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Showing posts from October, 2024

Stray Thoughts: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Zelda?

⚠️ It's Dangerous To Go Alone... The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild  is my favorite installment in one of my all-time favorite video game franchises. It was the killer-app launch title for the Nintendo Switch and was hailed as a return to form for a series that had gone so deep on its own lore that... uh... I think the technical term is "it's head had disappeared up its own asshole." Breath of the Wild  reoriented the gameplay on exploration instead of story progression, and it was such a success that seemingly every other AAA series started putting out imitators. This is how we ended up with an open-world Sonic the Hedgehog  game, which is not a thing that needs to exist in any universe. While it's considered story-light for this series--most of the narrative is told in snippets of flashback--the storytelling is actually one of my favorite things about it. For starters, I am a sucker for being drip-fed parts of a narrative and being forced to fill in the gap

Stray Thoughts: On Moderation

🧑‍⚖️ It's a Little Bit Me, It's a Little Bit You... This last weekend was the 47th  Archon , the local speculative fiction convention here in St. Louis. I started attending as a panelist right after things opened up post-COVID. Needless to say, overall attendance was down and they were in pretty dire need of speakers, so I fast-tracked my way onto the "Pro" tier. I've gone every year since, and I've developed a bit of a reputation as a fantastic moderator. To wit, five minutes into my first Saturday panel. I'd just wrapped up my opening spiel and was about to start the discussion-proper when the panelist on my right turned to me with what I initially thought was exasperation. "Oh my god," she said, "can I bring you to all of my panels to moderate?" This panelist just happened to be the Toastmistress of the con. As Toastmistress, her schedule was stacked, so I can see her being extra appreciative. A badly-managed panel is exhausting to