Rynling R&D

I’m going to say something that can easily be interpreted in bad faith, but I’m going to say it anyway because I think it’s important.

A new trailer for the new Legend of Zelda game was released yesterday morning, along with the official game title and release date. Nintendo’s tweet of the video gained hundreds of thousands of notes within minutes as it was widely shared and celebrated across social media.

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Speaking of capitalism, the reason why most people do “exciting” things during vacations is precisely because the feeling of being excited is supposed to be a sustained mental state with an appropriate build-up and wind-down. This is why, back when broadcast television was a thing, advertisers would pay exponentially more for ad slots during the weekend, so that they could connect the “excitement” of their ads with the excitement of a good weekend augmented by big-name sports games and tv shows.

The Twitter news cycle is very much a 9-to-5 workday sort of thing, however. Nintendo is incentivized to make its announcements during what has become the prime time of the American online news cycle, which is 10am East Coast time. This timing is good for American journalists being paid to stay on top of press releases, not for like. Students who need to go to class.

ETA: What I'm trying to say is that I'm frustrated by mental health professionals' lack of understanding concerning how social media works and how it affects people, and I hate how medical science reconfigures normal life experiences as brain dysfunctions. I hope all neurodivergent people are doing okay.

While doing a social media audit this past week, I strongly considered deleting my account on Twitter...

i feel like it is my duty to regularly remind everyone of this image of gwendoline christie and oscar isaac
https://mobile.twitter.com/gwenslucifer/status/1558025645157908480

...but then I saw this divine and perfect photograph.

Also my account on Twitter is very interesting and chill. If people don't appreciate my feed, that's their problem. I post and retweet lo-fi good content, friends.

Ok. I don't know who needs to hear this, but buckle up. Here's the deal. A thread 🧵
https://twitter.com/KatieGoldin/status/1549779452242034690

If you only ever read one thread on Twitter. In your life. This is the one.

I was doing some research into Universal Studios Japan, and I found that apparently there's going to be another World Expo in Osaka in 2025. That's really cool, but I'd like to ask who designed the logo.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/e0/Expo_2025_logo.svg/1200px-Expo_2025_logo.svg.png

I'm asking because I'm concerned.

https://twitter.com/kohatazuke/status/1298190048920137728

are you among the 90% of gaming enthusiasts who love to play rpg videogames but just don't have the time to finish them? here's a little thread of some of my favorite short & alternative rpgs on itch dot io

https://twitter.com/fulgadrum/status/1494807782314414083

This is a good thread.

I'm really interested in the game Slimes:

a hateful zealot and a cursed healer try to tolerate each other long enough to clear out a den of slimes. a sort of critical reconstruction of rpg tropes, its weaving of story threads comes together really beautifully. 4-5 hours

https://scitydreamer.itch.io/slimes

I appreciate indie games that come with commentary PDFs, by the way. These little digital zines are always 110% worth the money.

Someone made a mod for the PC version of FFVII Remake that allows Cloud to wear a dress whenever he wants...

https://twitter.com/TheSphereHunter/status/1479499285246853121

...and, as an added bonus, one of his outfits is based on Bowsette.

Hooray for Cloud in a dress! He is my beautiful precious son, and I love him.

It turns out that Joseph, the wholesome and secretly gay Christian Youth Minister dad, is not the leader of a cult, nor does he murder your player-character. This is what happens:

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It’s an excellent horror story. I’ll be honest and admit that the dating sim elements of this game didn’t resonate with me, but the secret ending makes the entire endeavor worthwhile.

I remember that the Game Grumps team had to deal with a strong fandom backlash after people went through the Dream Daddy game files on Steam and found this ending when the game was released in 2017. Purity discourse on Tumblr was starting to get heated, and this was right around the time when Undertale fans were getting death threats because the game has jump scares that aren’t properly warned for (it has no such thing, by the way). Arin Hanson eventually had to get on Twitter to apologize for leaving the secret ending in the Dream Daddy files as an Easter egg, and his statement is reproduced in the Switch version of the game.

I also remember that there were a few student artists who were bullied off of social media for creating fan art of gender-swapped Dream Daddy characters. These artists were young queer women who enjoyed the game but were more into girls, and they were accused of being homophobic, transphobic, catering to a straight male gaze, etc etc etc. After being contacted by the parents of a teenage artist who attempted to commit suicide, Arin Hanson had to get on Twitter again to ask fans of Dream Daddy to stop stalking and harassing each other. People make jokes about how “Tumblr is a hellsite to you, but I’m just reblogging my pictures,” but let me tell you. Tumblr was a giant looneybin back in 2017.

Okay, I found a much more wholesome tweet on the topic:
https://twitter.com/zhinxy_vs_media/status/1465530131779227658

It is a scandal anyone was deceived into believing a "zine" is primarily a glossy art book made by some fandom clique you have to be "good enough" for, and not something you throw together on your own as cheaply as possible because something's in you and it must get out there

And the OP adds this:
https://twitter.com/zhinxy_vs_media/status/1465784992856899584

Artbook /fanbook/fanthology, all good terms - even in the "old days' some fanzines were more "professional" and had editors/etc. And they were limited by tech - it's great to make polished fan mags! This is only about not forgetting you can always diy - the core of what zine is!

"Something's in you and it must get out there" is 100% why I make zines btw.

During the summer of 2020, when normal people were outside touching grass with the BLM movement, a small but vocal number of internet people decided that the place for their activism was going to be AO3.

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I recently wrote to a friend that I lose HP every second I spend on Twitter, and this is not a lie, but there are some accounts that I wholeheartedly support.

Dr. Chuck Tingle is one. https://twitter.com/ChuckTingle
The comic artist Yuko Ota is another. https://twitter.com/aidosaur
The gothic memelord Doth is yet another. https://twitter.com/DothTheDoth
Arnold Schwarzenegger posts adorable pet videos. https://twitter.com/Schwarzenegger

And it might surprise people to learn that Tom Wolf, the extremely earnest and sincere governor of Pennsylvania (kind of like a male version of Hillary Clinton), is also killing it on Twitter. https://twitter.com/GovernorTomWolf

Wolf is currently campaigning not only to fully decriminalize marijuana, but also to subsidize it. This is a social justice issue involving breaking the "pot to prison pipeline," but it's also a matter of not losing sales to New Jersey and New York, both of which are scheduled to grant licenses to farms and dispensaries by the end of the summer. (If you drive through either state, it's clear for anyone to see that all of the infrastructure is already set up.)

Pennsylvania is staunchly Republican in most districts outside of Philadelphia. If Wolf's proposed legislation passes, it will be because of an unlikely group of supporters in Western Pennsylvania - the Amish.

Like all groups of religious people, the Amish aren't without their problems, but they've been active in supporting the BLM movement during the past few years. Their support has included showing up to protests to stand as a wall between the Black populations of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and the police, as well as distributing beautiful hand-crafted wooden signs, hand-sewn and embroidered facemasks, and strawberry lemonade. So the Amish are into the full legalization of marijuana for reasons related to social justice...

...but also, everyone in the entire tri-state area knows that they grow the best produce and make the most delicious baked goods.