Grave-Maker Rounds

I always thought the comparison between "Actual Play" and Pornography was kind of a silly joke that had a little bit of truth in it, like all jokes which have the capacity to endure. Apparently this is something that people fought over, and were subsequently dissuaded from, all before I ever got to it. It's certainly never stopped me before. Previous interlocutors might have been dissuaded on account of their social station or desire to appease a cryptographically cycling moral framework. In my degraded state, laid low by my…. Well, by my "me," currying favor is not only beneath me it's literally impossible.

Whenever Gabe gets a bee in his bonnet about something, I tend to benefit. So do you, ultimately. When he got seriously into Formula 1, somehow by the end of it we were operating a racing reality show via Motorsport Manager with larger than life characters and life-changing stakes every week. I guess the actual cars were also cool.

For what always felt like a one-off experiment, Splatoon has had a long and successful career of being The Weird Kid in the family. If you have a child on the spectrum, there is a chance that you know a lot about Splatoon. In my experience, they're often ready to detail things for you. I suspect there's something about growing up feeling like an alien that makes this hyperpop, alternate-earth music video feel like home.

Ronia got back from Brand New Day with a lot of questions about Jean Grey, and it seemed like I might have to make a Powerpoint deck or something to paper over the fact that I failed as a father - as a man. There's a lot of comic shit I haven't told her, I guess. There's a lot of it out there! I chose the path of curation; we did not come to rest on any of this quotidian mutant fare When those assholes at Marvel finally get around to Ryan North' and Erica Henderson's run on The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Ronia will know Goddamn near everything. The only comfort I have otherwise is that Gabriel failed in this task also. Worse probably! Way worse I bet, when you really think about it altogether.

Among fighting game developers, one stands out as more damp and weird than the others. Their carapace is more mottled, their palps somehow more pedi than the rest. Arc System Works! We've been fans of their fermented, piquant takes on the genre for a while and were delighted to see they'd managed to enter the 3D era without giving up the incredible silhouettes of their 2D heritage. Gabriel thought he might sip the summerwine one last time with Marvel Tokon, as he had in the days of his exultant youth, but he says that he washed out during the tutorial. I don't have the game, so I don't know what that would even look like, but the tutorial for 2XKO was perverse enough that I might be able to guess. It was like Operant Conditioning, like I was gonna have to falsify some number of lights at some point or murder a public figure. I didn't even dislike it, necessarily! But it did feel like I was being psychologically terraformed by a force alien to our Earth.

I think Gabe has wanted to draw Asmongold for awhile, and generally these days the thing that keeps him from doing it is that he doesn't want to draw attention to the target. Except the target in this case is one of the biggest streamers on planet Earth. He can't actually be obscured; the strip is about his most recent fourteen day ban, but having been banned as often as he is, this is just part of the business model. The video he made in response to the ban will probably have three million views by the end of the day. You get kicked out of one place, and somebody else is always there to monetize your riposte. YouTube, generally - Streamer Switzerland.

The first panel of this strip has a joke so dumb it arrested my consciousness. I had to crank the key and turn it over several times to get it started again. Gabe bounced off Beast of Reincarnation at light speed, but it did inspire several minutes of reflection on the supernatural. Or, the natural I guess. It's about a concept that I was warned away from as a child, along with Yoga and Transcendental Meditation. I led a somewhat cloistered young existence, where the only drug on offer was Marital Coitus. But it… I mean, it takes a while to set that shit up.

Big Walk fucks. Even the reviews of the game are good! It occurs to me that this might be ambiguous phrasing. What I mean is that the reviews themselves are of a high quality. They can't wait to tell people about it! They had so much weird fun that they have been transformed into repeater stations - they're shedding spores. They've reached the fruiting phase! That's how good it is.

Morak and I are on the same page where the Supergirl movie is concerned, which is that it is pretty good and we can't wait to see the children of Krypton together again, but that as entertainment it genuinely can't get out of its own way. The clearest example of this was a last minute series of A/B tests where they previewed two different cuts of the film, and in the end the studio went with its cut over the director's own. If you make things, though - and maybe even if you don't - there's simply confusion in the piece and a schizoid edit that indicates nobody's vision is on display. Also, there's a lotta rocks.

Raccoons in my neighborhood, save one, are not spherical. They are big though, off that Seattle trash. They're fat as fuck off Brie rinds and jamón ibérico trimmings. Some of these bad boys can deliver near-cryptid thrills. When I was driving home one night, I saw one that didn't even read as a raccoon visually - my mind told me that it was most likely a toddler that had escaped from some kind of toddler… prison. That's what it gave me! Not helpful.

It's almost exactly what it says on the tin.  Now Sam Altman just said that they were close to inventing a genie that could grant any wish, and that… I mean, that's padded cell type shit. Frankly, it's an SEC intervention at the very minimum. You can't say shit like this - I would say "period," but you absolutely can't say shit like this on the run up to an IPO. But they can say whatever they want, take whatever they want, and do whatever they want. That's the demoralization operation, well underway. It has a shelf-life, though. They can only loan each other money for so long. Then, they'll socialize the losses through nationalization.  

The fan-favorite, canonically 5'3" mutant called Wolverine has been next in line for The Insomniac Treatment for a while, having been announced in September of '21, a year I will admit to not remembering entirely. As it approaches, we've been buffeted by new video clips of Wolverine's clothing being deliciously flensed just this side of mutant homoerotica, and a picture of his face that makes him look like an escapee from Roblox.

If you are a fan of Acquisitions Inc. and or helping sick kids, have I got an auction for you! Over the years we have played D&D on stage with some very cool people and we have done so while wearing some incredibly crazy costumes. Now that we have moved into the world of Daggerheart we’ve created new versions of our characters and some of these old costumes can be retired to greener pastures. The best part is that those greener pastures can be your pastures!

Gorbiriel Of The Moonstone Reaches genuinely enjoys the new Masters of the Universe movie. He enjoys ronically! He did a review for the site and shit. He even has nice things to say about Jared Leto! I prefer my Letos encrusted with sandtrout and ushering Humanity along The Golden Path but, you know, to each his own.

I stopped playing Absolum because I was waiting for cross-platform multiplayer, and I haven't seen The Odyssey yet because I feel like if they went through all the trouble to film it on these big weird cameras I should make the effort to see it on a big, weird screen. Is this edging? Maybe… Maybe I just like rules?

I.

Just before Ronia was leaving for a flight, she addressed me in a serious tone. It's the tone I use when I'm not being serious at all, so I should have clocked it immediately. For example: I might lean my shoulder against her doorframe, and say, hey. I don't know if you heard the recent news alert. But there was an incident at the zoo's Darkfang exhibit, and one or more of these terrifying serpents was inadvertently released.

It's clear by this point that she's not taking the threat seriously, which means I haven't communicated the very real danger such creatures present. "It's like a Ghost Snake," I'll say, my brow knit to stitch the mortal threat into place. "Even an ordinary snake constitutes a wily opponent. Imagine if physicality itself were no object! Imagine if a snake had mastered Death."

"Release me," is her typical response. Anyway, this time, she said, "Dad, if you go to Florida… please. Please," she said. "Make sure that cookie tea."

"Daughter," I replied gravely. "Only one beverage has this power."