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Now that I don’t have a commute, I really had to create time to finish my latest audiobook, but it was worth it. Today I finished Welcome to Night Vale: A Novel, the first book put out by the team behind the Welcome to Night Vale fiction podcast and set in the same universe (as is likely apparent by the title). This book was written by Jeffrey Cranor and Joseph Fink.

First, I don’t believe you need familiarity with the podcast to enjoy the novel. Nor do you need to read the novel if you’re a podcast listener; it builds on what listeners may know, but also centers incredibly peripheral characters from the show (local PTA mom Diane Crayton and pawn shop owner Jackie Fierro), so if you’re a podcast only fan, you’re not missing any crucial story information by forgoing the book. If you’re not a listener of the podcast, I think as long as you go in understanding that the core of Night Vale is the absurd and the surreal, you’ll be okay.

This was a fun book! I was curious to see how the Night Vale Presents team would manage a longform story in the world of Night Vale (podcast episodes are about 25 minutes and almost always self-contained), and I think they did a solid job! The book can be a bit slow, especially in the beginning; the drip of information it feeds you about the mysteries at the center of the story is indeed a drip. But it wasn’t so slow I found it tiresome, and the typical Night Vale weirdness and eccentricity kept me listening even where I wasn’t sure where this story was going (if anywhere).

It does a remarkably good job of translating a typical Night Vale podcast to full-length novel format. It includes the same wide-lens look at Night Vale, anecdotal strangeness, and moments of tender feeling that characterize the podcast episodes. It completely retains the “voice” of a podcast episode without straining itself too much. There are times when it becomes a little sidetracked with its own asides, and it seems keen to mention as many things from the podcast as it can, and once in a while it wears its own jokes down (“a vague yet menacing government agency” was very funny the first time; less so the sixth or seventh), but these complaints are quite minor and on the whole I had a lot of fun listening to this.

Between every couple chapters there are snippets of Cecil’s radio show commenting on various episodes around town, which usually tie into whatever Diane and Jackie are experiencing, and these short interludes help tie the novel to the podcast without being irritating or obtuse to someone who is not a podcast listener. As always, he does a particularly good job relating horrifying but typical Night Vale tales in a wholly unperturbed and even indifferent voice, which is always funny.

The audiobook is narrated by Cecil Baldwin, the same voice actor who narrates the podcast, and he excels here just as well; his voice is so soothing to listen to, and he differentiates between character voices well without veering into the annoying or excessively silly. There are also some guest appearances from other voice actors from the podcast.

Ultimately it returns to a theme which Night Vale perennially returns to—family. What counts as family, intra-family relationships, how to repair damaged family bonds, and when, perhaps, to cut ties with family. I think it has great success on this topic and I really enjoyed watching Diane’s relationship with her fifteen-year-old son Josh play out.

The other theme I would highlight is finding yourself. Jackie is nineteen at the start of the book and there’s a sense from many around her that she’s considered immature, and people feel she needs to grow up. Jackie isn’t sure how to do that or if she’s ready, and she struggles with this throughout the story. But even Diane, approaching middle age (she was quite young when she had Josh), deals with some identity development (at several points in the novel, Diane acknowledges that she “didn’t think of herself as the sort of person to do [X]” and yet here she is doing X). These story arcs are also rewarding, both in how Diane and Jackie push each other to grow, as well as how they grow on their own.

Overall, I think anyone, podcast listener or not, can enjoy Welcome to Night Vale: A Novel, and the zany foibles of its characters—sometimes a social commentary on our own world, sometimes just an exercise in “wouldn’t it be strange/funny/scary if…”

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Current Mood: cheerful

jaininae

I remember Sarah Sunstone on Youtube talking about this game about a year or two ago now (she's great for cozy game news and to my knowledge was one of the few cozy game YTers that didn't fuck with Hogwarts Legacy, bless). Initially I was pretty excited about playing it until I heard it had gatcha. At the time, I wasn't really aware of the freebie elements to the game, and as time wore on when I started hearing Controversy around the game (i.e. making it more grindy and removing the daily free pulls or something) I thought to myself that I was smart to take a pass on the game.

Moment of silence for my weak willed hypocrisy..............................

( Read more... )

I'm probably going to talk about this game more further down the line. Infold today came out with a statement regarding some leaks that happened recently and said they were "Poison to all creation". I just shitposted about this on tumblr because I was completely unaware there were any leaks. But recently The Escapist wrote about how players were clowning on them for it.

Worth highlighting this part of the article:

Infinity Nikki launched at the tail end of 2024 and was well-received during the initial updates. At some point, a few versions into the game, they changed how the gacha system works for outfits, a core part of the game. Rather than just give the outfit as an item, the team split it into 11 pieces that would require a lot of goes on gacha to get all of them. That’s a lot of cash if you don’t have that buffer in place.

Yeah, what fuckin' genius came up with that idea post-launch of a fucking gatcha game?

owlmoose

I started the day with a crumpet and shopping at Pike Place Market, then headed over to the con, where I attended a panel and three readings.

A panel on writing for corporate IP with Rebecca Roanhorse, G. Willow Wilson, and Diana Ma (with whom I wasn't familiar; she's written various works for hire, most notably Power Rangers). It was an interesting conversation about the upsides and downsides of working in other people's sandboxes.
First reading: Fonda Lee, who read from a forthcoming sci-fi novel about warriors who are essentially samurai who work for multi-planetary corporations.
Second reading: Rebecca Roanhorse, who read a bit of her breakthrough short story ("Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience", which won a Hugo some years back), a bit of the third book in her epic fantasy series Between Earth and Sky, and a bit of a forthcoming story set in The Sixth World. I would note that in both her panel and her reading, she mentioned being a Hugo finalist for Best Series but disclaimed any expection that she might win, which made what happened at the ceremony tonight even more exciting.
Third reading: Marie Brennan, who read a short story that came out a year or two ago. It was a good story, but particularly interesting because it was originally going to be a fantasy trilogy. But for various reasons, she never wrote those books, and eventually she decided the big concept -- a revolutionary who decides the figurehead of the revolution needs to be assassinated -- could be told in short form.
And then of course the Hugos. As I mentioned earlier, I didn't vote this year because I wasn't engaged reading, watching, or critical analysis at all this cycle, but I still wanted to watch the ceremony. Lots of surprise winners -- at least, surprises to my circle, and also apparently to Rebecca Roanhorse herself in the case of Best Series. Some high points: Abigail Nussbaum on the importance of critics to fandom, Diana Pho's call to stand up to fascism, and Roanhorse and Lodestar winner Darcie Little Badger on the need for diverse voices in fiction. (Have multiple indigenous people ever won Hugos in the same year before?) The ceremony was okay, some hiccups in production -- particularly the lack of pronunciation guides. Worldcon also needs to decide once and for all how to handle nominees with large production teams, because long lists of participants are still getting laughs in the room, which I don't feel great about.

The con continues into tomorrow, but I'm taking off in the morning to move into the second phase of this vacation: an Oregon coast road trip with some friends who are flying into Portland tomorrow and Monday. So I say goodbye to con space for now, and consider whether I'll go to Los Angeles next year.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: You Must Remember This podcast

owlmoose

Hello from Seattle! I left home on Wednesday morning and got as far as Salem, OR (about an hour south of Portland). Arrived in Seattle around 3pm on Thursday, checked into the hotel, got my con badge, and did a quick spin around the dealer's room (where I ran into zahraa) before heading off to Writers with Drinks, an amazing reading featuring Cecelia Tan, Andrea Hairston, Charlie Jane Anders, Annalee Newitz, Darcie Little Badger, and Becky Chambers. All the readers were excellent, and Charlie Jane provided them all with hilarious and extravagant fictional introductions, including herself. I think it's fair to say that this was the con-related event I was most excited to attend, and it lived up to my expectations.

I had half-planned to spend this morning at Pike Place Market, but it started raining last night and hasn't really let up, so I took it easy instead, visiting the art show and dealers room and then attending a few panels:

Martha Wells guest of honor reading, where she started with a passage from Queen Demon, the forthcoming book in her current fantasy series, and then answered some questions before rounding it out with her in-progress Murderbot story, which is scheduled for next May.
A panel called A Genre in Conversation with Itself, which is about the phenomenon of SFF authors writing stories in response to other stories. I picked this one mostly because of the panelists: Neil Clarke (editor of Clarksworld magazine), Becky Chambers, John Scalzi, Isabel Kim (the author of a Hugo-nominated short story that was a response to "Those Who Walk Away From Omelas")... and George R. R. Martin. Therefore, it was going to be a fascinating conversation and/or a train wreck, and either way I wanted to see it for myself. GRRM was almost 15 minutes late, complained a lot about film adaptations of books (Starship Troopers was a particular focus of his ire), and mourned the impulse to rewrite "The Cold Equations" with "a happy ending". Fortunately, other members of the panel managed to pull the panel back on topic and to talk about things less than 30 years old. The two insights I most appreciated came from Becky Chambers. First, she mentioned that Omelas and "The Cold Equations" are both stories taught in high school or college now, so lots of people have read them, and that explains not just the fact of many response stories but that they tend to come in waves, as each new generation of writers comes into their careers. The other was to note that a lot of "response fic" is appearing in the form of video games -- she specifically mentioned Clair Obscur as a response to the Final Fantasy series, which immediately added it to my to-play list.
More Martha Wells content: a live recording of the podcast Ink to Film, in which an author and a filmmaker read a book, then discuss its film adaptation. They also sometimes interview creators, and today they talked to her about Murderbot. They opened with a lovely series of videos from the show's main cast sharing their love and congratulations with Martha, then discussed the process of writing the books, optioning the story to filmmakers, and then creating the show. Although Wells wasn't directly involved with making the adaptation choices or writing the screenplays (although she did read all the screenplays and provide feedback), she got to choose between several teams who wanted to buy the option, and she was able to pick the people she felt most understood the character and the story she was telling. When we got to Q&A, she had to demur on almost every question about why specific changes were made: "You'd have to ask Phil and Chris; that was all Phil and Chris." That said, she seems extremely happy with the final product, which is great to hear (especially since I, too, loved that TV series a lot).

I then spent the rest of the evening with friends: dinner with illustratedpage and her friend (who was a surprise!Mawrter) followed by an hour at a local cat cafe with bookishdi, both lovely and relaxing times.

Tomorrow: Pike Place, several readings, and the Hugo Awards, god help us all.

Current Mood: good
Current Music: "No Escape, No Hurry" - Overclocked Remix

rocky41_7

Today I finished book #11 on the "Women in Translation" rec list: Concerning My Daughter by Kim Hye-Jin, translated from Korean by Jamie Chang. Also I got laid off. This book is about an a widow in her mid-70s who ends up sharing a home with her adult daughter and her daughter's partner. Her contentious relationship with her daughter pits her long-held beliefs and societal viewpoints against her love for her child; simultaneously, she struggles in her job caring for an elderly dementia patient in a nursing home.

The protagonist is a person who values, above all, keeping your head down and doing what's expected of you. She does not believe in standing out; she does not believe in involving yourself in other people's problems; perhaps for these reasons, she believes the only people you can ever count on are family. This is how she's lived her whole life, and she believes it was for the best. However, this mindset puts her directly in conflict with her daughter, a lesbian activist who is fighting for equal employment treatment for queer professors and teachers in the South Korean educational system.

When her daughter, Green, runs out of money to pay rent after a quarrel with the university where she was lecturing, the protagonist allows Green and her partner Lane to move in, despite their fractious relationship.

It is difficult to be in the point of view of someone like the protagonist, but the picture that Hye-Jin paints of her feels very realistic. The protagonist obviously loves her daughter as much as she is frustrated with her; she wants Green to give up her activism not because the protagonist is opposed to the idea of societal change, but because she sees the hardship Green's fights put on her, and she wants her daughter to have an easier, less dangerous life. Similarly, she opposes Green's queerness not because she has a fiery moral crusade against The Homosexuals, but because she sees how the rest of society treats gay women and she doesn't want a life of such struggles for her daughter (which is not to say she's not homophobic—she is, sometimes aggressively, but it's the sort of amorphous discomfort and "but which of you is the man in bed?" and "but what will the neighbors think?" kind of homophobia rather than the "you're going to burn in hell forever" kind).

Running parallel to that is the protagonist's relationship with her work. She cares for a woman, Jen, in a nursing home who is in the latening stages of dementia. Jen in her younger years was a remarkable woman with multiple degrees who worked in diplomacy and traveled the world. However, she never married or had children, and as such, the nursing home is increasingly encouraging the protagonist to deprioritize Jen's care, because there will be no one to complain on her behalf. Jen keeps a stack of her awards and diplomas in her bedside table, but the protagonist's coworkers frequently lament that Jen wasted her life because she never had kids.

The book is quite short, but the first half manages still to be somewhat repetitive—the protagonist is locked into repeating thought patterns and an active refusal to grow, but as the urgency of both plotlines rises at the midpoint of the novel, it leaves behind any repetitiveness. I was teary-eyed for much of the final third of the book. Both situations push the protagonist to realize that she is choosing not to do anything, not to change, not to grow, not to understand these situations as fully as she could. Even this woman reaches a point where she must put her foot down, to say no, this isn't right, I can't just watch this happen.

"It's not my fault, it's not your fault, it's no one's fault. If we keep telling ourselves that, then who should all the victims of the world go to for their apology?"

In this way, the book pushes back firmly against the idea of simply being old and unable to learn. The protagonist voices a feeling that she is fighting between two halves of herself—the half that wants to stick with what she knows, to do what's comfortable even though it's making her unhappy and destroying her relationship with her daughter; and the half that wants to change, to engage, at the risk of letting the unfamiliar into her life. But the struggle exists, change is possible, she just has to make it happen.

The ending is not going to make the Hallmark channel anytime soon; but again, it feels real. It is not a tearful falling into each other's arms between mother and daughter as they finally grasp a full understanding of each other; it is not even a total repudiation of the protagonist's earlier thoughts. But it is a promise to try to do better. I imagine it will be disappointing for readers who want radical change from (or else condemnation of) the protagonist, but it felt appropriate for a stubborn 70+ year old woman who loves her daughter but is fighting so many of her own instincts not to bother changing her perspective, to insist that she's been right all along.

The book is also critical commentary on South Korean society, both in how it treats queer people and how it treats old people. As one of the most rapidly aging societies in the world, the questions about the treatment of the elderly feel particularly pertinent in South Korea, but are applicable globally. At its heart, Concerning My Daughter is asking questions about what "counts" as a family. Do Green and Lane count, even though they can't, at the time this novel was published, get married? Does the protagonist count as a part of Jen's family, since she has no one else? Does the man whose education Jen financed when she was younger count?

The book shows how rigid concepts of family and acceptability can harm everyone involved, as well as how a broader view of these things can create joy, even where there may also be hardship.

The translation by Jamie Chang was serviceable. It brought through the blunt, hard-hitting language of the more difficult scenes, but it did come off somewhat stilted at other times. On the whole, it worked. However, for reasons I do not know, the book doesn't use quotation marks, which can make it very difficult to tell when someone is talking and when we're reading narration. If this was a stylistic choice, it wasn't worth the confusion it creates.

This book was a tough read despite its brevity, because of its subject-matter, but it also deals with extremely relevant and important issues, and presents them in a realistic and visceral way. This book won the Shin Dong-yup Prize for Literature in 2018 and I think it was earned.

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rocky41_7

I'm getting so good at dropping books guys. This failure to finish has been The Bone Harp by Victoria Goddard. Anyway this book is literally just fanfiction of The Silmarillion. This is literally just "Maglor returns to Valinor" AU fanfic. I mean...(the following is only mildly spoilery; it's all backstory revealed in the intro chapters):

Main character is a dark-haired former bard, renowned for his skills with harping and singing, such that he received a name referencing his "golden" voice, and particularly skilled in "Songs of Power", born during the "time of the Lamps" before the sun and moon existed. He is one of seven sons (including several "copper" redheads) of a famous linguist father and a crafty redheaded mother who, at his father's behest and along with his brothers, swears a bloody oath to retrieve a remarkable possession of his father's which was stolen by an ancient and powerful foe. He, along with a good number of his people--a group of elves known for their craftsmanship and inventiveness, and with a notable love of metal and jewels--but not his mother, who does not take the oath and remains behind in the elf lands (a relatively peaceful place separate and apart from the rest of the world with little strife or hardship)--travel across the sea where they live and war in exile. At the start of the novel, he is the only elf left in these lands and dreams of returning across the sea to the elf lands, where rumor has it formerly deceased elves may find life again after departing the Halls of the dead. Others refuse the call of the Halls and become "houseless" spirits. His hands have been crippled by burns after exposure to a magical fire, and he had spent thousands of years in solitude, unwilling or unable to come among others again after the many terrible acts he committed in service to his oath. Three of his six brothers died in a battle in the forest of the wood elves (a forest of oak and elm), including one who was a smith.

His oldest brother is notably talented swordsman who wanted to die at the end of his life and was the last one left alive with the protag after the other five brothers had died, and they were known for fighting together (the protag and the eldest brother). He had a lover/partner/spouse(?) he left behind because she refused to take the oath or leave the elf lands.

There's "Tolkienesque" and then there's "plagiarism" and this felt a lot more like the latter. If I wanted fanfic, I'd go look for fanfic. When I pick up a published book I'm looking for something remotely original, not a regurgitation of another author's work. It's unfortunate, because I actually enjoyed Goddard's writing, but I could not stop seeing this book as Silm (and Silm is, of course, better). I'll still give The Hands of the Emperor a try, because that's hopefully less painfully derivative.

Anyway if you want more Maglor fanfic, my AO3 is 0rocky41_7

rocky41_7

I follow hope-for-the-planet on tumblr, which shares positive environmental news, and today I learned that the Taylor's checkerspot butterfly is making a recovery in western Washington due to conservation efforts. It's a small thing, but it is good, and I think it's important to celebrate even small victories.

The article from KUOW is here for more information.

From the article:

"After two decades of work, including monitoring by scientists, a captive breeding program run by inmates at a local women's prison, and habitat conservation by the Nisqually Tribe, the Taylor's checkerspot butterfly seems to be improving and even doing better than expected."

rocky41_7

Today I wrapped up Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer, a horror/sci-fi novel with fantastical (?) elements about a biologist exploring a very unsettling landscape.

There are no names given in this book—the narrator and protagonist is simply "the Biologist," and she refers to her other three teammates by their job titles as well. Locations outside of the place they're exploring—Area X—are not given either, but the world is implied to be much the same as our own, with Area X a troubling and relatively recent anomaly. A private company hires the Biologist and her colleagues to venture into this strange place and take notes. They are the 12^th such expedition.

I appreciate that much of the horror in Annihilation isn't in-your-face: it's the slow build of things that are just off. This quiet and subtle approach means that when something extreme happens, it feels extreme. The Biologist and her colleagues know that Area X is dangerous before they venture in, but even so, they are unprepared for how and to what degree. VanderMeer's portrayal of how trust frays among relative strangers under these conditions felt realistic.

The Biologist herself is an interesting character. Many reviewers seem unable to connect to her or felt she wasn't fleshed out well, but I thought she was an intriguing female take on a scientist obsessed with their work. There simply isn't much to life for the Biologist outside her work—it is her life, in a way that even her husband never understood or appreciated. Among people, she can be cold, aloof, and disinterested, but presented with a tidepool or other transitional environment—her particular area of expertise—she comes alive. However, the book is narrated in first-person perspective, in the form of her field journal, so her reserved emotional distance from her own experiences can also put the reader at a distance. It makes perfect sense for her character, but it can verge on disengaging for the reader.

Her relationship with her husband is distant background to the ugly adventure unfolding in the present, but I also appreciated this portrayal of two people who loved each other, but didn't really understand each other, and the damage that did to their relationship, but with tenderness still lingering between them even as they recognize that their relationship has failed.

It's hard for me to review the core of this novel, because the story in a sense feels like it just got all the pieces set up. Annihilation is the first of four books in the Southern Reach series, and while I don't want to spoil anything about the ending, it feels almost like this first book is just setting the stage for what's to come.

And I am curious about what's to come. The book walks a careful line between whether what we're seeing is actual fantasy—magic--or if there's some rational, biological explanation for it which the Biologist simply lacks the understanding to articulate. Are there aliens involved? Did humanity cause this transformation of Area X? Has this been in the Earth all along, building? I would have appreciated a bit more information on Area X or the company sending these teams.

This is a slow burner, to be sure. That's not to say there's no action—things definitely happen here—but that even by the end of the first book I feel I don't really have a scope on Area X or what the Biologist will or can do now. This feels intentional on VanderMeer's part and I found this book engaging enough that I'm willing to play along a while longer, but I'm not sure I should expect any answers. Annihilation is a book that enjoys its mystery, and I expect this series will keep me guessing as long as it can.

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rocky41_7

"There was a wall. It did not look important. It was built of uncut rocks roughly mortared. An adult could look right over it, and even a child could climb it. Where it crossed the roadway, instead of having a gate it degenerated into mere geometry, a line, the idea of a boundary. But the idea was real. It was important. For seven generations there had been nothing more important than that wall."

I knew this book was going to hit hard from the opening paragraph above, and it did not disappoint. I've enjoyed Ursula Le Guin's work before--The Left Hand of Darkness is one of my favorite books—and I absolutely see why The Dispossessed is considered one of her crowning pieces. The setting for this book is a planet and its moon—Urras, the planet, is a lush world not dissimilar from Earth, which is home to several capitalist countries and at least one socialist country; and Anarres, the moon, which is a dusty, resource-scanty place home to a society of anarchists who fled from Urras just under two hundred years ago. The core of the novel concerns Shevek, a theoretical physicist from Anarres who chooses to relocate to Urras.

Le Guin captures truly great sci-fi because this work is so imbued with curiosity. Le Guin is asking questions at the heart of any great sci-fi work: What defines humanity? What can we achieve, and how is it done, and what does that mean for society? What is society? What does it mean to be alone? What does it mean to be part of a whole? To me, sci-fi can't be truly sci-fi without a measure of philosophy, and The Dispossessed has this in droves.

Not that Le Guin is necessarily positing answers. Even if you haven't read her quote about the specious inevitability of capitalism, you can tell she has opinions on it, but she doesn't fall into the trap of making her anarchist world a utopian solution to all problems of capitalism. There are problems on Anarres too—resources are scarce and life can be very uncomfortable; Shevek often feels stifled because, as his work is understood by so few people, there is broad disinterest in supporting him as his fellows cannot see why what he's doing matters; many of the same petty rivalries and jealousies that exist among us exist also among the Anarresti; and even in this extraordinarily decentralized society, there are still individuals seeking to accumulate whatever power they can.

Yet this is also true: the Anarresti conceive of themselves as a whole, succeeding or failing together. There is no money. There is always a roof or a meal for someone who needs it. There is little in the way of possessiveness, as ownership is universally scorned as egoistic. There is great willingness to do whatever work is presently most needed, regardless of personal desire or interest.

It might have also been easy for this book to become nothing but a parade of Shevek being shocked at various failings of Urresti society, but Le Guin avoids this clumsy narrative. Rather, we get a nuanced and touchingly real exploration of Shevek trying to adjust to a society he has so little context for (he was born and raised on Anarres); trying to weigh what he's been told about it (the Anarresti do not think very highly of the Urresti, nor vis-versa) against what he experiences himself; struggling with who, if anyone, should have access to his work and what responsibility he has as the theorist who may enable others to put his theories into practice.

Additionally, The Dispossessed is an effort at a practical look at a functioning anarchist society. Again, Le Guin is asking questions: What might this society look like? How does it work? What are its strengths, its weaknesses? How do people fit, or not fit, into this society? What philosophies or attitudes underpin their commitment to anarchism?

There are so many quotes I was underlining as I went through this book. I can tell it, like The Left Hand of Darkness, is one I will have to re-read: it's a book that will give something new each time. The whole work is naturally a reflection on our own world, inviting us to ask these same questions which Le Guin poses about Anarres and Urras about Earth. She has a deft hand with simply showing or explaining core elements of these questions, such as in the paragraph quoted above. This small paragraph is all she needs to remind us of the power and depth of the instinct to tribalism and the weight which fear and hatred of outsiders can carry in any society.

All of her characters come off so very realistic, which helps sell the entire meditation. Shevek, his partner Takver (marriage does not exist on Anarres, though long-term monogamous partnerships are not uncommon), his friends and rivals on Anarres, as well as those who surround him on Urras, all come across with their own motivations and philosophies. There is no one who exists as a cartoonish strawman for any one view, positive or negative; they all have flaws and virtues.

Also, honestly, have to shout-out to Le Guin for writing in 1974 her "most likely heterosexual" male protagonist having gay sex with his pal just to reaffirm their friendship. Queen move.

The pace of this book is quite measured, but I enjoyed every minute I was engaged with it and I look forward to picking it up again in a few years to see what it will share with me then. Sometimes, you read a book that's gotten heavy praise and accolades and find it out that it does actually warrant the attention, and The Dispossessed absolutely warrants it.

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Players of Thedas

Wardens and Hawkes and Inquisitors, oh my!

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Recent Reading: Welcome to Night Vale

Infinity Nikki (Welcome To Gatcha Hell)

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