@kezarus.bsky.social - I enjoyed the demo enough to pick up Untold Tales. After 60 hours with it, I have thoughts. Are you interested in feedback?

Picked up Avowed, and am pleasantly surprised so far! The writing is strong, and feels like a much better balance of humor and gravity than Outer Wilds—a nice course correct. I’m a little less taken by the PoE—just feels weird to experience it outside the CRPG format.

This is so goddamn funny

A lot of “this might be the end” videos over on TikTok. Genuinely sad to see some good entertainers, educators, designers, cooks, authors, advocates, and creatives of all stripes lose the communities they’ve worked hard to build up over the last 4 or 5 years.

Anyone out there have a good handle on the BlueSky algorithm?

I want to throw out a thank you to all those creators who make and share free battle maps for TTRPGs and VTTs. You are all life savers. I have joined the Patreon of some of you for a month or two in appreciation, but there are always more of you than my limited disposable income can accommodate.

If you’re familiar with playing TTRPGs in front of an in-person audience (as player or audience) BEFORE 2009, I’d love to hear about your memories. You can comment or email Ecfriedman at auburn dot edu This is for Polygon (& probably book), so please let me know how’d you’d like to be cited.

Just had a wild idea for a story, was very excited by it, only to then have a “wait, are we the baddies?” moment as I began fleshing out the premise. Colonization and imperialism are hard themes to break away from and stop valorizing in sci-if/fantasy.

I haven’t run it yet—but my first read through of the campaign left me underwhelmed… there seemed to be too many key moments where the campaign expects the players to essentially take a back seat to the NPCs.

New year, new price gouging in Canadian grocery stores.

I’m obliged to attend a relatively big New Year’s bash full of audio pros, indie musicians, and academics tonight. Thinking about live-skeeting it purely out of self-defense.

It should be legal to throw things at the cars of drivers honk impatiently at school buses.

Canadians should be seen and not heard.

Something that has been bothering me for a few years is the apparent acceptance of high-turnover among non-academic staff at my institution, especially among student services, and the seeming lack of interest in investigating and addressing the issue.

Don’t you hate it when you’re deep into a long series of books, go to check the release date of the next one, only to find the author has passed away?

The problem isn’t**

Seven years ago I was part of a task force mandated to by the head of our university to investigate issues facing respect and dialogue at our campus. We worked tirelessly, consulting with all levels of students, staff, and faculty. We tapped experts and research…

Been seeing a lot of “be your genuine self and surround yourself with other authentic people” posts lately. Counterpoint: some of us don’t have that luxury. Some of us have to mask, simply to get by or to remain employed, as absolutely exhausting as it is.

Totally agree. Don’t give readers any reason to think you’re condoning the behaviors, and you shouldn’t have any issues.

I enjoy a lot of your interests, just not enough to turn to them regularly or to call myself a fan :)

Experiencing some cognitive dissonance watching Murder in a Small Town. As someone with family in Gibsons, and who has spent a lot of time there, it’s really neat to see it playing itself on screen again! But it’s being presented as an American town. What nonsense is this?

Literature hot take of the day: Sanderson is fine. Not amazing, not bad… just… fine. I find myself a lot less interested in rereading his works than I initially thought.