Traverse Fantasy

Been having a stressful time lately. These are things I’ve read or seen lately and have had thoughts about (if short). Just need to exorcise. Primetime (2026) by Lance Oppenheim Was okay. Robert Pattinson is fun. I keep confusing Skyler Gisondo with Nicholas Braun. It frustrates me that people keep interpreting it as being solely about how Chris Hansen’s To Catch a Predator faltered by making a spectacle out of (attempted) sexual violence; like that is one thematic axis, but the other equally or more significant axis is about powerful people deflecting from their abuses by pointing at others’ over whom they wield control. Not only is Chris Hansen using his pursuit of justice to deflect from his own extramarital affair, but Bill Conradt (the local Texas politician who committed suicide as he was about to be raided on the show) is depicted as weaponizing anti-pervert politics the same way. Some months ago, I bought shorts from the Bummer Shop, and accidentally received the wrong pair...

There have been a lot of really thoughtful takes on magic lately, centering on significant ritualistic interactions (or even/especially transactions) with powerful beings—and I had just even gestured towards this being an angle for a tabletop Pokémon adaptation. Sorry to say that this one isn’t going to be particularly thoughtful. I realized that besides being sucky when my players run out of inspiration and can’t do magic anymore—for which my special game mommy inspiration has worked well—it feels weird for inspiration to work differently for magic than for the typical case. Magic is just fundamentally a tool, right? Tools make impossible tasks possible, and tasks already possible more so. I already have a rule that using an arcana (item which stands in for some D&D spell or school) as a normal weapon, basically like a cantrip, costs the user no inspiration; and rolling 20+ already gives a free enhancement (like casting at range or targeting all enemies in one area of effect). ...