism. It is a bulwark against everything we’re now fighting against—who can deny that Trump’s dictatorial streak is downstream of his violent entitlement, personal bigotry, and utter lack of moral restraint? His solipsism is a cataclysmic personal flaw, and has proven fatal when applied to the mighty instruments of American power. His personal flaws have a body count that may already number in the millions.
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Sam (ABeardedPanda) @abeardedpanda.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Many of you are not beating the allegations
offensive-bias.com
American Vatnik X
My countrymen are a bunch of fucking Russians
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