this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2024

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Introductions

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Heya from me - share things you enjoyed/are enjoying/plan to enjoy! (hexbear.net)

submitted 5 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Hey all, been lurking for a bit since the bluesky influx and thought I'd post an intro/response prompt. Most stuff are as in my bio, but I'm also a software engineer turned manager and have small humans I'm raising with my partner in our small portion of the world.

I don't want to doxx myself by sharing too much, but think it would be worth sharing three pieces of media:

one I found formative as a child
one I've been enjoying recently
one that I'm hella looking forward to

For the first, I'll admit to enjoying the perhaps somewhat problematic Settlers II (1996) by bluebyte software. I loved building the economic engine and the emergent pattern of hexagonal road networks that the isometric nodes of its world resulted in. It was the first game I enjoyed that had graphs as part of the metrics you could use to determine how well your colony was doing and I poured hours of myself into it. I didn't appreciate how colonialist it was at the time given that the game's main campaign puts you into the sandals of ancient Roman occupiers and defeating in-turn African, Scandinavian and East-Asian enemies (all of which have exactly the same mechanics as the player's colony - it's just the sprite graphics that were different!) before pitting you against another Roman faction. As these enemies are increasing in difficulty this results in some extremely problematic implications. The core game however was gorgeous.

Currently I'm enjoying the reboot of Mike Duncan's revolutions podcast with the latest series covering as speculative fiction a future Martian revolution. It has a great write up here, which I'll not attempt to emulate as it would be a poor facsimile at best, but suffice it to say that when I discovered there were six episodes of this new season I hadn't yet heard, I binged them all in both directions of my commute, loved every single moment, and am enjoying each weekly release as it continues to come out.

Finally in something I'm looking forward to, on a recent day out with my partner, we picked up from a lovely bookshop an anthology of solar punk short stories. I haven't had a lot of opportunity to read physical books in recent years, so very much look forward to diving into the pages and hope that there are some lessons for the future we can share with our family.

I invite others to share things of a similar vein and look forward to hearing them!

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Welcome! Let's see

one I found formative as a child

The Redwall books (I met Brian Jacques a couple of times as a kid and still have signed books), C. D. Payne's underappreciated masterpiece Youth In Revolt

one I've been enjoying recently

I caught a 4K restoration of The Wages of Fear that really surprised me. Benjamin Labatut's When We Cease to Understand the World blew me away recently. Currently reading a collection of Ursula K. Le Guin's writings on gender and feminism called SPACE CRONE

one that I'm hella looking forward to

This band I really dig called Weakened Friends has new album in the works

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Thank you so much for your answers!

Wow, meeting Brian Jacques must have been wild! I enjoyed the Redwall books too, though not as much as my sibling, who had and read all of them multiple times; my partner really loved them too, so it's been a joy to begin to share them with our child, who is getting deep into them.

I've not got a connection to anything else you've posted (though enjoyed some of LeGuin's other works) so thank you for the recommendations 🙏

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Wow, meeting Brian Jacques must have been wild!

He was really nice. My kid is not quite old enough for Redwall, but I'm hoping he'll enjoy them

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Read Settlers II: The Whitening

Anyways rn I'm enjoying reading Domenico Losurdo's Western Marxism, a critique of how the cultural turn of the Marxism of western europe led to the dominant left intelligentsia of imperialist countries to align with imperialism against decolonial efforts. It started pretty slow and methodical but now he's starting to cook now that he got to Hannah Arendt.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Oooh, sounds fun - I'll have to check that out phoenix-evidence

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Welcome to Hexbear!

For formative media, I think I'll go with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Douglas Adams' style of humor has generally had a big impact on me, I think.

For media I've been enjoying recently... Most anything they show on Hexbear's Cytube watch parties. Since I happen to currently be in a time zone where 8 PM EST is not the middle of the night, I've taken the opportunity to goof around in the chat and enjoy all sorts of curiosities — everything from seven of the eight parts of Endless Eight, to a documentary about NYC ball culture called Paris is Burning, to a surrealist Czech film from the 1960s called Daisies.

For media I'm looking forward to enjoying... Everything I've downloaded to occupy myself with on the upcoming flight back home. I've got a lot of Marxist and postcolonial theory like Settlers and Wretched of the Earth, I've got the Sailor Moon manga in Esperanto and likewise Cardcaptor Sakura in Russian, I've also got about four hours' worth of assorted anime (some of which is actually good), and five hours' worth of Dakota lessons, and about three hours and fifteen minutes' worth of music.

I'm also certainly looking forward to what I'll be reading once I'm actually back home with regular access to my own book collection and several libraries I don't need a car to get to, and I'm also thinking I'll finally boot up Half-Life 2 again to check out the developer commentary.

Sent from Mdewakanton Dakota lands / Sept. 29 1837

Treaty with the Sioux of September 29th, 1837

"We Will Talk of Nothing Else": Dakota Interpretations of the Treaty of 1837

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Thank you! aubrey-happy

Aaah, I really enjoyed THGG as a kid though I was probably too young for it at the time. While the humour style certainly sunk in, I don't remember much, maybe I should give it another go.

The watch parties sound great! I watched Paris is burning a few years ago and remember being touched by it, might be worth a rewatch.

I hope you have a good flight, sounds like you've got a lot of stuff to enjoy on the way and once you're back!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago

Hello kirby-wave

The main thing im enjoying is the new Ultimate Marvel books, i like the worldbuilding they have been doing especially in the one year in one shot

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I had no idea Mike Duncan started a new series of Revolutions that it's purely speculative fiction. Interesting 🤔 I'm in the middle of the Russian revolution series and going kind of slow since it's the last one and I know that I've heard that he turns on it at one point, so not looking forward to that.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Good news! In the latest episode, he's shared that after the 2 year break he's come around to the idea of continuing the series with other revolutions, which he'll do after the Martian revolution is over. I think the Russian one kind of wore him out tbh, it was a long haul!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Welcome, comrade

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

That’s nice

Would you like to be the 2nd hand man to the Supreme Eternal Leader of Glorious Revolutionary Palestine?