• Pirates
    Books

    The Unexpected Nature of War in 3 Classic Children’s Stories

    January 31, 2025 - By 

    The three children’s stories that I enjoyed reading the most in recent years shared two things particularly in common. First, the fact that they feature anthropomorphic animals, which perhaps isn’t surprising given that this is pretty standard fare for children’s stories. But the second commonality, which is the fact that in each text, those animals went to war and actively engaged in at least one battle or more, did surprise me – especially when I considered the treatment of warfare in each book. **Spoilers for The Wind in the Willows, Watership Down and Redwall ** In Watership Down, life is…

  • Video Games

    9 Ways Final Fantasy IX Stopped Me in My Tracks

    February 20, 2024 - By 

    This month, I finished playing my third Final Fantasy game – Final Fantasy IX. And I loved it! There was so much to enjoy about my journey across Gaia, but my biggest take away was how many times it took me by surprise, sometimes by doing the unexpected and other times by sticking to conventional JRPG fare but really excelling at it at the same time! Here are 9 ways Final Fantasy IX stopped me in my tracks: 1. Every Time Someone Said ‘Bastard’ I’m not sure why this was so jarring to me, possibly because FFIX is a very…

  • Video Games

    Crafting the Ultimate Game Map: My 5 Essential Demands

    December 28, 2023 - By 

    I’ve been thinking about maps a lot recently, probably because I’ve been reading The Writer’s Map: An Atlas of Imaginary Lands, in which various real authors explore the maps of books they grew up with, as well as those from their own books. Then, I started playing Carto, a cutie indie puzzle game where the player is able to alter the world around them by literally rearranging fragments of a map. This got me thinking about video game maps in general – what are my favourite video game maps, and what makes a good video game map, anyway? The perfect…

  • Video Games

    The One Thing Fire Emblem: Three Houses Does Better Than Any Other JRPG I’ve Played

    November 6, 2023 - By 

    Enjoying video games is hard when you’re an adult with a job. Free time becomes a scarce and sacred resource, and so naturally we become much more selective about what games we play. As much as I want to clear my backlog of From Software games, it’s a little hard to unwind after a long day by playing… Bloodborne. Sometimes I want something mindless, which is why I tend to rack up hours in sims like Planet Coaster, Two Point Hospital and The Sims 3.  But sometimes sims aren’t enough. Sometimes, a little more substance is needed. A good story,…

  • Books

    The Best Fantasy Novel You’ve Never Heard Of – Lud-in-the-Mist Review

    October 22, 2023 - By 

    There was a time where it felt like I couldn’t read a fantasy book without also reading about Lud-in-the-Mist. Whether it was in an introduction, an author biography or the Wikipedia page of the book I was currently reading, there would invariably be a mention of Hope Mirrlees’ only fantasy novel and the influence it had on all fantasy novels that followed...