Valentine Powell
@valentineirl.bsky.social
Queer nerd who makes stuff for video games (they/them). Current: Wizards of the Coast. Formerly: Crop Circle Games, Playable Worlds, Blizzard. Opinions posted here do not reflect the opinions of my employers either present or past.
Honestly so annoyed how much of recent/upcoming queer rep in media is hyperfixated on queer traumas. Setting all the plots around disease or times when gay guys had to be in the closet. Every time I see some new show announced with gay guys in it, it feels like its always truama now.
Finally watching Person of Interest. Theres a point where the machine is running through a hundreds of thousands of scenarios for a path forward, and I love that it takes time to ship two of the people together as part of the simulation. So me coded tbh.
"Commitment to maximum employment" team hires the person who just did massive layoffs and two AI tech bros trying to create tools to reduce human workforce. This is basically the plot of an Outer Worlds questline. www.pcgamer.com/gaming-indus...
US Federal Reserve taps Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, who just laid off 3,200 employees, to lead task force on jobs
The Federal Reserve says its newly-announced task forces represent a "commitment to price stability and maximum employment."
pcgamer.com
Union promises to take "all necessary legal and contractual action" to fight for laid-off workers as impacts on Blizzard, id Software become clear aftermath.site/microsoft-xbox...
The effects of the Xbox layoffs yesterday are going to ripple for years to come. There is so much heartbreak, grief, and anger coming from all directions of my network right now. I am so incredibly sad for what is going on in our industry.
Yearly reminder, if you want to be an ally, assume that all characters in media are gay unless explicitly told otherwise.
As of today our vote has been officially certified! ^_^ www.nlrb.gov/case/19-RC-3... Our next step is to get ourselves into a local and begin voting on representatives ^_^.
Just remember, any time a headline is phrased as a question, the answer to the question is usually "no."
Literally crazy that the autopay interest reduction for student loans only applies to loans that originated after 2012. So those of us who have been paying the longest but still have crazy payments because of ridiculous interest rates dont get any benefit.
We have won the union vote by a huge margin! ^_^ So excited, looking forward to the certification at the end of this week and then moving on to contract negotiations! Thank you so much to everyone in our community supporting us!
When you and your SO both work in the games industry, the truism is that you shouldn’t work at the same company. You don’t want to both get laid off at the same time. Everyone in our industry basically lives with the 1/10 chance every year of getting laid off, best you can hope is to stagger them.
Been watching Resident Alien for 5 seasons. Its been cute and silly. I didn't expect for season 6 to hit me in my soul. I've been crying. What a blindside this season is, I was not expecting it.
So anyway Rogue is still in superhell while the Doctor turned into his ex situationship then the show ended. Rogue deserved better.
The anti lgbt folks are having a Very Normal Time of it.
kate bush’s husband@airbagged.bsky.social · 2mo agoBeen laughing at this for 45 minutes straight
Excited for Persona 6 but not expecting it for 3-5 years since no trailer or release date was given. Very excited for the new Fable with that trailer. Clockwork Revolution looks like an interesting gameplay mechanic, and I'm excited to try Metro for the first time if its co-op.
Drinking game, drink every time a game uses the term Spartan in the Xbox showcase
Worst part of AI is that all the sci fi we were fed was like “you will be pressured into using it” but irl it’s worse than that. There’s no opt in or even opt out in most AI, everything you use is putting AI in place of itself without any consent.
Every time a cis person asks me about being trans, I ask them how their gender is working out for them. Every time they basically just describe the plot of The Enigma of Amigara Fault to me.
Rebekah was so wonderful and kind to talk to and handled this story in such a respectful and thoughtful way. This is in the article but highlighting: the NLRB does NOT require legal names, they work with whatever list the employer gives them for elections, it can be chosen names.
Kotaku@kotaku.com · 2mo agoLast week, WOTC leadership deadnamed a number of transgender Magic: The Gathering Arena employees in front of their coworkers as part of the lead-up to a union election. The company apologized...then did ... https://kotaku.com/wizards-of-the-coast-trans-employees-magic-the-gathering-arena-2000702039
In a statement to @benmullin.bsky.social, Scott Pelley disputes what Bari Weiss said in this morning's editorial meeting, claiming he was never offered "a way back" as she claimed. "These executives cannot gain the trust of the staff with lies. This is antithetical to everything we stand for..."
Been an interesting slew of new movies/shows that are explicitly homoromantic but ultimately pull a "no homo" in the end: DTF St Louis Half Man Peacemaker Humpday Stranger Things Saltburn Challengers Where the relationships are either one sided, or ultimately decide neither is gay.
Saw someone recommend "Off Campus" if you liked Heated Rivalry. Looked it up and Off Campus is a straight romance set in the world of hockey. Imagine thinking people liked Heated Rivalry because of hockey... wild misread my dude.
So after openly deadnaming all our trans folks last week, leadership apologized, but then did not update employee's names for the vote today. This means our trans employees are being forced to openly deadname themselves in order to vote in today's union election. This is deeply fucked.
I spoke to two members of United Wizards of the Coast-CWA about new and baffling anti-union efforts from WotC management, including an embarrassing "debate" format that nobody enjoyed. Workers also extended sympathy to Arena supervisors who are caught in the propaganda machine with little recourse.
Rascal News@rascal.news · 2mo agoMembers of @uwotc-official.bsky.social described a May 28 meeting with Wizards of the Coast management as an all but forced hour of anti-union propaganda. It's the latest in a mounting campaign that workers told Rascal includes constant emails, letters, and forced training for Arena supervisors.
I really like this article, Chase was a pleasure to talk to. www.rascal.news/mtg-arenas-n...
MTG Arena’s nascent union faces “optional” meetings, letters to homes, and management closing ranks
With a union vote looming, United Wizards of the Coast faces classic union busting from the tabletop industry’s largest company.
rascal.news
Anyway a bunch of my trans coworkers just got deadnamed because leadership just copy pasted a bunch of their legal names as part of defining who is in-person vs remote voting and then blasted those names out to the entire team.
A bunch of new anti-union emails came in while I was on my Memorial Day weekend, so fun, got to come up with a bunch of new hands to play now lol.
Genuinely, I need games that I install on my D drive to stop caching 5-10 gigs of data on my C drive. Thats not for you.
