If there's one relationship rule that is absolutely reliable, it is that you should definitely date popular singer-songwriters with no concern at all for how your eventual breakup will figure into their next chart-topper.

Jólabókaflóðið 2025! jamesdavisnicoll.com/post/j%C3%B3...

Culturally appropriate seasonal wishes or lack thereof, according to your chosen norms! jamesdavisnicoll.com/post/seasona...

Ah, memories of very carefully catching and removing bats from the hospital. I was very concerned about not accidentally breaking their little bones. No thought at all about rabies. Wonder how many timelines I eliminated?

This is not ideal.

Tabletop RPGs I played in 2025: Brindlewood Bay Fabula Ultima Warhammer: The Old World I feel like I missed one... #ttrpg

Galactic empires must offer tremendous scope for pretentious food critics.

I just remembered a series I used to beg the SFWA not to buy, where the business model was a disgraced writer who exploited naive MFAs to do the writing. Being non-specific because I'd like not to be sued. I bet that guy is using LLMs to replace the MFAs.

Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon (Lost Souls, volume 1) by Mizuki Tsujimura What would you do if you could meet a dead loved one one last time? Ayumi Shibuya can make that happen. jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/swimm...

This is a job for Polymorph, right? Bard gets turned into a gelatinous cube, keeps their Int, Wis, and Cha?

I don't know why the Atlantic feels Canadians make an effort to make Americans look silly. www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHUW...

A runaway down which two very surprised and increasingly alarmed kids were biking when the plane touched down behind them. The weird thing is, that happened a second time to one of the kids.

I thought of a really stupid pun I was going to inflict on you all but then I realized I could get paid for it.

I managed to source acceptable wicker in time for the holidays but where does one find naive British coppers for an affordable price?

Bundle of Holding: Old Gods of Appalachia An all-new Bundle featuring the Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game, the tabletop game of eldritch horror from Monte Cook Games based on Steve Shell and Cam Collins' Old Gods of Appalachia anthology podcast. bundleofholding.com/presents/App...

Is there a way to read Order of the Stick so that each comic is centred? This is what I see when I click to the next strip.

Next: is eating babies bad now? Please answer our poll because we're not sure.

Is the Guardian still relentlessly transphobic?

A Torrent of Faces by James Blish & Norman L. Knight In honour of Blish's Prometheus nomination, Blish and Knight's classic fascist utopia! jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/baby

But surely if there was some sort of issue their reply wouldn't have been a quiet "fine"?

Given Benford's Law, isn't it wasteful to teach American kids about numerals 8 and 9?

Bundle of Holding: DIE the RPG The DIE roleplaying game designed by the Image comic's creators, Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans, plus three volumes of adventures for an unbeatable bargain price! bundleofholding.com/presents/DIE...

Watched about 10 minutes of 2023's The Abyss and huh, I guess drunk Swedish teens aren't any better at judging risk than their North American counterparts.

I would be comfortable if Carney promised to consider a white paper on the possibility of at some point dialing back the boycott on yank booze should circumstances allow after the US concedes the Alaska panhandle & New England. www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHbU...

Kicking a translated work down the road into 2026 because while it's dreadful in a way I can talk about, it would be the last review of 2025 and I don't want to end on that note.

Inspired by I am waiting for OG supers, plus I read a volume of Momoko's X-Men: PCs are teens! With super-powers! No superheros or supervillains as such. It's just a slice of life high school story where for some reason some of the kids can fly, lift cars or melt steel with hard look. (con't)

I was today years old when I discovered Olivia Newton-John's father took Rudolf Hess into custody during World War II.

You know what hasn't gone away even more reliably than AI? Cocaine, the writers' helper! Owe your publisher the next four volumes in your secondary fantasy universe series by next Friday? Cocaine will make sure you deliver words in a row!

The Compleat Enchanter (Incomplete Enchanter, volume 1) by L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt Harold Shea seeks escape from mundane life in tales of myth and magic. jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/lost-...

I had a very odd encounter with the author. I made a snarky comment about Alongside Night on LiveJournal (in the days when the top three Anglophone accounts were GRRM, Ursula Vernon, and me) and an angry Shulman showed up to shout at me. Except then (con't)

I actually have a long list of things I'd like for Christmas, being a greedy product of the 20th century, but up near the top is having another CPC MP cross the floor just before Poilievre's leadership review. (Doesn't even have to be to the Liberals. The NDP or Greens would be hilarious)

Someone else's cat antics reminded me of that time Ibid, who I had just acquired, discovered tiny Nameless asleep in her closet cubby hole and "rescued" her by hauling her out of the closet by the scruff of her neck.

I am going to run something set in the 1970s just so I can explain to my 20-something players that the reason their characters don't mind the clouds of cigarette smoke is because the miasma of tetra-ethyl lead killed their sense of smell.

Huh, have not got to use the term SFWAdenfreude in years.

Isn't it time Martha Wayne's necklace had its own origin story?

Abeni and the Kingdom of Gold (Abeni’s Song, volume 2) by P. Djèlí Clark In which history long forgotten is recovered. jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/forgo...

The Merro Tree by Katie Waitman A determined artist faces potentially lethal criticism. jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/learn...

Has any SF novel has ever given a Space Venice a Bridge of Psis?

SPI's Universe was the first one I bought to run. I loved Traveller but Universe had a three dimensional map!

Bundle of Holding: Tales of the Valiant The tabletop fantasy roleplaying game from Kobold Press of high adventure in a Labyrinth of infinite worlds, and more. bundleofholding.com/presents/Tal...

I need to hire the Great Pyramid of Giza to construct a NO large enough.

Princess Jellyfish, volume 1 by Akiko Higashimura Can a community of otaku save their apartment building from gentrification? Should a community of otaku save their apartment building from gentrification? jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/siste...

Can Canadian provinces be trusted with, well, _anything_?

My second last Fabula Ultima session got to the finale I wanted at the proper end of the session. So, in the final, the PCs get to deal with a leviathan.

Eh. I should look around for a AI-free browser.

Can I replace the dairy in recipes with other foods whose names contain the same letters?

Is it time for online creators to pivot to oil paintings? We ask five art supply stores.

I am grateful to other Ontario cities for making the Ion light rail look good by comparison.

Five Books About Conversing With Animals How great would it be to talk with animals, through magic or technology or… whatever? reactormag.com/five-books-a...

I am the reason Waterloo Oxford DSS has a trebuchet policy.