Niko _____ Works

I'm trying out a new format to capture the "little guys" of writing on this blog.

---

In Deepwinter Shadows, the Royal Family are celebrities, and that means tabloids care a lot about their relationships. In these modern times, their dating pool is basically "anyone who's a noble" (and plenty of room for being gay), but the Royal Family's lineage has to be carried on by someone. By tradition, their celebrity status and associated royal duties (read: controlled social calendar) pass on by primogeniture – first-born children or closest to it.

---

Someone once told me that "effective art is inherently niche," and like. This is so obviously bullshit, because it is either false or unfalsifiable depending on what "effective art" is chosen to mean. That said, there's a fragment of the sentiment that still feels like it deserves recognition, so I just wanna pick apart the statement a bit.

I found this article through the Gender Reveal Patreon newsletter, and I suspect anyone actively following this blog would like it too. It places puritanical discourses around sex & sexuality and online critique of permissible behavior (e.g. "abusive ex" documentation, mocking dating profiles) onto the same axis of surveillance (and preemptive defense) of the self, aligned with punitive justice and opposing the mundanity private experiences offer. I hope y'all enjoy it.

https://lux-magazine.com/article/privacy-eroticism/

A flirtfriend gave me a very groovy keysmash in 13/16 a couple weeks ago, and I finally got around to finishing the song. I think it's fun; don't you?

With apologies to the ghosts of Saul Kripke, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Gottlob Frege...

Wittgenstein!
Wittgenstein are you there?

What is it, Kripke?

I've figured it out!
The perfect encapsulation of my work,
a declaration of my intentions,
a true movement I am pioneering.

Well, this oughta be good.
What is it then, what's this movement you've figured out?

The "what are you working on" channel in a Discord dedicated to TTRPG developers: "Okay, so characters have 4 stats, 3 saves, and a class that modifies those numbers a bit, and you should do a pre-campaign adventure with 4 of these characters expecting some or all of them to die, then play with one of the survivors."

The TTRPG channel in a writing Discord: "Okay, so this game is about eldritch industrial disaster crises, where the GM plays the control room and gives out orders with some sort of secret agenda, while the players are plant workers trying to resolve the crisis with limited communications and all sorts of hazards appearing room by room."

(Meanwhile I'm here going, "Okay, so what does a GM really do, and how do I write rules & tools that actually support those goals instead of just mumbling something about all the social roles you'll variably fill?")

This was originally posted on Cohost May 12, 2024 in response to the @ImpressionsOfDetail prompt "A heavy, tongue-stinging key, slipped through your lips and turned, sealing your voice behind your teeth."

---

Content warnings: second person perspective, mind control

Your throat locks as the woman removes her key, carelessly striking metal teeth against enamel. "Dolls should be spoken to, not speak themselves," she says. You fight the sudden urge to bow, locking eyes with the woman and glaring instead. Finally, she dismisses you with a wave of her hand. "We'll work on your manners."

You open your mouth to explain that you aren't in fact a doll, maybe ask who the hell she is shoving keys in people's mouths like that, but only regular breaths pass your lips. Surprised by the silence, it takes a few moments before you remember your phone has a writing app. You take some time to write up an angry diatribe, then imperiously hold it out for her to read.

She utterly fails to notice, sipping her tea and focusing on a small journal.

September 4th

This is about the Silksong release date announcement.

It's interesting to me how much I identify myself as a punk, but have no real history with the phrase "no future." In some respects this is a generational divide; "no future" is v much an old school punk phrase rooted in nihilism, while new school punk has coalesced much more around queer leftism. At the same time, the queer leftist scene is derived from the prior nihilist iteration, and I feel like it goes missed in a lotta circles.

I'm thinking of this 'cuz I read Jonas Goonface's The Unsinkable Ship of Fools today, a porn comic about a bunch of vagrant carnies cursed to ride a magic train to nowhere. The philosophy of the book feels like it's straddling this generational divide; on the one hand, the incredibly diverse carnies murdered the original ringmaster and keep each other afloat, while on the other hand, they are stuck on the train 'til death do them part. No gods no masters, sure, but also no future – only each other.

It's this exulting in community—even and especially among the castoffs of society—that draws the line from early punk nihilism to modern punk leftism. If there's nothing but the now, then you gotta be there to help you & yours get as much "now" as y'all can get. Whether through drugs or food, sex or smooches, get while the getting's good, 'cuz there ain't gonna be an "after" for you. Cops, bosses, and politicians are all tryin' to shrink your "now," so band together and tell 'em to get fucked as long as you can. A better world won't exist – but you still gotta believe in it so you know what's worth fighting for & fighting about.

Anyways I wanna hang out with pretty much all o' the folks from the Ship of Fools (I am absolutely a sucker for Sidney x_x) and that made it hard to get really horny about the porn tbh. "No future" is an interesting phrase that I dunno that I can fully live, given my frankly solidly moneyed upbringing & current position, but I try to keep it in mind when looking beyond myself. There's definitely a class of online leftists that needs to take a dose of old punk nihilism, and another class of online leftists that needs to learn how to hope despite it. This has been: Niko thinking.

7/30/25 update: the Cartoonist's Cooperative has collected much of the below information & more (including a refined script) on their own website, available here: https://cartoonist.coop/censorship-pay-discrimination

On July 16, Steam capitulated to pressures from payment processors to delist a number of porn games. Overnight between July 23 and July 24, Itch.io did the same. The story is being told again: payment processors are becoming the de facto morality police in online storefronts, and nothing is being done about it by those with institutional power.

I don't know what to do. Collective Shout suggests their recent "victory" was in part due to directly emailing the executives of payment processors to get them to apply pressure. I have no idea how they got those email addresses to do the same back. The best I can do with my resources is contact these payment processors in return and protest the recent pressure they've been applying. Based on a post on Bluesky, the major sources of pressure are PayPal, Stripe, and Payoneer. Visa and MasterCard engage with all of them. So, here is a list of these companies' contact information, and what I'm going to be sending and telling to each of them.

• PayPal: 1-888-221-1161 for customer support (+44-0203-901-7000 international)
• Stripe: if you have an account you can go through their support page, otherwise you can badger the LLM assistant into hooking you up with an email box; both are available here (click "I can't sign in" to get the LLM assistant to pop up): https://support.stripe.com/contact/login
• Payoneer: you can directly message them w/o an account here: https://payoneer.custhelp.com/app/ask/l_id/1/c/7274
• Visa: email askvisa@visa.com and call 1-800-847-2911 in the US/Canada (1-800-125-440 in Australia)
• MasterCard: 1-800-627-8372 (+1-636-722-7111 international)

I'm [writing/calling] to file a complaint about [company]'s recent pressuring of Itch.io and Steam to delist or remove adult content from their platforms. Adult content is legal to produce and sell to adults. As evidenced by looking at PornHub, incest (whether explicit or cloaked in step-sibling/step-parent relationships) is a very popular fetish which is similarly legal, if polarizing to many. The use of your policies to deplatform adult content is depriving working creators of income and opens you to discriminating against queer and LGBT+ artists by conservative bigots arguing that their mere presence is "inappropriate for minors." The internet—and the world more broadly—is intended for adults, who should be able to purchase adult content. Please end your policies preventing the distribution of legal adult content by adults, for adults.