The Sword of the Conqueror
Notes compiled 1489 DR (AC, SCRTRN)

I feast on spoilers; I actively seek them out. I typically read the last page of a book first - just one more way in which I am an iconoclast, whose zesty street wisdom is incalculable by the undifferentiated Norm. The problem is that there exists a kind of Reverse Market for this type of illicit information, and it's generally flooded with nonsense.

Here's what's going on there today:

(Here's the strip. I've never had a single interaction with Geoff Keighley that wasn't good, so there's no beef; I just do a lot of public appearances too and it's a very fragile time. Here's today's Acquisitions Incorporated: The "C" Team fic, with art by Kate Welch, that is to say, Rosie Beestinger.)

I've wanted to see The Last Jedi ever since I got out of the theater for The Force Awakens. Arguably, I've wanted to see it ever since I knew there was such a thing as Star Wars. You know me; I've wanted people to ask hard questions about these fucking Space Wizards from the jump. It seems like we might be getting there? Anyway, it's out next week and that seems a little crazy, but I am "not mad at it."

The Little Mouth was coiled, asleep, around the dagger that was its child.

As is firmly established, I really, really like it when reviews for a game do not generate consensus. It can mean a few different things: for example, it might be a bad game game whose fetishists tolerate (or even laud) its worst tendencies. I'm certainly guilty of this; that fact that I don't "see art" means that there's an entire band of data I don't perceive and it leads to tension between myself and my friend Glob. In my defense, I played text adventures and games I had to load from cassette tapes, and my aesthetics haven't really changed that much.

I picked up Xenoblade Chronicles 2 for the Switch last week and have not been able to put it down. Yesterday on Twitter I mentioned a Reddit post that I found super helpful when it comes to the combat. Even if you’re not playing Xenoblade it’s a pretty funny read. The combat system is so completely bonkers you end up having to say shit like this while trying to explain it: Bursting 1 orb extends the Chain Attack for 1 round. You can burst multiple orbs in 1 round and that would extend the Chain Attack to the number of orbs burst.

Yes, we just did, like, three PAXes, but there is another one fast approaching - and it is in need of Enforcers! This august body makes PAX what it is, and South especially needs your help. Check out the Enforcer page for South and, thus inspired, take a moment to fill out the application. Here are common Qs, with the As following dutifully behind.

I always try my best to maintain Christmas Posture, to run along the authorized channels, but Christmas is dark time literally and also figuratively. It's dark. I looked out my window last night into the kind of darkness that would make a man invent God.

Gabriel "rides" books; he straps in and they take him places. He got in because he wanted to go somewhere and he's pretty determined to get there. I stopped being able to do that for some reason. Now, I read a book the way a contractor might walk through a house, trying to assess its stability. I'm looking at the joists. I put a laser level on the floor and scrunch up my chin. And then, while the owners look on, I click out the tip of my pen and drop some bleak science.

Prophetess Dran's mother had told her she was more tree than girl, when she was little; it was a compliment. If the child had any say in the matter, she rarely had two feet on the ground.

I wouldn't play a Bethesda open world game without mods; it's a truth universally acknowledged and so forth. I typically install mods before I start playing to make it so the inventory UI makes sense at all on a computer. I doubt this is even perceived as insulting to the people who made it. And even if it were, they're the ones who put all those Goddamn brooms everywhere. We gotta find a middle ground.

I had a great time at PAX Unplugged and like most folks who went, I came home with a sack of games. I picked up Pocket Madness because the cards are beautiful and I can’t help myself when confronted with great art. It turns out it’s actually a solid game too which is a nice bonus! Tycho described it correctly as a combination between Rummy and Uno. I brought it home and played it with Kara, and both boys so it’s great for the entire family.

The psychic voltage generated by a PAX show is always sufficient to catalyze another round - no matter how tired I might be, no matter how many Human Interactions Per Minute (HiPM) I may have sustained, I receive energy sufficient to manufacture an entirely new self capable of iterating another show the weekend after. This has been true of PAX Unplugged as well, but more than that, I feel like I've undergone some kind of a chemical peel on my spirit and that my freshest layer has been revealed.

I can recall years and years ago trying to get Grib into Oblivion, back on the 360. I prepared the scene the way one might craft a Date Night scenario. I considered candles but did not execute. I don't know if his literal arms were folded but his spirit arms, The Arms Within, were laced before him in a defensive posture.