Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Mike Ferdinando

Sunny Moraine @dynamicsymmetry.bsky.social · 1d

Like I know there are edgelord leftists out there who look down their noses at shit like No Kings but sorry you guys, the more mass protest looks fun and family-friendly, the bigger it gets and the better its chances of being broadly effective

Sunny Moraine @dynamicsymmetry.bsky.social · 1d

Portland does not own the patent on inflatable animal costume protests, come on people

45 480 2.2K

Mike Ferdinando @mikeferdinando.bsky.social · 13h

DW was a revelation: this was the collaborative game experience I'd been fighting Pathfinder into trying to provide for years. From there I dove head first into the deep end of indie RPGs and story-games.

4

Mike Ferdinando @mikeferdinando.bsky.social · 13h

I've been gaming since 1981. It was all trad until 2015: D&D (BX/AD&D/3.x/4e), Traveller, Champions, GURPS, Call of Cthulhu, and Pathfinder. I burned out GMing a years-long PF campaign and pulled the plug.

Then I fell into a group playing Dungeon World. And that game Opened My Brain!

1 5

Mike Ferdinando @mikeferdinando.bsky.social · 19h

In honor of Spooky Month, share a 4-word horror story that only people in your profession would understand.

"We've changed the specs."

The Allie B. You Were Afraid Of @madpierrot.design · 19h

The level design changed.

🏰meg⚔️ @Birthright Audiobook! @impavid.us · 3d

In honor of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand

I'll go first: Six page commercial lease.

1

Mike Ferdinando @mikeferdinando.bsky.social · 19h

Excellent thread on the fascist accelerationist ideology that has become the raison d'être of the Trump regime.

Gwen Snyder is undead @gwensnyder.bsky.social · 19h

Essential point:

"Key to... Vought’s worldview is the idea that the constitutional order - and with it the “natural” order itself - has been destroyed: The revolution has already happened, “the Left” won. Therefore, conservatives categorically err when they try to preserve what is no more."

Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 22h

Sunday reading:

I wrote about the aggrieved extremist who is currently firing thousands of federal workers and ravaging state capacity based on conspiratorial nonsense - and about mainstream media’s infuriating tendency to sanitize Russell Vought and the regime he serves.

This week’s piece:

4 3

Mike Ferdinando @mikeferdinando.bsky.social · 1d

Renegade Studios ran a similarly gigantic WoD 5e bundle about a year ago, and there is not a whole lot of overlap between that bundle and this one!

1

Reposted by Mike Ferdinando

Barred and Boujee aka Madiba Dennie @audrelawdamercy.bsky.social · 2d

aaand we are officially in the hide-your-neighbors stage

Sophie Sherry @sophiesherry.bsky.social · 2d

During a military-style raid on a building in Chicago’s South Shore, one resident heard a knock on his door.   It wasn’t the feds — it was a mom and her 7-year-old daughter, pleading for help.

He let them hide in his unit for the next 3 days.

chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

Neighbor shielded 7-year-old during South Shore federal raid: ‘I didn’t want them to take her’

During the Sept. 30 raid one tenant protected a terrified girl and her mom. Remnants at the complex, including a detailed map of all the units, offer clues to what authorities may have known before th...

chicago.suntimes.com

300 7.7K 19K

Reposted by Mike Ferdinando

Gwen Snyder is undead @gwensnyder.bsky.social · 2d

As a protest optics nerd love about the inflatables is how much they visually disrupt and pull focus from the fascist shock imagery Noem & Miller are trying to create.

So many of these photos now look like the world's silliest dance party, backgrounded by a bunch of guys in uniform looking awkward

38 590 2.3K

Mike Ferdinando @mikeferdinando.bsky.social · 2d

I'll be the NYC march, and I'll be wearing my "All You Fascists Bound to Lose" Woody Guthrie t-shirt!!

Micah @rincewind.run · 2d

they are clearly trying to terrify everyone out of showing up to the No Kings protest and I simply do not think it is going to work

see you all there

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2d

Sen. Roger Marshall: "October 18 is when the protest gets here. This will be a Soros paid-for protest for his professional protesters. The agitators show up. We'll have to get the National Guard out. Hopefully it will be peaceful. I doubt it."

2

Reposted by Mike Ferdinando

Micah @rincewind.run · 2d

they are clearly trying to terrify everyone out of showing up to the No Kings protest and I simply do not think it is going to work

see you all there

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2d

Sen. Roger Marshall: "October 18 is when the protest gets here. This will be a Soros paid-for protest for his professional protesters. The agitators show up. We'll have to get the National Guard out. Hopefully it will be peaceful. I doubt it."

60 720 3.8K

Reposted by Mike Ferdinando

Gwen Snyder is undead @gwensnyder.bsky.social · 2d

First they ignore you
Then they laugh at you
Then they fight you
Then you win

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2d

Sen. Roger Marshall: "October 18 is when the protest gets here. This will be a Soros paid-for protest for his professional protesters. The agitators show up. We'll have to get the National Guard out. Hopefully it will be peaceful. I doubt it."

9 46 160

Reposted by Mike Ferdinando

Justin McElroy @thoughtographic.bsky.social · 2d

9 980 2.9K

Reposted by Mike Ferdinando

Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 2d

They are not planning "a violent crackdown" on 10.18. What they are doing is sending a signal to their shock troops to try to cause havoc. But those shock troops will be vastly outnumbered. Go out and protest freely. Do not be cowed.

24 1.3K 4.1K

Mike Ferdinando @mikeferdinando.bsky.social · 2d

Even arch-capitalists like JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon are predicting a MAJOR "market correction" for AI and related industries within the next six months to two years.

Given how much the AI industry is propping up the US economy, this will trigger a 2008-level global recession.

1 3

Mike Ferdinando @mikeferdinando.bsky.social · 2d

This is my dance about how much transphobes suck.

1 2

Mike Ferdinando @mikeferdinando.bsky.social · 2d

Make a movie better by adding "John Carpenter's" to the title...

John Carpenter's Attack of the Clones

🎃 Agent Pumpkin 🎃 @agentpumpkin.bsky.social · 2d

Make a movie better by adding "John Carpenter's" to the title.

John Carpenter's Paddington

James Hodden @jameshodden.bsky.social · 2d

Make a movie better by adding "John Carpenter's" to the title.

John Carpenter's Seven Brides For Seven Brothers.

1

Mike Ferdinando @mikeferdinando.bsky.social · 3d

I think the most appropriate international declaration about Trump should come from The Hague...

James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 3d

“I’ll declare war on you if you don’t give me the peace prize” is an incredible bit

1

Mike Ferdinando @mikeferdinando.bsky.social · 3d

And this is where system comes into play. Characters in a horror RPG should be mechanically thin, and take no more than 10-15 minutes to create. Because if players have to spend an hour assigning points or picking abilities, they're more likely to protect their investment and play defensively.

1 2

Mike Ferdinando @mikeferdinando.bsky.social · 3d

You don't want to play a horror game defensively: That's pretty much the opposite of the point of playing a horror game. And if your character gets killed... go out SPECTACULARLY! You want your character's death to be what viewers of the film re-wind to watch again!

1 2

Mike Ferdinando @mikeferdinando.bsky.social · 3d

You're 100% correct. If you are playing in a horror game, it's really important to buy in to "horror movie logic" and act like you're in a horror movie. So... investigate the weird noise in the basement. Read the creepy old leather-bound book. Open the puzzle-box. And split up to cover more ground.

1 1

Mike Ferdinando @mikeferdinando.bsky.social · 3d

GM: You hear strange clicking or chittering from behind the door.

Player: I don't want to know what's in there! Let's just leave!

GM: Out of character, let me tell you what's behind the door: the rest of the scenario!

2

Reposted by Mike Ferdinando

Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 3d

Most people aren't brave but at least don't be actively cowardly.

2 68 360

Mike Ferdinando @mikeferdinando.bsky.social · 3d

Cancelling your subscription to a streaming service is a small tangible action that's pretty easy to do and poses no risk of getting pepper-sprayed. Protesting ICE presence is a much bigger lift, and ICE doesn't have any real presence in much of the country.

5

Mike Ferdinando @mikeferdinando.bsky.social · 3d

@madelancholy.bsky.social is one amazing GM! And that incursion is fantastic: I was in a playtest of that incursion, in which we went in a very weird direction. (The big bad was the Spider Queen, which we as players invented by playing off each other's Devil's Bargains!)

1 2

Mike Ferdinando @mikeferdinando.bsky.social · 3d

I'd cancelled my Disney+/Hulu/HBO Max bundle last month. But today I got a notice from PayPal that I paid for a month of a standalone Disney+ subscription. What the fuck?

When you have a subscription and sign up for a bundle, it only pauses your subscription & re-starts when you cancel the bundle.

1 2