This post is mostly going to be incoherent rambling, but I hope this does make some sense and gains engagement from my other fellow Tildes users on here.

I, like many others, participated in the Reddit exodus to a degree after the API changes some years ago. I've been using tildes semi-regularly ever since, but I still frequent Reddit just as much as I used to (however, being much less active in terms of commenting/posting) simply due to the sheer size of the user base.

Of course, since January 20th 2025 (the beginning of Trumps second term), the world has definitely seemed to be in an increasingly state of turmoil ever since. De Minimis exception rules, non-stop changes on tariffs to different countries, the war in Iran, capturing the Venezuelan president (for better or for worse), trying to unite the Western hemisphere under the American flag, unveiling of the Epstein files, Isreal still attempting to ethnically cleanse Gaza, and countless other disputes that have been ongoing such as Russia v. Ukraine, China v. Taiwan, etc.

None of this is relatively good news, nor am I really a fan of any of these actions above, save for perhaps capturing Maduro.

Whenever I scroll through r/worldnews or r/news, it just seems that present day society is literally going on the brink of collapse. I'm just wondering, am I in the wrong to think that most people are living their lives the way they always have, and just hope for the best and they stay relatively unaffected?

I am someone who travels to the US semi-regularly, and if I were to take the word of the average redditor on there, I would safely assume that I am about to be shot on sight by ICE or be captured and waterboarded (slight exaggeration, I hope). And yet when I arrive, people are living their life the way they always have. Perhaps there is a tad more mistrust between citizens, and perhaps a bit more individuals feel more free to be openly racist (these are all assumptions, not stating them as fact), but everything is mostly just functioning the way it always has.

My question is, should I be more on the side that there is going to be significant political and economic reform in the world, or will things play out the way they always have for the 21st century, where everything gets, very slowly, shittier by the day, but things remain decent enough to quell the suggestion of a civil war?

Thanks for reading anyone, and appreciate any thoughts on the subject.

P.S I have no idea how to tag this, so thanks in advance to whoever does end up tagging this post.

Last year I ran an AMA while sitting in a field waiting to graduate from my undergrad program. I had planned to do the same thing again as I graduated from my master's program but was foiled by the 502 Bad Gateway last week, and then forgot to do it after as I was busy with moving and celebrations.

So, 1 year older (and wiser? -ish?), with deeper eye bags and less sleep, AMA

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

The survey has been closed and the results are in!

Thank you to all the 166 people that responded! Check out the dashboard for the full results!

I was initially thinking of making a custom visualization with all the game covers in a big collage together, but I ended up not having the time to do it. :'( If anyone is interested in trying to make that though, please do! I think it'd look really cool.

• ZIP download of the data

Thank you all again for participating! Hope to see you in the next survey! :)

This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on.

Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just ideas.

If you have any creative projects that you have been working on or want to eventually work on, this is a place for discussing those.

Custom games/game modes/rulesets give gamers the ability to enjoy some games nearly infinitely. Gary's Mod, Rust, Minecraft, Robolox, Fortnite, and many others keep people coming back as people create new ways to play.
When I was younger I played a ton of Warcraft 3 custom games. I remember there being a solid ~2 years when that was almost entirely what I would play whenever I was able to use the computer and then another 3-4 years after where I would play at least a couple of times a week.

I remember loving custom games like:

• Defense of the Ancients (DotA)
• Island Troll Tribes (also Jungle Troll Tribes to a lesser extent)
• Risk (and it's many versions)
• Wintermaul and Wintermaul wars (along with all the other tower defense and tower defense wars)
• Vamperism
• Pest Control
• Many others as this list would drag on

I remember chatting with a lot of interesting people, though I didn't have any friendships I made move past Warcraft 3 in to other games.

I know there are many other games with custom games or customer game modes that the community developed, with DotA 2 coming full circle from being the sequel to a custom game to having custom games of its own.

To get the conversation going:

• What games had your favorite custom games?
• What custom games were your favorite?
• Did you make or contribute to any custom games?
• Any favorite memories?

I journal sporadically, and have sometimes wanted to record a thought as a poem. I like idea of using constraints to further my grasp on the thought I'm trying to express, and it'd leave me with something I'd feel proud to come back to.

But I don't really know where to start? I'm hoping to find a form of poetry can be short enough to not feel daunting to start, but still forces enough structure to make the exercise worthwhile.

I imagine this effort means I'll also need to read more poetry and find stuff I like. My only real experience with the medium is from school, and thinking back to that time only reminds me of how confused I was while guessing if a foot was stressed or unstressed. I do remember liking Arthur Rimbaud's Le dormeur du val though. If anyone has any recommendations for poems they like, I'd take those too