things i’ve liked this week, vol. 7, kind of

2025-06-20

here are some things, new (to me), that i liked this week. in the past and i’d like to share them with you.

games

(don’t) save me by coral nulla

the fantasy of having someone “save” you is convenient and tantalizing. someone to lift you out of everyday drudgery; someone through whom you can see the world in a new way. but of course, it isn’t like that, it’s never like that. in this choose-your-own-adventure game, you play a professional manic pixie dream girl: essentially, an emotional laborer. and just like with other power fantasies, her clients have very particular ideas about how they’d like to be wooed. at least, that’s how it starts.

made for a game jam, everything is so well thought-out design-wise. the sterile pastels of the UI ¹ invoke the manic pixie variant of the basement from severance.

short story

“what’s expected of us” by Ted Chiang²

this is sufficiently short that i want to avoid any spoilers other than that when released, this story was thought to be one about free will. but now i’m thinking about what free will exactly is: isn’t it necessarily a relation between ourselves and our environment? i’ve found it surprisingly comforting in these trying times.

short film

“for profit online university” by sam west for adult swim

damn, these adult swim informercials were so good. i find this one particularly predictive. knowledge is reduced to fake currency, students solve CAPTCHAs for more fake currency, and we find out the consequences of primitive accumulation when applied to autonomous agents. how prescient!