wait okay really fun news i may have started my first draft of my novel finally
Hey italiani!! There's an official ministry of justice referendum to get same sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couple in being actually married and not just "uniti civilmente". This will grant them the same rights in adoption and stepchild adoption.
Of course the big news arent talking about it so the only way to let it circulate is through spreading the info ourselves.
It needs 500k signatures in 3 months and while that alone will not automatically grant equal rights it will be a HUUUGE step forward in italy, lately quite discriminatory politic.
Here's the link to the referendum! Se siete italiani e potete entrare con lo SPID firmate!
If you're not italian, please spread the word as it might reach someone that can sign!
Hmmmm hm. Okay. Worldbuilding/story idea.
One million years after humanity disappears, octopi and ravens have independently developed sapience. And one day an octopus child and an elder raven meet at the edge of the ocean.
Where is your mother and father? asks the raven. I have no mother or father, says the octopus, blushing pale. All octopi are children. Once we’re grown, we will mate and we will die. It is the first and the last thing our mothers tell us.
But that’s horrible, says the raven. It’s not all bad, says the octopus. We play, we hunt, we make games for ourselves in the deep. Yes, but who remembers your songs? the raven says. Who passes down your stories?
What is a story? the octopus asks.
And the raven thinks about this question. And finally it says: A story is how you remember things in the past. It is how you know where you come from, and what happened before you were born. A story can be a warning, or it can be advice, or it can be a silly joke told to make you feel good. Someone remembers the story and tells it to the next generation, who remember the story and tells it to the generation after them.
And the octopus thinks about this answer. And finally it says: Can you tell me a story?
And the raven tells the octopus a story. And it’s a good story. And the next day the octopus returns and asks for another. The next day it brings its octopus friends, and the raven brings its raven friends, and many stories are shared on the edge of the ocean.
Months later, the octopus returns to the raven. I am grown, it says. I am returning to the sea to find a mate and lay my brood. I will not be coming back. I’m sorry.
I will miss your company, says the raven.
I have one thing to ask you, says the octopus. In time my children will come to the edge of the ocean. I would like you to tell them a story I have made. And when they have stories of their own, I would like your children to remember them and pass them down to my children’s children.
Of course, says the raven. What is your story about?
And the octopus thinks, and says: It is about an octopus child and an elder raven who meet at the edge of the ocean.
And this story has been passed down to this day.
I always love fanart of characters killing or otherwise hurting another version of themselves. Yes yes yes yes
WOAAHHHHHHH
i think the near-extinction of people making fun, deep and/or unique interactive text-based browser games, projects and stories is catastrophic to the internet. i'm talking pre-itch.io era, nothing against it.
there are a lot of fun ones listed here and here but for the most part, they were made years ago and are now a dying breed. i get why. there's no money in it. factoring in the cost of web hosting and servers, it probably costs money. it's just sad that it's a dying art form.
anyway, here's some of my favorite browser-based interactive projects and games, if you're into that kind of thing. 90% of them are on the lists that i linked above.
A Better World - create an alternate history timeline
Alter Ego - abandonware birth-to-death life simulator game
Seedship - text-based game about colonizing a new planet
Sandboxels or ThisIsSand - free-falling sand physics games
Little Alchemy 2 - combine various elements to make new ones
Infinite Craft - kind of the same as Little Alchemy
ZenGM - simulate sports
Tamajoji - browser-based tamagotchi
IFDB - interactive fiction database (text adventure games)
Written Realms - more text adventure games with a user interface
The Cafe & Diner - mystery game
The New Campaign Trail - US presidential campaign game
Money Simulator - simulate financial decisions
Genesis - text-based adventure/fantasy game
Level 13 - text-based science fiction adventure game
Miniconomy - player driven economy game
Checkbox Olympics - games involving clicking checkboxes
BrantSteele.net - game show and Hunger Games simulators
Murder Games - fight to the death simulator by Orteil
Cookie Clicker - different but felt weird not including it. by Orteil.
if you're ever thinking about making a niche project that only a select number of individuals will be nerdy enough to enjoy, keep in mind i've been playing some of these games off and on for 20~ years (Alter Ego, for example). quite literally a lifetime of replayability.
We've lost a lot to the onslaught of enshittification but I can think of none more brazen than Discord getting rid of the send button