Spoiler: it's all abstractions.

Computers are abstractions.
Languages are abstractions (both programming and prose).
Countries are abstractions.
Novels are abstractions.
The thirty-six dramatic situations are abstractions.
Tarot is an abstraction.
Corporations are abstractions.
Rivers are abstractions.

As long as there is terrain, we will keep making maps.

"So F*** It, Unfold" by Kelly Boymer

I love it when someone sends me adorable art like this (by pakkopako)
#comics #adorable #raichu #pokemon

this is what youd see if you saw me scrolling fedi

@ryker_rf5 thank you! I’ve been thinking about getting to know someone online for a while before meeting them in person, because I am Extremely Shy and that’s just what I need lol

if you don’t mind could you recommend any specific dating apps? a lot of them seem like they’re just for hookups and that’s kinda offputting to me tbh

how does one find neurodivergent trans folks in their local area? especially the kind that would be accepting of identity stuff like otherkin or dolls or bots

@transoptimal ohh, okay! that’s not too bad then, though I wish it were a little more explicit

@pharmafemboy you can probably use Word Replacer Max for this! I haven’t tried it but it looks like what you want

Yahtzee makes a really good point here, that “optional” content shouldn’t be exempt from criticism just because it’s been arbitrarily labeled as “optional”

CW: very gross metaphor at one point

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOzJVZ3GhEg

Amnesia The Bunker is free on Epic Games today!

https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/amnesia-the-bunker-9d5799

I haven’t played it yet but it looks really good. love when games introduce emergent/imsim-y elements

@Shivaekul ooh I’m really glad that that’s recommended practice. but yeah I think it would be so cool to have a website that you could link to, like

“this paper uses the lambda calculus standard syntax and semantics: https://math-standards.org/lambda-calculus”

and the website would explain what everything means

random question but in math papers do mathematicians define all of the syntax that they’re using and the axioms that they’re using and what all of the Greek letters mean?

because I feel like it would be really elegant and cool if they had the math equivalent of #include <standard_calculus.h> at the top of their papers or something, or like #include <physics_greek_letter_meanings.h> especially because Greek letters can often have multiple meanings

but meanwhile it’s not great IMO to just assume that your audience knows what you mean when you use a certain syntactic construct or Greek letter

imaginary numbers were invented by Steve Imaginary so that he could count twice at the same time

but yeah one of my pet peeves in storytelling is when a character could tell the protagonist important information but they don’t because it’s more Dramatic™ that way

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyqaSpeIht8

watching this video on exposition in Doctor Who reminded me of a problem that I frequently run into when I try to write anything, and that’s this:

it is definitely Bad to stop the pacing of the story in order to have a character just infodump about what’s happening

but, I also hate the trope of characters refusing to explain what they know for contrived reasons. like “I think you should see this for yourself” type shit, or the even worse “no time to explain” (if you have time to say those four words you have time to at least give a high-level summary of what’s going on)

but this means that every character needs to fit into one of these categories:

1. they don’t know what’s going on, or have only a small piece of the picture
2. they do know what’s going on but won’t tell the protagonist (this can be icky. I don’t like this - especially when it’s overused like in KOTOR2)

since I don’t like category 2, that only leaves category 1. which means that I can only tell stories that are mysteries? I’m definitely missing something - idk