Goldkin @Goldkin@awoo.space

This is a long shot, but if anyone here knows how to seek expedited immigration or asylum from Brazil into the EU, that information is urgently needed by friends of mine.

Capsule version: they have credible fear or persecution and harm under Bolsonaro, and any information that can get them out of harms way as they try to flee would be incredibly valuable right now.

Apparently the pipe bomb guy had a Twitter presence, and he regularly spammed threats at people before sending his (thankfully intercepted) packages. Twitter took zero action until he made the news, and have only now suspended his account.

Remind me again what the point of their guidelines are if they only use them to perform damage control?

I’m glad no one got hurt, and at this point, I want to get as many people off of Twitter and onto Masto as possible.

Update: I need to build better missiles. The current design is hilarious, but it has trouble with anything with high mass or momentum.

Also, I lost the finals of a simulated tournament because... someone uploaded a blatantly illegal weapons bot? I’m guessing the game has a few bugs to sort out in its validator, but everything else has been okay so far.

... and then I took it to its logical extreme:

I like how Nimbatus’ sumo mode, like most robot dueling games, has a rock-paper-scissors structure to its bot designs.

Paper: boost infinitely to push the other bot off the arena.
Scissors: Step to the left or right, causing pushbots to miss and fly off the arena.
Rock: do absolutely nothing, other than stay in the arena as it shrinks.

There’s also shotgun: craft missiles and chaff with any strategy.

So I wrote a bot that runs scissors, fires paper missiles, then turns into a rock.

Also, the fact the acronym is DRG is also a nice perk. 🐲

I’d been trying to find a game that had exploration elements with other people, and this fits the bill nicely, even with the shootman game elements. Randoms have been pleasant to play with, which is a big plus.

I don’t know why there are so few newer co-op go-explore-a-big-random-area games beyond Minecraft clones and Warframe, for whatever reason. Maybe it’s because of want for a gameplay loop that’s engaging, and DRG manages it quite well.

After finding comfortable stopping points in Nimbatus (2D Kerbal meets Battlebots) and My Time at Portia (Harvest Moon meets crafting puzzles), I picked up Deep Rock Galactic and... I did not know I needed this game.

It co-op somewhere between L4D, Aliens, Minecraft, and Douglas Adams or Sir Terry Pratchett. The gameplay is 4 dwarves doing their mining thing as variable waves of bugs try to give them a very hard time. And this is just, to them, “another day at the office”.

I apologize that I’ve kind of pulled way back from everyone, especially compared to how I used to use birdsite. Know that I genuinely care, even if I’ve been feeling overwhelmed and had to scale back to keep myself together.

I’m hopeful that I’ll eventually have enough emotional spoons again to return to my old routines. But in the meantime, thank you for being here and thank you for continuing to be you. 💜

Queer fantasy romance and co-op videogames have been extremely grounding through the current strife and insanity. It’s been very calming and valuable to spend time in worlds that make sense and care about my involvement, when the rest of the world feels off-axis.

I’ve been going back through Sythyry’s Journal and A Marriage of Insects, which are particularly good. Silly builder games have also been enough structure for me to feel safe and included, which I’ve kind of badly needed.

They are coming after every vulnerable population they think they can get away with. These are actual, real trial balloons for fascism that will erase people and will not stop until we throw these people out of power, ensuring the costs are so high they never try again.

Please support your trans and NB friends today, especially if they need to take a break from all of this. Please vote. And please fight this if you can. Because they’re not going to stop unless we stop them.