Nat Quayle Nelson @nqn@recurse.social

Just spent ~4 hours editing the audio for my undergraduate thesis. Two Transitions, a podcast in which I discuss gender with my 6th grade teacher. Episode 4 now available on MixCloud: https://www.mixcloud.com/TwoTransitions/

#intro I'm Nat! She/her, writer and coder from Salt Lake City. I work in connectomics at the Moran Eye Center and also for the MineRL project (www.minerl.io) which I'm writing a stage play inspired by. Also into screenwriting, sketch comedy, and zine-making.

The first one was honestly way more fun than I was expecting based on how I remembered it--but the second one has added all these terrible gimmicky systems that are holding all the good parts hostage. And so many cutscenes that are just the exact plot of shitty disney movies, replicated in the KH canon for no reason

I think if I had built my character with less skill points in nostalgia and pride, and more skill points in self respect and taste, I would be able to walk away from the shitshow that is playing through all the Kingdom Hearts games on the highest difficulty setting.

Can someone go to my desktop and type "git push" so I don't have to get out of bed

When we talk about Jeff Bezos as a villain, we should really be using his more accurate South Park depiction as the visual representation

4. "What a horrible night to have a curse." This is nonsense writing. Simon, you can't say that *every* night! Just say "Every night this curse is horrible." Or "I have a curse."

3. The fixed day-night cycle. It's so boring when I get to a place (i.e. town with all the doors shut) and have to wait several minutes for day before I can do the thing I came there for

2. The curse mechanic. Doing half damage half the time doesn't really make the fights more challenging, it just drags things out. And the curse message takes such a long time and you can't skip it.

1. For some reason I find it compelling. I want to know about Dracula's curse and find all 5 parts of Dracula. If this weren't the case, all other problems with the game would be moot because I could just walk away.

Things that are bad about Castlevania 2: A rant thread with Nat

They should have GWGOTY (Game-Within-a-Game Of The Year) wards. Demontower, the game within Night in the Woods, is incredible

When times are tough I gravitate towards games that are extremely demanding for some reason...

Playing the first impossible level of BIT.TRIP Runner3 so many times lookin' at myself like

This is the best public speaking I've ever done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_799Ach0Zg

We, humans, are the only beings in the universe who can decide what is acceptable. We give OURSELVES permission to exist.

The common attitude is that we're here to stay, that the injustices we create will go away like magic because of "progress" or "a better afterlife." I think that's garbage. You can't trust society to get better on its own, you can't go around acting like all governments and authorities are valid or good enough. If the police kill and terrorize more people than those we call "terrorists", WE need to stop respecting them.

With times as rough as they are, I've been trying different mantras/mottos to keep myself moving. Lately the most compelling one I've come up with is "WE ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO EXIST." As an atheist and a scientist, I believe this beautiful, horrible thing we call human life is a cosmic accident. Which means we need to grab onto it and cherish it like crazy, because it will never happen again.