QuoteA lot of [..] people assume that when they get the audience size that they'll be able to experiment and make the creative work that they actually wanted to make. But[..]

1. experimentation is now a risk to their core asset

2. they have now trained their creativity to suit an algorithm

There is something here - a process of collecting processes, not of any particular process but of all of them, as many as possible.

One gains experiences over time, and there is a turning point when learning to organize and access one's own experiences becomes more worthwhile than learning to organize and access those of others.

The Timeless Way of Building and A Pattern Language are a pair of books about architecture. In particular the first, TTWoB, is about process and structuring knowledge. 'Patterns.'

I have made a lot of games, and somehow a lot of cool visibility has been heaped upon me! Lots of people have asked me lots of questions about how I design games, and for the significant part of a decade I have been content to answer. But how is game design knowledge best shared? I still don't really know; the ability to design is obviously not bound into one genre at a time; the hub world in Cruel World used certain principles which could be applied to a third-person adventure game.

I've fallen out of touch with the idea of having an audience. If I was trying to make money from sharing knowledge, I would care about having an audience, but where I'm at now, I have a job I really love (to my great surprise!), and now I want to figure out how to spend some of my remaining spare time on meaningful projects.

I'm not worried about sharing something great with the internet at large. I'm much more interested in having a noticeable impact on a few close friends and peers. So. How do I take steps forward in terms of my game design practice and within my circles?

What people will talk about loudly in public is not reality.

"your words need a massive essay paired with them to be trusted [embraced and multiplied a thousandfold by a vast network of acquaintances and total strangers]"

QuoteEvery instance of "this person is shit" always includes "talking about it would doom my career" and the implication that the rot goes all the way through. Like your words need a massive essay paired with them to be trusted.

[..]

Things need to spiral out of control to video essay investigation level of severity to be real or something. [emphasis mine]

Here coverage by mainstream media is conflated with reality, like the only way that something can be considered real is if everyone is talking about it. In this case by mainstream media I include non-traditional, decentralized forms of 'mainstream' such as something that is trending on Twitter, or even just something that "everyone is talking about," although the two have a way of being the same thing.

This is a major issue on a personal/individual level -- it gives away so much agency if you subscribe to an external perspective of reality. Let's rephrase:

"Things need to spiral out of control to video essay investigation level of severity .. before it's interesting enough to get a million people on the internet all talking about it at the same time on Twitter"

Social media isn't reality unless you let it be. And maybe that's alright, to allow it to become reality, but I'm enjoying choosing other realities with more of my friends in it, and fewer people in general.

~

Hmm. Okay, so obviously we can't just unsubscribe from reality, and Twitter is in fact something that people subscribe to as reality. Even if I opt out myself - either permanently or temporarily - I still know a lot of people who still use it, and who are members of my circles. But still. Social media is not reality. Press coverage is not reality. Words are not reality.

I surrounded myself with Twitter for a while and it took a long time to detangle myself from that virtual reality, but check me out, I'm free now! I'm not even replying on Twitter, I'm just putting my thoughts in an external vessel and sending them off into the ocean to be set on fire and die a noble death what am I even talking about

QuoteTHERE IS A CAVE
IN THE ISLAND
AT THE CENTER OF
THE LAKE

Skimming randomly through the book to confirm my bias:

Quote from: p351"You don't have children, do you?"

"No, my nuptials were a little too brief for that." Senlin could hardly keep the bitterness from his voice.

She was not even a character. Senlin is not bitter about his relationship, he is bitter about the idea of a relationship! So annoying.

It's funny how in the Black Company there is a similar sort of strange romance for the male protagonist but I'm actually into it -- maybe because the situation is so self-aware, or because it really touches on the reality of the relationship after the pining.

Or maybe I just can't vibe with Thomas Senlin and Marya as characters.