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Robert Merkel

@tvsrobert.bsky.social
111 followers 114 following 74 posts

He/Him I design and build things for a living.

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Reposted by Robert Merkel
Benjamin @benjaminschneider.ch · 01/10/2026
just came across this incredible picture of Terry Pratchett
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Reposted by Robert Merkel
🐺Cold🪦Sam🪾 @pdfmerchant.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
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Robert Merkel @tvsrobert.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I’ve been reading a lot about 19th century vitalist theories for a project, and I swear we’re about five minutes away from these folks talking about “vril” or “the odic force”.
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Robert Merkel @tvsrobert.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
I think my in-laws talk more about Arizona politics after moving to Florida than they ever did when they lived in Arizona.
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Robert Merkel @tvsrobert.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
And then back on Columbo, a few weeks later, killing your business partner and making it look like a robbery gone wrong.
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drewtoothpaste @drewtoothpaste.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
if you learn a skill or start a new hobby, it makes you a better person, not worse. nobody ever gets into calligraphy and immediately starts screeching that typefaces are useless and only the quill shall prosper. there is no "woodworking psychosis" nobody thinks they're dating their kettlebell
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Robert Merkel @tvsrobert.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
My Alma mater!
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Kim Dalton @kimdalton.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
A moment to hype those on the Kitten Marlowe Patreon, if I may. I literally couldn't be doing this without their support. Getting someone to listen to your show feels like a Herculean effort sometimes. Getting someone to listen AND throw you $2-7 a month? Outrageous! Awe-inspiring! Lifesaving!
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Kitten Marlowe ➡️ Shadows in the Smoke S2! @kittenmarlowe.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Kitten Marlowe cordially invites you to return to Hargrave House this Tuesday, September 1st. Please accept the following gift, a trailer for Season 2 of Shadows in the Smoke, in anticipation of our reunion. kittenmarlowe.com/episode/shad...
kittenmarlowe.com
Shadows in the Smoke Season 2 Trailer | Kitten Marlowe - actual play tabletop rpg podcasts, and more
It's time to return to Hargrave House, and face the shadows that stalk the foggy streets of London. Join the hunt on September 1st...
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(spo)okie 🎃 @okie.gay · 25/08/2026
Texas’s drag ban was found to be unconstitutional this morning and one of the plaintiffs who brought the suit was an Austin-based drag queen who often impersonates Dolly Dolly was named in the final judgement itself and after hearing about the lawsuit, she sent that drag queen a signed guitar
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Avery Alder, Buried Without Ceremony @lackingceremony.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Do you love any of the games that I have created? Whether it's Monsterhearts, Dream Askew, The Quiet Year, Going For Broke, or a deeper cut, now would be a great time to hit quote-tweet and tell your friends about it! It's been a slow month. 💕✨ store.buriedwithoutceremony.com
store.buriedwithoutceremony.com
Buried Without Ceremony
My name is Avery Alder, and for the past eighteen years I’ve been designing tabletop roleplaying games. These are games about community, relationships, doubt, queerness, and the collapse of civilizati...
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Robert Merkel @tvsrobert.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
It is ridiculous to call Wiley “aesthetically terrifying”. I have heard so many conservative complaints about abstract/nonrepresentational/process driven art, and they’re complaining about the most prominent classical realist portrait artist working today? There’s no excuse except racism.
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Robert Merkel @tvsrobert.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
While seconding all of the Discworld and Hitchhiker’s recs, I’d also throw in the sci-fi series that Pratchett co-wrote “The Long Earth”. More of a straight up adventure than most of the Discworld, but with his sense of humor very present.
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Wes Franks @carrion-comfort.com · 07/07/2026
Proud to announce I'm a featured performer in @kittenmarlowe.bsky.social next interstitial series, Flight of the KingfISSher, using a brand new CfB game designed by @tvsrobert.bsky.social. An especially great series for fans of Cowboy Bebop. pca.st/episode/59a0...
pca.st
Flight of the Kingfissher Ep 1 - "Hello Spacers"
We meet our heroes, scrambling to action, as their gig at at Camp Sophia goes all SNAFU. Another day, another crisis. --------------------------- Content Warnings: Sci-Fi Action, Innuendo, Threat of…
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Robert Merkel @tvsrobert.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Guy who just learned about the Nicene Creed: I’m getting real Nicene Creed vibes from this yard sign.
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Robert Merkel @tvsrobert.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
The problem (at least right now) is that it’s taking a lot of the entry-level and “survival” jobs, meaning that only people who already have money/stability can pursue careers in art or design.
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Julia Serano @juliaserano.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
...I've held my nose and voted for centrist Dems more times than I can count because I didn't want the opposing Republican to win. centrist Dems who won't do the same when a progressive is on the ballot are giving away what side they are really on
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Robert Merkel @tvsrobert.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Saying “Christian and Catholic” is very Protestant-coded.
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Robert Merkel @tvsrobert.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Athena vs Ares
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Robert Merkel @tvsrobert.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
Werner Herzog: Every line on my face was put there by Grogu. He would arrive on set, unprepared, hungover from the night before, blaming everyone but himself. Interviewer: But he… Herzog: (interrupting) He is a singular actor, and I have learned more from him than any other man I have known
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Kenny Logins @kennylogins.bsky.social · 12/07/2025
Chinchillazilla

My dealer: got some straight gas 🔥😛 this strain is called "Hogfather" 😳 you’ll be zonked out of your gourd 💯

Me: yeah whatever. I don't feel shit.

5 minutes later: dude I swear I just had a full conversation with a rat skeleton

My buddy Teatime pacing: the tooth fairy is lying to us
December 23, 2023 at 5:41PM
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👻 Jack Djinn Wail 🧞 @jacktindale.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
Turned on just in time for the Bosnia goal. A multi-ethnic country riven by internal division and with an impenetrable linguistic divide, Canada is a country in North America.
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Robert Merkel @tvsrobert.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
I wish it were people who understood that the current entertainment model is about minimizing risk by creating bland projects, exploiting its workers, and prioritizing short-term gains. Unfortunately, it’s probably just people who think Hollywood is “too woke”.
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Robert Merkel @tvsrobert.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
In Ancient Athens they were required to fund the state military (specifically the Navy), since they benefited the most from their protection.
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Robert Merkel @tvsrobert.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
So, we’re all blaming Trump for game three, right?
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Jacob Oller @jacoboller.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
sorry the only "real" new yorkers are the rats who work in the kitchen in Muppets Take Manhattan
rizzo and the sick one causing a ruckus
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Denali @denali.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
I really enjoy EB White's take on New York and New Yorkers.
An excerpt from EB White's Here is New York
There are roughly three New Yorks there is first the New York of the man or woman who was born here who takes the city for granted and accepts its size and its turbulence is natural and inevitable second there is the New York of the commuter the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night third there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something of these three trembling cities the greatest is the last the city of final destination the city that is a goal it is this third city that accounts for New York's high-strung disposition it's poetical deportment it's a dedication to the arts and it's incomparable achievements commuters give the city its title restlessness natives give it solidity and continuity but the settlers give it passion and whether it is a farmer arriving from Italy to set up a small grocery store in a slum or a young girl arriving from a small town in Mississippi to escape the indignity of being observed by her neighbors or a boy arriving from the corn belt with a manuscript in his suitcase and a pain in his heart it makes no difference each embraces New York with the intense excitement of first love each absorbs New York with fresh eyes of an adventurer each generates heat and light to dwarf the consolidated Edison company
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Robert Merkel @tvsrobert.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
Apparently the model was a historian who wrote a seminal history of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, but I’ve got to say, Repin did him dirty…
The historian Dmytro Yavornytsky, who was the model for the “writer” in Repin’s “Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks”. Proof of what a difference a good haircut can make
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Robert Merkel @tvsrobert.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
My last year at CalArts was Ravi’s first as president, and there was definitely a big shift happening. Senior professors being pushed out and replaced with multiple adjuncts, budgets for creative work being slashed, and from what I hear it went completely off the rails after Covid.
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Robert Merkel @tvsrobert.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
I don’t particularly want him to get any, but so should James Comey.
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Radiant G🌈 @radiantg.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
Due to the changes at Kickstarter no longer launching our campaign next week. Please RT this statement and encourage other studios and devs to speak up too.
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Robert Merkel @tvsrobert.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
Slightly increase a band They Are Probably Giants
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Manisha Sinha @profmsinha.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
Historian of abolition here, history tells us how we got here, to put it succinctly “John Brown was hanged for treason and Robert E. Lee was not.”
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Robert Merkel @tvsrobert.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
In honor of both this anniversary and May the Fourth, here’s one of the patches I made for a punk Han Solo vest:
A patch based on the self-titled MDC album. The riot police have been replaced with stormtroopers and the text in the upper right corner reads MDS.
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Robert Merkel @tvsrobert.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
I’ve been arguing that we need to bring the intermission back to movies for quite some time now! It would make it easier to enjoy 2+ hour movies and probably help the theaters to sell more concessions. I hadn’t considered adding fire trucks, though…
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Robert Merkel @tvsrobert.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
Yeah, I think that makes it worse than if it were in any Northern state. Like, it’s the whole reason they’re a state!
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Robert Merkel @tvsrobert.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
When I was a third-shift worker, it was the equivalent of us getting drinks after work, but with fried eggs.
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Robert Merkel @tvsrobert.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
I remember driving through West Virginia once, and seeing a barn with the stars and bars and “heritage not hate” painted on it. Like whose heritage? ‘Cause it’s not yours…
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Robert Merkel @tvsrobert.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
I think it’s pretty telling that Trump thinks it’s mob slang instead of what it actually is, kitchen slang. He definitely hangs out with more criminals than service workers.
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Robert Merkel @tvsrobert.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
Picard voice: “There… are… two… standards!”
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John Scalzi @scalzi.com · 11/04/2026
I don't know how to explain to the people who pop up when creatives complain about "AI" to say there are legit uses for it just how much they sound like someone saying "Well actually fire is used to make bread" when people are talking about an organized arson ring burning down their fucking houses
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Robert Merkel @tvsrobert.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
I think Pinterest used to be tumblr, but is now twitter (filled with bots and AI)
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Robert Merkel @tvsrobert.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
You need to make sure it’s real mayo though (Dukes is my preference). If it has too much added sugar it will burn too quickly!
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Dia Lacina @dialacina.com · 08/03/2026
Happy International Women's Day to the original International Woman
Carmen Sandiego from the 90s cartoon
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Edmond Tran @edmondtran.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
We cannot and should not let generative AI take away these tiny, insignificant, but probably fun as hell jobs from artists
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Robert Merkel @tvsrobert.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
Oof, I don’t think FBI and con-man are going to win me any primaries. But it does describe one of my favorite Spielberg movies!
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Robert Merkel @tvsrobert.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
Apparently, when Stanford was retiring their old (read: racist) mascot, they held a vote amongst the student body for what it’s replacement should be. Cardinal (the color) was chosen by the administration, because they thought the winner was too controversial: the Stanford Robber Barons.
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Robert Merkel @tvsrobert.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
Beyond this, AI actually makes the financial barriers to a career in the arts worse by seeking to eliminate most of the (already scarce) entry-level jobs that exist in the field.
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𝙽𝚊𝚜𝚑 𝙸𝚜 𝙷𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝙵𝚘𝚛 𝙸𝚝 @nashishereforit.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
Wow.
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