@lowqualityfacts Ares? Surprise Parties. Sure, if you're willing to settle for a low-quality party.
...which, to be fair, is on-brand for Low Quality Facts.
But if you want a real good time you need to look up the Centzon Tōtōchtin, who are 400 Divine Rabbits who are all about regularly throwing massive, drunken parties filled with multiple kinds of overconsumption.
...most people never hear of these party animal gods as they are Aztec deities.
@allisonwyss@orionkidder@sfwrtr@joehumphrey Mystery novels are very much built on this. You can just read them start to finish but they are also designed (at least those in a certain model of mystery novel) for readers to take time to try to figure things out independently from the in-book investigator/s before you reach the end.
Just reading them instead of thinking about them removes one layer of the reading experience.
@sfwrtr@allisonwyss@orionkidder@joehumphrey In terms of design, which is really more a looser two-way interaction of reader expectations and genre conventions, the 'sidekick' character is really useful here, as the sidekick enables signposting of what is important.
Chapter Titles can be used to inform readers how long they have until the next major development, or when an investigator reveals part of the answer.
But a lot of it is just not doing unfair stuff that comes from out of nowhere.
@allisonwyss@sfwrtr@orionkidder@joehumphrey There are mystery novels out there with all the chapters in a list at the start (as well as at the start of each chapter). Writers can also signpost in other ways, like ending a chapter by mentioning they thought X was true, but then Y happened the next day or something.
But there are mystery novels that are more open to being solved by readers and others that just really aren't.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a particularly infamous case.
I get the feeling Allison would approve of some of the twists Agatha Christie did, where the narrator ended up not being who they appeared to be...
Also in the case of Hercule Poirot, the author Agatha Christie disliked writing him... the sidekicks were also a way for her to have less Poirot in her Poirot stories.
I don't think people are realising the danger the Fediverse is in.
The only thing stopping corporations and VCs taking over this place is that the Fediverse is spread out on many different servers, which makes it very difficult to purchase.
If most of the Fediverse ends up on mastodon.social, which is now a strong possibility, there will be nothing to stop most of it being sold to Musk or Zuckerberg or whoever.
The bigger mastodon.social becomes, the more likely a buyout is to happen.
There are Mastodon hosting servers where you pay them to host you (only some of them are accepting new people). Searching them can give a good idea of the general costs involved.
The minimum costs seems to be around the 6 euro range. Can be cheaper if you rent a server instead of using a hosting service.
@jmbw@allisonwyss has started a variety of interesting discussions in the writing community. If you find them interesting/helpful maybe follow her and maybe even some of the participants.
To anyone who defends #SpaceX on the basis of space exploration/colonisation being vital for humanity’s ongoing survival: if you are not similarly defensive of our natural environment on earth (on which we depend and that #Musk and his ilk are all too eager to destroy for profit) and of the right for every person to experience health, happiness, and dignity, your professed concern for humanity’s survival rings hollow and you have nothing to say to me that I consider worth listening to.
@dbc3@juliajaniszewski Without leaving the planet though, the superrich have already bought luxurious bunkers.
Search for superrich bunkers and you'll see the coverage.
This may be partly why some are pushing AI so very hard, to maximise what they have without needing other people.
I recall an interview (but cannot recall the source) where it was said the superrich felt catastrophic climate change could happen and their response (without speculating why) was only to secure their lifestyle.
@juliajaniszewski@dbc3 If such a future were to occur, I suspect they would suffer as they would no longer be able to control and manipulate other people.
At least not at the scale to which they are accustomed and not in a consequence-free way (to the extent there are opportunities to control and manipulate others).
I think I've been boosting when really I should have favouriting, since I think now the distinction between the two is whether you want to share it more or not...
...although kinda a meaningless distinction when you have almost no follower.