March 2025

Heya, hope you are ok,

so I was wondering if you would share what kind of APV Gertrude is? I'm imagining Panther, but I was curious if you had a particular one in mind?

Cheers!

Ha!

So there was a bit of disagreement on this over at Rusty Towers.

When writing it I was thinking it was obviously something along the lines of an FV432 but then our US editing team were like… “You mean a humvee right?”

Turns out our editing team and I have radically different conceptions of what constitutes “armoured” and it was a case for passback on some SFX :)

in the rqgg20 stretch goals q&a you did, you said you can never shut off your brain and are just running full speed all the time, and the only thing that can stop that during the day is playing video games.

i have the same issue and my therapist has actually told me to start playing games but i cant figure out which ones to play.

what games help you with that specific problem?

Hey glad to help!

So I prioritise two things when playing to turn off rumination (not for abnegation which is different):
1) Immersion. It’s impossible to be both immersed and ruminating. Brain can’t do it. So more immersive the better. For me that normally means 1st person, non-repetitive, good graphics so… active RPGs with lots of in-game story telling rather than cutscenes.
2) Active. I really struggle with “chill” games. They don’t occupy enough of my brain and so the more attention it needs, the better. VR even more better better.
3) Systematic. So this one is a double edged sword. If its something that allows you to build interlocking systems its perfect. (think factorio or cities skyline etc.) The issue is though, it can trigger the hyperfixation so, it’s only really a good option if I have some safeguards against overplay. (I personally avoid MMORPGs when it comes to this type of play because they are essentially designed to trigger overplay and that leaves me worse off in the long run).

TLDR: Active and immersive system building games

Hope that helps!

what do you think of avogadros constant?

im in love with it and wont stop annoying my friend with it

6.02x10^23 my beloved

It’s pretty bloody nifty.

I wanted to work it into Protocol as an eldritch thing but didn’t find a good opportunity in the series Bible so now pretty unlikely unless inspiration strikes.

Blame Jonny.
(Not because it’s his fault or anything, just on principal y'know?)

Favorite element?

Oof. Asking the big questions.

Probably Caesium?
Because it just sits there in oil all like “hey dude, I’m chill, lick me.”
But you should not lick the Caesium for it is deceitful and tastes of bang.

Honourable mentions:
Magnesium is fun.
Helium is pretty great but we’ve wasted so much of it.
Tungsten is obviously up there for all the boring reasons.