Wandering Adventure Party

@yora Also, even a lot of vanilla stuff isn't flavorless, it's just that we put vanilla in a lot of other flavors too to the point we've basically trained our palates to "vanilla = plain sweets"

@SJohnRoss This is reminding me to break out the DVDs because I need to watch Orphan Black again

@scribblemacher Would Metroid 4 be fusion in this case?

(Thinking Metroid, Metroid 2, Super Metroid, Fusion in this line)

@georgepenney I have a Royal and an Underwood myself. But I really do enjoy the looks of Olympias and Olivettis

@ghost Whole game worth of extra hockey there.

@nixCraft Let them amonst us who has not made the big oopsie throw the first stone

Earlier today I talked about attempts to take a look at some of the foundations of sci fi and urban fantasy literature.

The Onion Girl is the first of Charles de Lint's stories that I've read. There's a lot of milieu and found family here. I enjoyed it but it might not be for those looking for faster paced works.

CW on the Book for sexual assault, family abuse, drug use, and 1990s depictions of sex work

Revisiting the Classics: The Onion Girl by Charles de Lint

Since the beginning of 2025, I’ve been interested in revisisting some of the classic works in the genres I enjoy. Originally the revisit was brought on by an interest in the Traveller Roleplaying Game and a list of influential science fiction works. From there, I got an interest in some of the classical urban fantasy works. Especially after reading the list of personal recommendations from Seanan McGuire. Neither this book, nor this author appears on McGuire’s list, but Newford and Charles de Lint come up often enough in urban fantasy recommendations that when The Onion Girl went on sale in ebook form, I decided to take a look.

Alex Keane (alexanderkeane.com)

#Bookstodon #UrbanFantasy #Review

I've been making a concerted effort to read some classics of my favorite genres and it's interesting to note how "of their time" each is in different ways.

From science fiction that will examine any social structure BUT sexism, to early urban fantasy that is very much of the 90s-00s "happy endings are for babies" camp. All have definite reflections of their time.

#Bookstodon

Been thinking about what's useful to see in book reviews lately as I've taken advantage of my NetGalley account to get early access to stuff I'm excited about.

Precisely because limited time mixed with a long list of exciting books has mostly left me picky with books *before* I start them, I tend to rate things highly, because I grab things I expect I'll like and tend to be right.

So I've been thinking more about how to describe the how and why I'm drawn to stories, more useful than stars.

@noplasticshower This is reminding me I have Foundation and Empire and Second Foundation waiting on my e-reader. Reread Foundation earlier this year and really enjoyed it.

Aggie Beever-Jones in the 90+1' with space for what looks like it'll be the winner!

This Chelsea-Liverpool match has been a fun one to watch even if neither keeper got challenged too much before now.

#MastodonFC #ChelseaFCWomen

@StefanEJones Just last week, my senator was visiting with some county officials in the county where I work.

There were *two* protesters just standing across the street from the building where the meeting was taking place with signs.

Everyone I ran into was asking questions about what was up. Even just two people got folks talking.

@OctaviaConAmore Yeah, while at first the silly placeholders made me laugh, the inconsistency means filters need 80 thousand variations to block it all, while being overly inclusive of the fuzzy red Muppet when you just dont want to hear any more about the billionaire fascist.

It's not like this is X or TikTok where you gotta try and get around *official* filters. Just respect people's choices about what they have the bandwidth to engage with.

Reading classic #SciFi is sometimes really freaking weird.

Oh here's an enlightened society looking past historical class structures. Also, here's a society where the women walk around naked with their super perky boobs because the boobs store the extra blood that make the women of this matriarchal society extra smart. The smart is stored in the tits. It's science.

(Ensign Flandry by Poul Anderson in this case)

#Bookstodon #MenWritingWomen

@wyzard My own "terrain" is just wet erase art on vinyl mats.

Though I prefer tokens to minis too because then description can be fully my thing, not controlled or influenced by what minis I happen to have on hand

Got my Vita working again earlier this week, so spent some free time playing #FF7 because it's the one I never actually got to the end of disc 1 before.

Got through the initial Mako reactor raid in my morning free time.

#RPG #GameDad

Finally getting around to watching past episode 2 of #WheelOfTime

I honestly really like the portrayal of Nynaeve in the show. Also, Thom Merrilin is great.

Now I just gotta figure out how to work in my Wheel of Time reread. Maybe track down the tor.com reread posts by Leigh Butler. I kept up with those while I read through originally waiting for A Memory of Light

@jhankins See also the "didn't need to go into tons of debt for a shot at a good job" argument.

Just that same argument with bonus class warfare on white vs. Blue collar

@JessTheUnstill In addition to merchandising, I think it's also a ship version of the "One Steve Rule" or Animation's silhouette rule.

For the stories Star Wars is telling, they want you to know who's who on sight. So while in-lore, the YT-1300 freighter is basically a Ford Country Squire, once super popular, now basically gone, you need to see it and think Han Solo

@ifixcoinops I was a kid during the PS1 era. Like that attachable monitor for the PSOne mini console seemed like the coolest thing to me growing up.

I remember really enjoying Final Fantasy 9 (i was like 10 when it came out), Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, Twisted Metal, Parasite Eve, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater.

I literally bought a memory card of my own to use with a friend's PS1 to play FF9.