Jay Castello 🌻
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jaymcastello.bsky.social
Jay Castello 🌻
@jaymcastello.bsky.social
freelance culture writer 🍏 book & game editor ☕ narrative designer 🎲 short (& long) fiction author 📚 ace attorney podcast host @turnaboutbreakdown.bsky.social 🌈 basically if it involves words i'll do it 🌙 jaycastello.com 🦢 they/she
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i'm Jay and i'm a storyteller in like 15 mediums:

📰 journalism & crit on media, internet culture, & fandom
📼 often available in video & podcast form
🔍 editing on books, articles, & games
🌌 published fiction author
🌒 other, weirder things

more details: jaycastello.com // jaymcastello @ gmail
Jay Castello
jaycastello.com
Reposted by Jay Castello 🌻
January 30, 2026 at 9:59 PM
Reposted by Jay Castello 🌻
One week left to pitch! Feel free to reply/DM with any questions.
January 30, 2026 at 9:42 PM
is there any better feeling than writing a draft and being like, that isn't quite right but it'll come to me, and hours later then it not only coming to you but carving into two distinct pieces that are both still completely usable so nothing was lost
January 30, 2026 at 9:45 PM
for the first time in like 18 months i'm spinning exactly enough plates to be not overwhelmed but also not deathly bored and antsy. feels like taking a party drug
January 30, 2026 at 6:18 PM
okay I am documenting an experiment: how long will it take me to make a ~45 minute video if I actually lock in
January 30, 2026 at 10:58 AM
Reposted by Jay Castello 🌻
just saying this is exactly the article I would write if I wanted to point out the very real limitations of this tech while attracting the attention of the famously litigious Nintendo
Google’s new world AI model tool let me generate a bunch of Nintendo-inspired games. Including one featuring Link with a paraglider! Gift link: www.theverge.com/news/869726/...
January 29, 2026 at 6:04 PM
i don't know what ruined this but you used to be able to google like "3pm CET" and it would just tell you the local time 😭 i just put in "1pm EST" and the first result was "that's 10am assuming your timezone is PST." it sure as hell is not!
January 29, 2026 at 6:05 PM
words from me in an upcoming unwinnable but cairn is genuinely one of the most vapid games i've ever had the displeasure of playing lmao
January 29, 2026 at 2:03 PM
Reposted by Jay Castello 🌻
A rare bit of games crit from me, on Many Nights a Whisper and trying to get at what a “poetic” game might be 👇
Our current issue comes to a close with @jumpovertheage.com on Many Nights a Whisper and poetry in games. Read it here: bulletpointsmonthly.com/2026/01/28/w...
January 28, 2026 at 2:43 PM
starting a new blog called "this could have been an email" where i talk about the 30-90% i would cut from every video game i play
January 28, 2026 at 1:11 PM
anyway
i wrote some pretty mean reviews this year and idk if i'm going to be able to do much of that next year but if I can I promise I *will* get meaner
January 28, 2026 at 12:22 PM
Reposted by Jay Castello 🌻
nothing in the world would be a greater honor to me than being rated poorly as a critic by gamers
January 28, 2026 at 5:37 AM
heLLO
Announcing Bog Bodies from Dreamfeel!

A "short hike”-alike 3d adventure set in a far future Ireland populated only by radioactive talking cats.

Players explore a late 19th c inspired landscape full of strange characters and stories...
January 27, 2026 at 5:46 PM
honestly not even just the worker-owned groups. you can open a masthead on a site that used to be pretty diverse and see basically an entire slate of white men. incredibly obvious where the layoffs hit hardest!
I've been thinking a lot about how devastating this churn has been, for poc and women. SO MANY big worker-owned groups, especially in gaming, are just overwhelmingly white men.
January 27, 2026 at 4:59 PM
im being so brave right now. no one even knows how brave im being.

[this user hasn't tweeted about multiple things they're under NDA and/or embargo about even though they really want to]
January 27, 2026 at 3:02 PM
i love writing and thinking about writing and talking about writing :')
January 27, 2026 at 2:25 PM
i'm back on this. do you know how good it is to turn a verb into an adverb for metaphorical effect? people go crazy for that shit
what's the most unfairly maligned word class and why is it the humble adverb
January 27, 2026 at 12:21 PM
shot / chaser
January 26, 2026 at 9:25 PM
Reposted by Jay Castello 🌻
January 26, 2026 at 7:59 PM
Reposted by Jay Castello 🌻
This is where I'll remind everyone of @nogamesforgenocide.com and their general ask that, out of solidarity with BDS and Palestine, products under the Xbox and Microsoft gaming umbrellas not be covered by journalists or influencers nogamesforgenocide.com
January 26, 2026 at 4:10 PM
i accidentally put like 4000 words into the novel today. and some of them are even good!
January 25, 2026 at 9:36 PM
Reposted by Jay Castello 🌻
let’s be primitive horses with mama
January 24, 2026 at 9:34 PM
Reposted by Jay Castello 🌻
We're thrilled to say we've already started accepting freelance pitches beyond our launch stories! If you're curious about how to pitch Mothership, everything you need to know is here: www.mothership.blog/write-for-us/
Write for us
Here at Mothership, we have a specific focus: the intersection of games and identity, specifically as it pertains to gender, sexuality, and the bodies we inhabit in reality and in games. By “games,” w...
www.mothership.blog
January 24, 2026 at 3:30 PM
i had a very normal time with Perfect Tides: Station to Station (positive)
January 24, 2026 at 3:28 PM
a while ago i heard someone describe character dialogue as "not an actual conversation but just the writer saying some disconnected things they thought people might say in a situation" and now i can't stop noticing it everywhere
January 23, 2026 at 8:26 PM