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alexjholt.bsky.social
Alex Holt
@alexjholt.bsky.social
2.1K followers 1.1K following 2.2K posts
Birding and nature, Leftist, Feminist, RPGS and Comics, Genderqueer (they/he), Artist and Performer on Science & Sorcery ART COMMISSIONS OPEN
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alexjholt.bsky.social
Alex Holt @alexjholt.bsky.social · Jan 19
Would you like to work with me? I'm currently available for projects!

See my work regularly on @scienceandsorcery.bsky.social or visit linktr.ee/alexjholt

Art commissions available from £20GBP

Please reach out by messaging me here or emailing alex(at)alexjholt.com
A business card depicting Alex's character Urania - a plump white tiefling girl with long dark brown hair and a fringe, with her familiar Poecile in the form of a non-specific tit species. Urania has large moose like antlers and she stands infront of a bright blue sky with lots of white clouds. The text is on a yellow panel and states: Alex Holt Actual Play Performance, Graphic Design, Illustration, TTRPG Design, Writing. Appended by, in brackets, "Yes, I really do all those things!"
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alexjholt.bsky.social
Alex Holt @alexjholt.bsky.social · 10h
This. The absolute irony that "Dawkinsist" atheism is not only a belief system but an especially obnoxious one at that...
chanda.blacksky.app
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 13h
Atheist proselytizers are the religious proselytizers I’m most likely to come into contact with and they’re just as annoying as all of the other ones I experience
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alexjholt.bsky.social
Alex Holt @alexjholt.bsky.social · 23h
You haven't had a Gingko.check in lately, so here she is!
Gingko the spotted salamander on the earthy floor of her ta m - she is a black salamanser with bright yellow splitxhes on top anssilvery speckling on her sides.
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alexjholt.bsky.social
Alex Holt @alexjholt.bsky.social · 1d
More in this case, I was thinking about Vampires and how it'd be interesting to have a world where theres a whole bunch of unrelated beings referred to as "vampires" but aside from all being immortal blood drinkers they all have different origins, powers, behaviour and weaknesses.
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alexjholt.bsky.social
Alex Holt @alexjholt.bsky.social · 1d
In this case, I was thinking you could apply this to fantasy crestures.

Arguably, you could say western dragons and east asian dragons are kinda already adjacent as they thematically arose separately.
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alexjholt.bsky.social
Alex Holt @alexjholt.bsky.social · 1d
Parralel evolution is a thing in nature where evolution ends up producing similar designs in unrelated families of species because similar ecological niches select for some designs readily.
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alexjholt.bsky.social
Alex Holt @alexjholt.bsky.social · 1d
Only my second UK bird lifer this year - Baird's Sandpiper, a tiny North American vagrant brings my life list to 676, and the Bird-dex list of species either photographed or recorded to 659.

bird-dex.blogspot.com/2025/10/bair...
Baird's Sandpiper (Calidris bairdii)
A photographic quest for wild bird species and other wildlife.
bird-dex.blogspot.com
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alexjholt.bsky.social
Alex Holt @alexjholt.bsky.social · 2d
One thing about going to see rare wading birds like this vagrant Baird's Sandpiper at Rutland Water today, is you walk miles to see them but when you do find them at least they are complete derpuses who put on a show and just walk right up to people.
A Bair's sandbpiper - a tiny long billed wading bird with a scalloped brown back and a white belly, standing in shallow water. Two photographers next to the baird's sandpiper, the bird having approached them of its own volition.
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Reposted by Alex Holt
jessothomson.co.uk
Jess O'Thomson @jessothomson.co.uk · 2d
It cannot be made clearer.

If you continue to support the Harry Potter franchise in any way, you are directly funding the removal of trans people's human rights in the UK.
JK Rowling pledges to keep up fight against SNP trans policies Author vows to bankroll campaigners after Scottish government fails to pay group's legal fees in Supreme Court equality case
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alexjholt.bsky.social
Alex Holt @alexjholt.bsky.social · 3d
Much as I've played some excellent Roguelikes this year I realllly wanna play some more linear rpgs that don't require failure as part of the game's design cos there seems to be a dearth?
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alexjholt.bsky.social
Alex Holt @alexjholt.bsky.social · 6d
I honestly think Peacemaker (the show) is an excellent example of how to run a story with bad guy but not villain protagonists.

Like, the core cast are mostly morally awful in different ways but it comes out of a place of wanting to do the right thing but being extremely fucked up human beings.
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Reposted by Alex Holt
ashhiggins.bsky.social
Ash Higgins @ashhiggins.bsky.social · 8d
This. Is. Why. I. Paint.
"They're trying to convince people they can't do the things they've been doing easily for years - to write emails, to write a presentation. Your daughter wants you to make up a bedtime story about puppies - to write that for you." We will get to the point, she says with a grim laugh, "that you will essentially become just a skin bag of organs and bones, nothing else. You won't know anything and you will be told repeatedly that you can't do it, which is the opposite of what life has to offer. Capitulating all kinds of decisions like where to go on vacation, what to wear today, who to date, what to eat. People are already doing this. You won't have to process grief, because you'll have uploaded photos and voice messages from your mother who just died, and then she can talk to you via Al video call every day. One of the ways it's going to destroy humans, long before there's a nuclear disaster, is going to be the emotional hollowing-out of people."
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alexjholt.bsky.social
Alex Holt @alexjholt.bsky.social · 8d
This doesn't mean that every system has to be operable by the worst toddler you know, but it does mean it should be designed to account for the most vexing potential user you can imagine.
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alexjholt.bsky.social
Alex Holt @alexjholt.bsky.social · 8d
A design that is more efficient on paper is only as effective as the most frustrating person using it.

People are not logical machines. The more opportunities there are for a person to misunderstand or try to cheat in a system the more prone to breaking it is.
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alexjholt.bsky.social
Alex Holt @alexjholt.bsky.social · 8d
Why is it called "Kettering-proofing"?

Work in a public facing role in Kettering as long as I have and you'll know.

I am considered by many to be an excessively patient person, but I've had far too many tedious, pointless interactions that left me dead inside.
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alexjholt.bsky.social
Alex Holt @alexjholt.bsky.social · 8d
It's kinda like making a genie wish where you have to make sure the genie isn't going to screw you over but you can't dl so by inserting a million clauses because they don't really pay attention to anything after the first sentence anyway
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alexjholt.bsky.social
Alex Holt @alexjholt.bsky.social · 8d
So this morning I wanna talk about a principle of design I have named "Kettering-proofing".

The basic thesis is that *any* design choice has to be able to withstand both the most bad faith interpretation AND the most obtuse interpretation.

This can apply to both rule systems and physical design.
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alexjholt.bsky.social
Alex Holt @alexjholt.bsky.social · 15d
Listening to the anniversary episode of Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-men yday, and aside from some excellent and fascinating insights at some point I really need to get round to the She-hulk podcast that's been bouncing around in the back of my brain for a few years 😅
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Reposted by Alex Holt
cvkvlv.com
Cvkvlv Beadwork @cvkvlv.com · 21d
#MutualAid #IndigenousMutualAid

I really need more sales to cover rent this month!! Check out my website: cvkvlv.com

Interested in something in a different color or size? DM me for custom work 💬

If you can't order, please boost! Visibility also helps a lot.

Goal progress in comments ↓↓

TYSM!!
A pair of beaded fringe rainbow pride bat earrings in progress on a bead mat next to piles of seed beads and a pink lighter
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alexjholt.bsky.social
Alex Holt @alexjholt.bsky.social · 19d
Ooh thankyou!
alexjholt.bsky.social
Alex Holt @alexjholt.bsky.social · 19d
My weasel sighting rate is probably on average like one every five years maybe?
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alexjholt.bsky.social
Alex Holt @alexjholt.bsky.social · 19d
A very rare sighting of a wide spread species a least weasel at Summer Leys, Northamptonshire just now.

They are the smallest of all carnivorans but proportionate to their size, among the most powerful of the whole family!
A least weasel facing towards the camera on dry grass.
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alexjholt.bsky.social
Alex Holt @alexjholt.bsky.social · 24d
I just misread "trauma dumping" as "trauma dumpling" and I want to bring forward a motion that when we are traumatised we get to have special dumplings to help us feel better.
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alexjholt.bsky.social
Alex Holt @alexjholt.bsky.social · 24d
It wasn't on our master list, but we did omit ones that seemed to be second hand via geographic eponyms, as otherwise things would get kinda wild when we'd need to flag anything with, for instance, "American" in the name.

Though theres also some which have both such as Humboldt
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alexjholt.bsky.social
Alex Holt @alexjholt.bsky.social · 24d
One of my my most old person tendencies is I have never been able to distinguish specific subgenres and microgenres of music and it feels like someone handed out an explanatory pamphlet at some point but I missed it?
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alexjholt.bsky.social
Alex Holt @alexjholt.bsky.social · 26d
There should be a Terminator movie where the antagonist is like the earliest possible human looking terminator that literally everyone can blatantly tell is a killer robot cos it looks like something out of a terrible waxwork museum.
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