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Petricake Games

See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna

Another Round

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“Another Round” is a 25k word, interactive fiction, urban fantasy game made with Twine for the Single Choice Game Jam.

PLAY THE GAME | REVIEW | KOFI

Written and coded for the Single Choice Game Jam! The Jam where you only give one choice to the player!

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STORY

You play as Maddie, a woman in love with a woman named Agnes. Actually, she hates her. Actually, it’s complicated. You definitely broke things off with her. And you don’t regret it. At least once.

Yes. At least once per day, you don’t regret ending it with Agnes. Except tonight. You definitely regret it tonight.

Those are the facts you can’t change. How any of those things came to be is up to your imagination. It’s not part of the story, anyway. The story is about tonight. The night you save Agnes…or not. You don’t get a lot of say in what happens.

Well, you get a say. Once.

So maybe you save her. Maybe you save yourself. Maybe the “fuck it” train you’re on derails and takes the whole nightclub with you.

The story is a bit unhinged. But, then again, so are you.

FEATURES

  • gender-locked; name-locked; appearance-locked, sexuality-locked (congrats! you’re a lesbian) protagonist. No customization available–free yourself from the burden of choice!
  • bad life choices come pre-made! Never fear. I’m sure you’ll be able to make some more of them. Or, hmm, I guess just one more bad life choice, technically
  • adult language the author has already used in this description without warning…dang
  • hundreds of endings, but only one place the story stops. Lots of things can end, you know. The breath you just took ended
  • set in a world with demons and half-demons because why not?
  • unhealthy coping strategies! Co-dependent former relationships!
  • a demon who calls himself Seven because he liked that movie and tends to shout “WHAT’S IN THE BOX?” at inappropriate moments
  • a single choice in the entire game. Make it a good one

“Another Round” is intended for an adult audience. Content warnings are available in the game menu before the story begins.

Pinned Post interactive fiction complete singlechoicejam twine if my game urban fantasy dark comedy disaster lesbian
spoiledblogif
ellipsus-writes

If you haven't heard, the em dash has been getting a lot of attention lately…

Because it was trained on pirated work—including freely accessible online writing (like fanfic, academic texts)—ChatGPT picked up patterns and quirks native to human writing.

Including (sigh) the em dash.

There are other victims here (RIP tapestry and delve 🫠), but the appropriation of the em dash—a punctuation mark beloved by writers everywhere—feels especially personal.

A kind of low-grade panic is ensuing. Writers who once memed their own em dash overuse—the greatest punctuation mark ever to grace the control-freak’s lexicon, frankly—are suddenly backing away to avoid accusations.

No. More. We have centuries of dash-abusing writers behind us. We will not sit quietly while AI repurposes our beloved stilted aside—or the just-one-more clarification the sentence demands—or the dramatic pause your comma could never—etc.

You don’t write like AI—AI writes like you.

Defend the em dash.

(Feel free to download/share/stick it where it matters!)

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petricakegames

you—can—pry—the—em—dash—from—my—cold—dead—hands—come—at—me—I’ll—show—you—the—thirty—journals—of—handwriting—it—took—to—write—that—one—chapter

barbwritesstuff
barbwritesstuff

I just saw the funniest (saddest?) pro AI tiktok. This person was saying that of course AI can't make a workplace more efficient if the workplace isn't already set up in a way the AI understands.

In other words, the workplace needs to be working at perfect efficiency, or the AI can't be efficient.

And like... is this where we're at? Is this the great future you promised? We have to clean up our files because the machine who was supposed to be smarter than all humans ever is too confused by more than one draft?

That's all it's capable of? Unable to even look at creation dates? Read the documents and understand them? To take information and use it to infer... anything?

That's logic less than that of a small child.

A few years ago, they said it would cure cancer. Now here we are, in the future, this 'labour saving device' needs to be handheld every step of the way, and... and honestly, I feel a little sorry for the people still trying to make fetch happen. This isn't even the next new thing any more, it's yesterday's gimmick.

petricakegames

Work made me go through an AI bootcamp class–which I voiced opposition to and was not enthused with being made to go. But I am enthused about paying rent, so there I was.

The instructor fairly cautioned that the AI was like an intern that didn’t know anything about our workplace or our jobs and needed to be trained. And then went on to tell us all about how the AI could write emails for us and read contracts.

“….you want to let the intern do what?”

hpowellsmith
novella-november

If you are on a Windows 11 computer, pause everything you are doing for one minute and:

  1. Open computer settings
  2. Click on Accessibility on the left-hand menu
  3. Scroll down the Accessibility menu and click on the Keyboard Option
  4. Under the "related settings" tab, click "Typing" which should have a description of "spellcheck, autocorrect, text suggestions."
  5. Turn off the AI "correct misspelled words"
  6. and most importantly: turn off Typing Insights.
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[ID: a screenshot of the above mentioned Windows 11 settings, showing that Typing Insights is now turned off, with the following description from Microsoft:

"Windows is using artificial intelligence to help you type
To help you save time and type efficiently, Windows can learn to suggest words, autocorrect spelling mistakes, and interpret swiped typing. Take a look at the insights below to see up-to-the-minute stats on how Windows has learned to improve typing for you. These stats are stored only on this device and Microsoft does not collect the typing insights data."

End ID]

"But Mx. November, it says right there Microsoft doesn't collect the typing insights data!"

I mean, yeah, it says that..... for *now.*

It also only specifies that Microsoft themselves don't collect it, and they wouldn't have made this something that I was automatically, secretly opted in for without my knowledge if they didn't have something to be gained by me not knowing it exists!

I only found this because a cat walked on the keyboard and turned on Filter Keys and while trying to figure out why my keyboard was just making chirping noises instead of typing, I happened to click on "typing insights" by accident.

Generative AI, and especially AI that is used to "personalize" and track your activity across the web and on your computer are never going to be in your best interest, it is always going to serve these companies in whatever way will line their pockets the most, and all it takes is updating their terms of service once, and then all of that data they promised they weren't collecting suddenly all belongs to them.

barbwritesstuff
sonpat-rides-again

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ihavenocluewhatiwanttobecalled

Can someone who understands psychology explain why this makes someone "rude"?

alex51324

Phatic discourse, a subset of affiliative signaling.

When Co-workers do things like ask about weekend plans, chat about non-work topics, eat lunch in the same room, they are--subconsciously--reaffirming that they are part of a cooperative (or, minimally, non-antagonistic) social group.

The other primates cement social bonds by grooming each other; we do it by making small talk.

If they solicit your participation in these rituals, and you repeatedly refuse those bids, you are marking yourself out as, at best, an outsider to the group, and thus potentially antagonistic.

This is all happening on the monkey-brain level; they have no idea what they're doing or how they are interpreting your response, so there's no way to clear up the misunderstanding.

To the ape sleeping in your co-worker's DNA, either you are part of the grooming circle, or you are an outsider who, for all it knows, may be coming to steal all the bananas.

Even if you would prefer not to socialize with your co-workers, it's generally worth it to set aside 5 minutes a couple times a week for phatic communication. You don't have to answer your co-workers' affiliative signals every time, but it's less trouble in the long run if you respond to a few of them.

punkrorschach

if you are the type of person who really just wants to be left alone to do their work in quiet: it is actually easier to achieve this as part of the in-group. when you enter a new space, in this case, a job, make it your GOAL to make everyone Know Who You Are. introduce yourself to everyone you meet. literally everyone. "hi I'm Jack I'm New." this helps burst the awkward bubble. you are now one of the monkeys.

at some point, either in response to an invitation, or just in the natural course of conversation, you can add in that you are a "quiet type" who "needs their silence" or what have you. customize to your personal needs. i find it helpful to imagine a well dressed elderly woman describing the sort of peace she needs to manifest.

roughly once a week if you see a group of people chatting, engage with them. keep it pleasant. it can be superficial. word will travel that you are Nice and Quiet and Not The Chatty Type protecting you from group lunches etc. if you have an office with a door that you keep closed a lot, putting up any kind of decor will also send positive signals.

humans are monkeys! for better or worse!

tlbodine

Pro tip: try to make a note (write it down if you have to) about some inconsequential thing that your coworker mentions so you can ask about it later. Kids and pets are great for This. As are hobbies. One guy in my office zoom called in from his house and I saw he had an arcade game in his office so I asked him about it later and he lit up like a Christmas tree. Another coworker has a pet pig and I ask every couple months how the pig is doing. This is a great strategy for pivoting conversation away from you and will make them think you are the friendliest monkey in the pod.

barbwritesstuff