We tend to run long, so this tangent from our Starfleet Academy episode was cut out. If you want to hear a little chatter about comics and RPGs, then it’s here.

[ Full Show Notes ]

The post Casual Tangent: Akira and Game Design first appeared on Nerd & Tie Network.

The newly minted Stormwood team has been hired by a local pawn shop owner to make sure his taxes make it safely to the current government of the Autumnlands. But first, a new person has joined the party…

“Stormwood & Associates” uses the RPG system Super Awesome Action Heroes Second Edition with the optional Fantasy expansion and Advanced Combat Rules. View Archives and Subscription Options

The post C3E6. The New Girl (Into the Autumnlands Part 1) first appeared on Nerd & Tie Network.

Welcome to Starfleet Academy, students, we hope you survive the experience!

It’s the grimdark future of the 32nd century and a bunch of weird, traumatised kids are stuck together having to learn and grow into Starfleet officers! Will the main character be too annoying a main character? How many The O.C. references will Charlie make? How much will Miles lust after an espresso machine? And how delightful are those teachers?

Kids These Days brings Holly Hunter and her wayward ward into the orbit of Starfleet Academy, along with Paul Giamatti who Paul Giamattis the hell out of his role. Beta Test gets into some proper Star Trek content: Meetings! Peace talks! Also some teen drama and shonky CGI whales.

Timecodes:
00:01:56 What Non-Star Trek Thing We’ve Been Enjoying: Detectorists, Plur1bus
00:08:29 Starfleet Academy “Kids These Days”
00:52:31 Starfleet Academy “Beta Test”

Talking points include: The OC, Blake’s 7, Detectorists, Toby Jones would have made a good MODOK, Plur1bus (which is not Polybius), Charlie’s lawn is no longer Area X, credit to rexedge.bsky.social for pointing out that Fate of Ophelia would work great in Simlish, The Stranger Things, 80’s nostalgia, Rimmer-ness, the wall of references, Paris Gellar, the secret other member of the Gellar family in Friends, Brit Marling’s science fiction oeuvre, teen drama ball cancer plots, Charlie would never make it as a barista, psychics who psychic a bit too much, bros, Miles lusts after an espresso machine, the works of Brian David Gilbert, Heated Rivalry, . Oh, and occasionally Star Trek.

[ Additional Show Notes ]

Music by Alfred Etheridge-Nunn. Read Miles’s blog or Charlie’s blog.

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The team has a lead on the person who stole the magic rock, and they’re looking for their suspect in the Winter Quarter of Denarsus.

“Stormwood & Associates” uses the RPG system Super Awesome Action Heroes Second Edition with the optional Fantasy expansion and Advanced Combat Rules. View Archives and Subscription Options

The post C3E5. Two in the Afternoon (Trial Period Part 5) first appeared on Nerd & Tie Network.

The team is starting their recovery investigation by visiting the scene of the crime. Then maybe the scene of another crime. The second crime is a metaphor.

“Stormwood & Associates” uses the RPG system Super Awesome Action Heroes Second Edition with the optional Fantasy expansion and Advanced Combat Rules. View Archives and Subscription Options

The post C3E4. Whose House? (Trial Period Part 4) first appeared on Nerd & Tie Network.

Do you hear the siren song of synergy?

That means we’ve got a brand new Star Trek show on the horizon and Miles and Charlie want in. With Star Trek: Starfleet Academy on the horizon, our brave lads are going to squeeze back into their school uniforms and try to remember how school works as they approach three episodes of Star Trek which deal with students at SFA.

In The First Duty, Wesley “THE BOY” Crusher gets in with a guy who looks nothing like Tom Paris and is really too invested in being with the cool kids for someone who helped saved the galaxy at least three times. Then, Jake and Nog end up on a ship with a bunch of cadets forced to grow up too fast in The Valiant and Nog drinks the kool-aid of a wanna be Kurtz just out of short trousers. Then we head into the 32nd Century as Tilly and Adira have to debate what’s worse, dealing with energy absorbing creatures on an ice-planet or dealing with a bunch of angsty kids with emotional baggage? Oh, and Michael Burnham helps save the Federation.

Again. Don’t forget to do your homework!

EPISODES DISCUSSED: The First Duty (6:50), The Valiant (35:42) and All is Possible (01:01:08)

TALKING POINTS: Grange Hill, the novels of John Darnielle, Mario Galaxy, Frollo from Disney’s Hunchback never gets invited to Villain hangouts, Wesley Crusher never pulled, Nick Locarno vs. Tom Paris, the two types of Starfleet Academy students, the absence of Wesley’s Mum, ‘The First Duty’ being the inverse of the typical Wesley Crusher plot, Worf’s son Alex isn’t allowed on the bridge, Nog and Worf are incredibly very similar characters, Miles gets to talk about both one of his favourite anime Mobile Suit Gundam AND his favourite novel Slaughterhouse 5, the illusion of glory in war, bye-bye Tilly, damn covid-lockdown-inspired emotional baggage, our honest feelings about the upcoming Starfleet Academy show, Michael Burnham has to do something every episode, why is David Cronenberg NOT the villain?

PEDANTS CORNER: Charlie has started playing Mario 2: The Lost Levels, the Genesis music video Miles can’t remember is ‘I Can’t Dance’ by Genesis.

[ Additional Show Notes ]

Music by Alfred Etheridge-Nunn. Read Miles’s blog or Charlie’s blog.

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The post 89. Starfleet Academy Prelude – So Much Child Death first appeared on Nerd & Tie Network.

There’s an annoying thing in the witchcraft community where every new idea or trend gets cast as an “ancient” practice even if it’s just a few years old. Time and time again, we see people constructing false narratives about the supposed historicity of ideas, spells, and rituals in witchcraft spaces, and all of it is bad for us. Why do people feel the need to lie? Why does something being a new idea make it less credible in people’s eyes? Why have we been doing this as a community from the start?

So I thought about calling this “Older Doesn’t Mean Better Part 2” or “Older Doesn’t Mean Better Redux” since this is some of the same territory we covered back in episode 17, but I think I’ve gotten more surly on the topic over the last six years, and wanted to talk about it again. Also, I kind of forgot I’d recorded an episode on this when I was prepping the episode, but I like this version better.

Read Trae’s new Novel Buried Memories!
ISBN: 9798349560958
eBook: Kindle / Kobo / ePub
Paperback: Amazon / Bookshop / Direct Order

Also check out the rest of Trae’s Books and visit Trae’s website.

(And, of course, don’t forget this show is part of the Nerd & Tie Network, and funded by listeners like you via Patreon. Consider joining our Discord or our forums!)

Music: “The Man With One Eye,” “So I Said It, “Putz and Pulse,” “Untitled Nonsense” (Trae Dorn) / Random Loops (Apple Music Library)

The post 91. “Ancient” Practices first appeared on Nerd & Tie Network.

It used to be true, and still is to some extent, that visiting a video game store in Japan is a rite of passage for foreign visitors to Japan, but if you pull out a camera to take a video you may find you are no longer welcome.

Vinnk discusses how vloggers have ruined retro game shopping for everyone else in Japan with their bad or just obnoxious behavior. In Future Retro and Pile of Shame we talk about Unlimited Saga, and Sean learns the right way to unlock a very old secret in Super Mario World.

[ Additional Episode Notes Here ]

“One More Continue” and “RPG” theme songs by the Imari Tones: http://imaritones.net. Vinnk and SeanOrange pixel art by Louis Lloyd-Judson: https://louistrations.co.uk.

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