queerlilhayseed

@queerlilhayseed@piefed.blahaj.zone

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do people force themselves to write something, even if they're NOT inspired?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  When I was younger there was a hot new book called The Artist’s Way. I never finished it, I don’t even know if I would recommend it, but one of the practices it recommends is morning pages, and morning pages helped me.

  What you do is you get a pen and a notebook, and write three pages every morning. If you miss a morning, wait til next morning and write three pages. It doesn’t have to be good or even sensical. A lot of my early morning pages were line after line of “I don’t want to do this, this is bullshit, I’m just kiiiiiiiilllllllling trees and wasting space this is dumb”. Eventually I got bored of writing that stuff and started writing other things, but it took a long time.

  The trick is you gotta do it every day, even on days you don’t want to. No one but you can make you write so if you don’t do it, you won’t do it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a platform like github that isn't for code?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Specifically for writing textbooks, you might enjoy looking at https://www.americanyawp.com/ for inspiration. Their documentation is light on technical details but you could email the contacts at the bottom of https://www.americanyawp.com/text/about/ with questions about how to structure your specific project.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a platform like github that isn't for code?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I haven’t found anything better than codeberg. The following novella is a reflection on my experience with a similar problem.

  I have all my poetry and short stories (and D&D snippets and board game / video game design snippets and screenplays and draft policy proposals and diatribes on the nature of being and other misc stuff that’s hard to categorize) in a single giant git repo. It works okay though I find it really hard to organize everything in a strictly hierarchical structure and I often have a hard time finding things I wrote because I can’t remember if it’s in the “boardgames” dir or the “video_games” dir, etc. I don’t think anyone but me would ever be able to use it. Not because it’s too esoteric, but because the organizational structure grew up organically over the years and makes no sense when viewed in its current form without an understanding of the history of the repo. It’s a very similar phenomenon to opening up an old code repo for the first time and being overwhelmed by the messiness of it, when someone who has been maintaining the repo for years has a built up schema of how the repo is acutally organized and can navigate it somewhat more effectively than someone new to the project

  What I’m saying is that keeping git repos organized sensibly over time is really hard, even when dealing with something as highly structured as source code, and IMO it’s much harder with more loosely-categorized creative writing snippets, if for no other reason than there’s not a strong tradition of creative writers using collaborative editing tools like VCS (though there are, I think, other good reasons why it’s harder).

  If I were to reformat my repo, I would probably start by trying to come up with a more formalized type system, a formalized metadata system, and a linking system (e.g. I would like to be able to create a link from a scene in a script to a character bio or a macguffin description). You can do links with markdown if you’re familar with it, I sometimes do that but I am pretty inconsistent with it, most of the time its too much bother to maintain them when I keep shuffling documents around (because I don’t have a well-defined type system…). Obsidian also has this feature; I haven’t been able to get myself into a natural flow writing Obsidian documents, but it’s worth checking out I think as a tool for creative writing on top of a VCS like git. If none of these sound immediately useful they can be put off until they’re needed since it’s easy to overcomplicate projects in the beginning by anticipating future problems that may never materialize, these are just things that I want for my own writing style.

  Whether or not you use something like obsidian, I think for creative collaborative projects it’s perfectly doable to use git, but it makes sense to spend some time at the top thinking about the shared rules that collaborators will need to know in order to keep all the contributors from stepping on each others’ toes. These rules should be in the repo itself in a README and should be regularly reviewed by collaborators because you will almost certainly find better ways of doing things as the project grows. These rules should cover things like:

  • How are files structured? Does every project get its own top-level dir?
  • Do projects share a common structure or does every project get to define its own structure? if the latter, should each project be a separate repo?
  • Do you have a metadata system? If so, what types of metadata do you anticipate and how should it be formatted?
  • Who gets to commit to each project? Is there a review process? The answers to these can be “anybody” and “no” but I would recommend at least thinking about it before
  • how do edits work? Are you going to commit everything to main before it goes to editorial review? or do you want to have feature branches that editors review and approve before merging to main?
  • How does the team update the rules? which collaborators can submit PRs for the rules document? what is the mechanism for making sure that the rules are being followed, at least well enough to keep the project usable?

  If you are like me, all this might sound like extreme overkill for something as simple as loosely structured creative writing. That’s because it is, until a project grows beyond a certain size, and historically I do not recognize that size boundary until I am well past it and my repo is an unmaintainable mess. It might help to discuss with your collaborators what they think the project would look like when it’s a few years and a few complete projects old: what problems will you want to solve then? Can they be anticipated in a way that doesn’t unduly burden the very difficult task of getting the whole endeavor started? A little of that can go a long way to preventing the project from losing steam because they repo just gets too unwieldy to be fun to write in.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bring in the trumpet⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Sometimes I can replace an earworm with something else that’s less sticky. Other times, I just have to find the thing that’s stuck in my head and listen to it, and that can help dislodge it. Sometimes nothing works and I just have to let my brain tire itself out.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is putting black beans in my chili a bad idea?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I exclusively use black beans in my chili, I like ‘em better. I think it’s a good idea.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Any sufficiently reliable magic is indistinguishable from science.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How will you celebrate?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Unrequited love is a hard thing but I imagine unrequited hatred must be worse.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Tragic Beauty of Majora's Mask⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Something I’ve always wondered is why Majora / the mask / the skull kid decided to rob Link, and I think this analysis sheds some light on it. If Majora is a physical representation of unresolved childhood trauma, it makes sense to me that they steal his horse and ocarina: these are precious things, but they are also reminders of his traumatic past. I have felt the contradictory urge to destroy or dispose of things that are precious mementos because they also carry associations with painful memories.

  Trauma also emotionally stunts you and can make you appear childish to others even when you feel like an adult, which is why Majora curses him into the form of the Deku child.

  I also love how Link learns to come to terms with his trauma. First, he must do what he must to survive, which means getting his ocarina back and getting himself into a position where he isn’t faced with the threat of imminent death, which he does by remembering the song of time. Once he himself is in a safe state, he goes about methodically helping everyone he can find who needs help, and asks for nothing in return. For these deeds he receives masks, memories of good deeds that he has done. Finally, in order to fully self-actualize, he gives these masks freely to the children on the moon.

  One of the children on the moon asks Link if he will become a mask salesman. I think a mask salesman, in the context of the game, is someone who has amassed great wisdom but hoards it, only sharing it selectively with those who can offer something of value in return. Instead, Link gives his masks away. Not only that, he gives away every non-transformation mask he has, getting nothing in return (as far as he knows). If he can do this, he learns from the Majora child how to become the Fierce Deity.

  I think it’s fascinating and thematically beautiful that Link can defeat Majora without becoming the Fierce Deity. You don’t have to be a Buddha to overcome trauma. But if you can learn to share the wisdom you have gained by your suffering, and ask nothing in return, then the fight becomes much, much easier.

  P.S. Something that occurs to me as I’m writing is that this game also shows Link’s journey experiencing empathy. When he encounters the body of the Deku child, he doesn’t really understand what he’s looking at. By the time he meets the ghost of Darmani, he has acquired the tools he needed to heal himself, and is able to use them to heal Darmani as well. With Mikau, he rescues him from the water, hears his dying wish and honors it, eases his passing, gives him a proper burial, and mourns him. That’s a considerable evolution.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Tragic Beauty of Majora's Mask⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s one of my favorites as well. In a class of it’s own, I think. It’s still clearly a Legend of Zelda game, but I’ve never played anything else like it.

• The Tragic Beauty of Majora's Maskwww.youtube.com ↗
  Submitted ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ to ⁨games@lemmy.world⁩ | ⁨4⁩ ⁨comments⁩
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is stack overflow so horrible?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  What turned me off of SO entirely is when you actually do google it and the results are all SO posts with “closed as duplicate” and no actual answers :(

  The snake fully ate itself.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨loserrrrrr⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Conservationists out here winging for the entire planet ❤️

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Super Meat Boy 3D, coin-pushing chaos and other new indie games worth checking out⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Curious to see if Super Meat Boy can pull off the jump to 3D. The original was fantastic but it’s a hard transition even for talented devs.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do you feel about a 25 year old dating a 46 year old?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  When I was 25, I would have said “of course it’s not a problem, they’re both adults. As long as they’re happy it’s fine.” and that is true, but now that I’m closer to 46 I have some additional caveats around “as long as they’re happy”.

  You know how in order to really develop a skill, you have to do it for a long time? I think relationships are like that. If I were to compare it to chess, this scenario is kind of like someone who’s been playing chess competitively for 20 years playing against someone playing their first major tournament. It doesn’t mean that the more experienced player is guaranteed to win, or even that they’re better at chess, but it does confer some advantage because playing in a tournament is very different from playing chess casually or in clubs. There’s money at stake, your reputation is on the line, people may be watching you play and commentating in real time. It’s just a different activity altogether, even though it is still technically “just playing chess”. It really helps to get a few tournaments under your belt to get comfortable with the nerves, the additional tournament rules, publicly making a really stupid error, etc. If it’s your first time you might make some rookie errors. That’s part of being a rookie.

  Where the analogy breaks down is that with chess, there is a brief competition with clear rules and referees, and there is (almost) always a clear outcome: win, lose, or draw. With relationships, A) it’s supposed to be cooperative, not a competition, and B) if your relationship partner is skilled at manipulation, you could be in a losing position for a long time and not know it, because you haven’t had the time to develop the skills necessary to identify what a dysfunctional adult relationship looks like.

  This doesn’t mean that a relationship with a small age gap can’t be toxic, or that relationships with a large age gap can’t be healthy and happy.

  But

  I have observed a pattern of older people (usually, but not exclusively, men) who serially date young adults because those young people don’t recognize the signs of a toxic relationship. These are rookie errors, and there is no shame in them. Everyone that does anything new has a rookie period, and this includes adult relationships. These older people take advantage of that naivete instead of working on themselves to become the kind of partner that people want to stay with after really getting to know them. As soon as these young partners begin to understand these problems and challenge them, they end the relationship and trade them out for a younger model. You can be unhappy in a toxic relationship for a long time and be unable to identify why you are so unhappy, because they know the tricks. Undercut your partner’s relationships with their other friends or family, accuse them of not being smart enough or loving enough or patient enough, make them financially dependent on you. There are a lot of tricks, and people refine their techniques with each partner. And when you’ve just started having adult relationships, you are at a serious disadvantage if you wind up in a relationship like this because you just haven’t lived long enough to see firsthand how this kind of thing plays out.

  It’s not that there’s anything intrinsically wrong with it, but it does ping my danger radar. My danger radar sometimes gets false readings, but I still pay attention to it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Turbines are our friends⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  As an old Jedi Master once said, “[Masters] are what they grow beyond”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Turbines are our friends⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Wisdom from a Jedi born to bring balance to things.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Turbines are our friends⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It turns out spinning things is really useful and boiling fluids is a convenient way to spin things.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do some people (i.e. white conservatives) think all Spanish speakers (especially native Spanish speakers) are Mexican?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s a complicated question, especially I imagine for someone not familiar with US culture. Whether a person from Spain is “white” is itself a complicated and irrational topic. IMO it’s a perfectly reasonable thing to be confused about. I’m from the US and I find it confusing myself.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are Americans Actually Idiots?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Certainly. I think it’s kind of a truism that a high opinion of one’s own intelligence is comorbid with idiocy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are Americans Actually Idiots?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Anyone that lived ~through the pandemic~ knows that yes, most people are idiots

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is Flappy Bird a good game?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  LMAO thank you, I spent a while trying to figure out what title to give this post. I generally don’t like sorting games (or art in general) into “good” and “bad” buckets, but I didn’t really have a good handle on why people liked Flappy Bird, and I didn’t want to make assumptions about which parts of the game make it good or bad in people’s minds. “Is it good” is the most generic criterion I could come up with, so I went with that and hoped people would expand on their reasons in the comments. I appreciate the thoughtfulness of the comments (yours and others), it’s given me a lot to think about ❤️

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is Flappy Bird a good game?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s a good point, I too think it nailed one of the requirements of “simple” single-mechanic games, which is getting the player up to speed and into the fun part as quickly as possible.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is Flappy Bird a good game?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  That makes sense. I think with more complicated games (or any art) there’s some leeway where you can appreciate some things about the game enough that you endure the parts that don’t tickle your fancy. With games that really focus down on a single element, whether you are interested in the game at all hinges entirely on whether your tastes align with that one thing.

  One of the reasons I asked is that, since precision timing games are not my thing, I can’t really tell if Flappy Bird is an exceptional example of the genre, or if it’s more of a Tiger King situation where it’s not that good, but it’s a fun thing that became a fad. Seems like the crowd is leaning closer to the latter.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is Flappy Bird a good game?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  IIRC the reasoning was that if the play store / app store synced, the app would be removed from the phone. I think for the vast majority of people, you may as well ask them to cast a spell as ask them to “sideload an APK”, so if they really really wanted to play Flappy Bird and felt that was beyond their capacity, this was the only alternative. Or maybe people thought phones with the “original” app would appreciate in value as collector’s items? The whole thing is mysterious to me.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is Flappy Bird a good game?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I can see why people like games like Flappy Bird. I like a game that does one thing but does it really well. Precision button pressing has never been my forte so I have no sense of whether Flappy Bird was a “pretty good” precision button presser that just happened to get weirdly famous, or if it got famous because it really nailed the precision button presser genre.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is Flappy Bird a good game?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  It was extremely popular. For a while after it got pulled there was a small market for phones in airplane mode that still had a working version of the app. Some of the auctions went into the high five figures.

• Is Flappy Bird a good game?
  Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩ to ⁨games@lemmy.world⁩ | ⁨32⁩ ⁨comments⁩
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anyone remember that "First is the worst, second is the best" rhyme kids used to do? Where did that come from?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Also third is the one in the polka-dot vest.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bet⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  frfr

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Will no one rid me of these troublesome conspiracy laws?