People keep using charts to say, "Hey look, wages are growing faster than inflation. If you feel squeezed it's just your imagination, so quite whining, you big baby."

But as a designer, I know these charts are bullshit, and I'm going to explain why. 🧵🧵🧵 Problem #1: When the line goes down, prices went down, right? No, when the line goes down, it only means growth has slowed—unless it goes below 0%.

Contrary to popular belief, inflation *can* go negative. It's called "deflation," a word that terrifies executives and investors.

This image isn't from a Nintend-related cartoon. It's from Galactic Patrol, a Lensman animated series released two years before The Legend Of Zelda.

This is a continuation of an epic thread started last night. Link below if you missed part one.

https://twitter.com/katewillaert/status/1434325236237864963

Just to be clear, Nintendo's Zelda wasn't blonde until a few games into the series. And Miyamoto says her name was proposed by some PR person who was thinking of F. Scott Fitzgerald's wife Zelda.

Still, it makes you wonder about her later looks.

Streamline Pictures was founded by two animation-fans-turned-pros who wanted anime to be mainstream in America. Their first U.S. theatrical release was Castle In The Sky.

In 1989, they distributed Akira and Lensman. One is considered a classic, the other mostly forgotten. In Japan, Lensman was extremely influential. A quick search of shmuplations.com reveals that Gradius' aesthetic was heavily inspired by Lensman, and Capcom's Akiman was "obsessed."

But in America, people who saw Lensman right after seeing Akira were not as impressed.

The only thing I don't like about the word "Metroidvania" is that it falsely gives appearance that Castlevania contributed as much to the genre as Metroid, if only "Metroidvania" didn't sound so much cooler than "Metroid-like."

But I think I've figured out a solution... What if we just called everything a "-vania"? Okay, maybe not literally everything, but if we could popularize just two other "-vania" genres, the suffix "-vania" would essentially shift to just mean "-like"!

Would you rather play a Roguelike, or a Roguevania?

So I guess Shang-Chi is going to be the movie that breaks my 10-year stretch of seeing every MCU movie in the theater. FOMO isn't enough to outweigh the possibility of a breakthrough infection. I don't even like theaters, I only go to the theater to see these out of FOMO.

When I went to see Black Widow, Cinemark had multiple "trailers" that were like "aren't you glad the movie theater experience back??" and I was like "NOPE! (But this was cheaper than digital!)"

Last month I told you about the first Easter Eggs in video games, but even earlier Eggs existed in other software.

Who created the first software Easter Egg? I thought this mystery was unsolvable, until a team-up with Ed Fries.
acriticalhit.com/make-love-not-… This is a two-parter, and you get to pick which order you read them in! Here's Ed Fries' side of the adventure:

edfries.wordpress.com/2021/05/23/who…