2018

Books, Games Wrestling Vol. 12 – Henceforth, I Claim Them As My Own!

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

There is a strong possibility that I will skip writing one of these next week and be back with the next one with some of my favorite books, games, and wrestling matches of the year, but I have a lot of work to do in other parts of my life, so one week off will have to do. AEW’s Full Gear is tomorrow, and I wrote down my predictions for the show, which takes up the bulk of this week’s entry.

Books – Lessons in Magic and Disaster by Charlie Jane Anders

I don’t know how I feel about the current book I’m reading. Is it possible for sections of a book to both bore you and fascinate you at the same time? I’m forty percent in, and the intensity of the situation is just starting to rise. Jamie and Serena make a decision that feels like it’s going to have a ripple effect on the rest of the book, but I’ve grown used to seeking out fantasy books with more snappy beginnings. The best parts of the book so far is the backstory of Jamie’s parents, Serena and May, how they met, how they decided to have Jamie, the rough patch of their relationship, and how they came to a resolution to mend it. The parts that bore me and fascinate me at the same time are the parts too familiar to my own former academic life when I was writing a thesis.

The book Jamie’s paper is on has passages that appear in this one, where you can see, upon reading, what Jamie is seeing as it relates to her thesis. The academic life of Jamie made me think of working on my own thesis both the good and the bad but the problem for me is that style of the fictional book Jamie is writing her paper on is the kind that I was bored to tears of in College so while it is interesting to see what Jamie sees my eyes also glaze over imagining sitting in the library trying doing a close reading of this and finding other sources. I can sense a growing tension between Jamie and her wife, Ro, as Jamie and Serena grow closer as it relates to witchcraft and magic, but I need the book to begin pushing that snowball down the hill instead of packing it tightly at the top, trying to make the perfect snowball to keep me hooked on Lessons in Magic and Disaster.

Addendum: Ten minutes after writing this, I’ve reached an inflection point in the story that really has me turning pages, but I wish we had gotten here a bit sooner. Sometimes that is just how books roll.

Games – Chrono Trigger on Steam / Steam Deck

In 2018, when Chrono Trigger was announced, it was coming to Steam. I had no computer to play it on when it came out. I just would have to wait, but it was something I’d have to look forward to. Upon release, it was like looking into the window of people opening a Christmas present we all wanted and finding out their parents had bought a knock-off version instead. Of all the versions they chose to port to Steam, the publisher’s choice to port the mobile version with some weird upscaled resolution was one of the worst options they could have chosen. By the time I got to play it, though, Square had done everything they were going to do to fix the Steam version of Chrono Trigger to make fans happy, but the damage was done, and the fixes shouldn’t have been needed on the first play. They had an easy golden opportunity to not fuck up, and they royally fucked up. It’s still not the best way to play Chrono Trigger today. The fact that there haven’t been any ports of it since then is strange as well, when it could have easily been put on the Nintendo Switch like many past Square games before.

Now, years later, I am playing this version of the game with the classic resolution on my Steam Deck. I know I don’t have to play it this way. There are many other ways to play Chrono Trigger, even on Steam Deck, but I decided to see this version of Chrono Trigger to the end. It’s still Chrono Trigger, one of my favorite games and one of the greatest games of all time. Now, this may just be my perception, but Square Enix’s reputation for getting it right is much improved since February of 2018, even if some people didn’t like everything about Final Fantasy Rebirth or Final Fantasy 16. If, after the positive reception of Octopath Traveller 1 and 2, Live A Live remake, and the remakes of Dragon Quest I-III is a green flag at Square to release an HD-2D remake of Chrono Trigger, I hope they’ve learned their lessons from Chrono Trigger for Steam and pull off the once again golden opportunity for Chrono Trigger HD-2D on multiple platforms.

Wrestling – Full Gear Predictions

Full Gear is coming up, and I’m feeling more excited for the card than WrestleDream, though the Venn diagram of my brain has a larger circle for books and video games right now, and wrestling, plus the looming holidays just over my shoulder. Still, here are my predictions for the main card of the show. On the subject of the Death Riders, I think Pac is going to get a surprise upset over Darby Allin that’ll play into another surprise upset, which is Kyle O’Reilly defeating Jon Moxley in a No Holds Barred match. A stipulation is often used to soften the blow for a loss of one top talent while elevating another, but that’s not the main point. The main point is that Pac will have done something Jon was unable to do recently, and Kyle will have Moxley tapping out once again, ultimately leading to an angle with the Death Riders turning on Jon Moxley. I am unsure if this heel Jon Moxley has completely run its course, but turning him babyface once again isn’t a terrible idea. Who will lead the Death Riders in his absence? I am not 100% sold on Claudio leading the group, but the betrayal definitely feels like it’s coming.

Speaking of both stipulations and Death Riders, I think the Sisters of Sin will get a surprise win in the four-way tag match against the Babes of Wrath, Time Love Bombs, and Megan Bayne/ Marina Shafir to determine their own stipulation in a match against Willlow and Harley that’ll lead to a Sisters of Sin vs. Timeless Love Bombs final. When Kyle Fletcher vs. Mark Briscoe was announced, I was so sure this was the moment Mark would get the win over Kyle and Kyle would enter the C2 to be part of the Takeshita vs. Okada drama, possibly leading to Takeshita vs. Fletcher semifinal. Since Kyle announced that beating Mark would beat the record for most TNT title defenses, I’m not so sure. I’m currently 55:45 on Mark winning, but if Kyle won, it would not surprise me, but it would seem strange to do all that work on the Conglomeration music and video package only to take out one of their core members a month or so later.

What I am sure of is that Mercedes is not winning the world title at Full Gear. She has touched that belt one too many times in the last couple of weeks to be winning it. I like the idea of not only Kris finally showing her growth after a year of uncertainty, after a weird face turn when she lost to Mercedes twice by beating Mercedes, but the women’s world championship being out of her reach from both Toni and the person who beat Toni. Hangman will have a great match against Samoa Joe in a steel cage match and ultimately defeat him. Will Samoa Joe learn his lesson from it? How violent will it get? Will Hangman delve into the darkness within from a year ago to avenge his family against Swerve Strickland? These are the questions I am asking myself leading up to this match. I imagine either MJF or Swerve will return at this match. I’m leaning more towards MJF, which I am not looking forward to. World’s End has been my last favorite AEW pay-per-view two years running, and MJF beating Hangman at it would really put the nail in the coffin for that show for me. I’m still not sure if that is the direction they’re going, but it is an anxiety I definitely have as someone who is not a fan of Maxwell.

You know what else gives me anxiety, and I am not a fan of, but I am more sure of? FTR beating Brodido for the AEW World Tag Team Championships. Two things can be true. I can say I am enjoying FTR as heels so much more than faces, but I also never wanted them to be tag team champions again. Their heel work with Stokely has been far more entertaining, but them at the top of the tag division fills me with dread after their last tag title run, which was one of the most boring tag title runs in AEW history, and don’t quote that match against Bullet Club Gold to me. I am one of the few who actively dislike that match, so them beating Brodido, who has given that tag belts life again after a terribly boring run on the Hurt Syndicate, is not something I’m looking forward to. Especially if it leads to a returning Christian and Copeland feud, which has those two winning the tag belts off FTR. It would be a nightmare for me personally to have them be tag team champions and MJF Men’s World Champion at the same time again.

The only thing I’d have to comfort me is whatever Elite drama is cooking in Kenny Omega and Jurassic Express versus the Young Bucks and Josh Alexander. After a humiliating summer and fall Don Callis has come calling to help Matt and Nick’s money troubles. All they have to do is join the Don Callis Family and beat their former friends Kenny Omega and Jack Perry with one million dollars on the line. Here’s the thing: the Bucks don’t seem thrilled about joining the DCF, nor do they find Don or Josh particularly entertaining, but with Okada trying to encourage them and Don Callis’s bolstering roster putting them in a situation where they might not have a choice, I am not so sure where this is going. Perhaps the Bucks choose to join but lose the match, but Kenny offers the money back to Don to get them out of the Don Callis Family contract. Maybe the Bucks decided Josh Alexcander and Don Callis have given them a bit too much of what the rest of the roster found annoying about the Bucks in their EVP phase, and just choose Kenny by superkicking their tag partner and walk away. I’m not sure where exactly this is going, but I am here for it.

Books, Games, Wrestling Vol.5 – SAVE the World Championship

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

My first late edition. Most of this was written enough to release it on Wednesday, but I was struggling to find the words to express my feelings about Undertale‘s 10th Anniversary without sharing too much or getting wordy, but still making it feel personal. I don’t think I nailed exactly how I feel, but I did the best I could.

Games – Undertale 10th Anniversary

This year is Undertale’s 10th Anniversary, Toby Fox has been celebrating it with Fangamer in their first of a couple of streams with some unique things inserted into the game that have the fandom going wild and putting every detail under a microscope. I haven’t had time to watch the whole stream, but I have taken in a lot of what Toby Fox has had to say about it. I usually write most of these on the weekend or at least have a lot written in my head before I login to my WordPress account, but I’ve been struggling to articulate what this game means to me without going insane with the word count here. 2018 was a rough year for my family and me after a house fire destroyed our home and nearly all our personal possessions, but my community of friends, both online and offline, had my back and were kind enough to raise money so I could get back some of what I lost, including a Nintendo Switch. The kindness of people and that Nintendo Switch, which I still own, got me through what was one of the lowest points of my life. The games that I bought and played that year mean a lot to me, and Undertale was one of those games.

The only information I knew about the game was not to kill the monsters if I wanted to see the full story, and I didn’t listen. I can still picture myself sitting on the floor because I didn’t own a chair, my back against my mattress, and the rented bed frame the homeowner’s insurance got for us in the rental home we were going to be in for a year while the house had to be rebuilt. I had killed Toriel because I didn’t realize I could spare the bosses, too, and I felt so awful about it when Flowey the Flower reminded me I could actually reset the game, so I did, and then didn’t play the game for another three months. I don’t remember which song, but it was hearing a song from near the endgame that got me back into it, and then it blew my mind when Flowey called me out for resetting the game after killing Toriel so much. I stayed up all night in bed, doing the entire pacifist run to ungodly hours. Something about the situation I was in, the friends and family that supported me, and that finale of the pacifist run that just opened the floodgates when I played it. I’ve never teared up at really sad moments in stories. It’s those moments of triumph, overcoming overwhelming odds, when hope returns, that really gets me emotional, like when Gandalf arrives with the Rohirrim at the Battle of Helm’s Deep. That moment at the end of the game still gets to me. Just hearing “Hopes and Dreams” to “SAVE the World” to “His Theme” brings me back to the moments lying in bed thinking of everything I’ve been through from November 2017 to November 2018. The game will always be very special to me for that. It is a game about our connections to other people, and connections were very important to me in that year. Happy 10th Anniversary, Undertale.

Wrestling – Post- AEW All Out ‘25

Here is the thing about AEW pay-per-views, I haven’t watched one without my friends since Revolution 2020 and since then there have been maybe four of them that have been bad vibes, AEW All Out 2020 due to Matt Hardy getting concussed and them continuing the match, Double or Nothing 2022 because CM Punk winning the world title felt like the worst call you could make, World’s End 2023 because it might have been the only AEW PPV I would call boring, and World’s End 2024 because Adam Copeland was the least exciting return to take on the Death Riders after a weird fourway main event that made everyone in it look dumb as hell. All Out 2025 started out weird with Christian and Copeland vs. FTR in what I would describe as a main event of WWE Raw in 2019. In other words, this match fucking sucked, and I am so ready for Copeland to retire. I’ll sacrifice Christian retiring to not get more of this bullshit. I don’t care if he’s retiring or their history, I don’t want to see references to John Cena, Defender, and Best Friend to Sex Trafficking Vince McMahon on an AEW show, get the fuck outta here. The entire layout of this match screamed WWE-produced, and I was not here for it. It was not a great start for the show, but luckily, it was the worst match on the show. Even the Hurt Syndicate, which I do not give a fuck about, nor do I want to see MVP wrestle, gave us something better by at least losing to Ricochet’s new faction, The Demand.

The show felt all uphill from there for me. The return of Eddie Kingston, Mark Briscoe getting a victory over MJF, and Riho having a great showing against Mercedes, showing some ego against the TBS Champion, that I greatly enjoyed so much that I’d love for them to run it back. The three-way match between Okada, Takeshita, and Mascara Dorada, if not for the main event, might have been my match of the night. I hope we get Takeshita vs. Dorada, Okada vs. Dorada, and of course, Takeshita vs. Okada sooner than later. Jon Moxley vs. Darby Allin’s Coffin Match was the kind of violence I desired after the high-octane match for the Unified Title, but I was pretty surprised to see Darby lose his first coffin match in AEW. I’ve been championing how great Kris Statlander is since she joined AEW in late 2019, and I was hooting and hollering when she did Chuck Taylor’s seatbelt pin to win the AEW Women’s World Championship against Toni Storm, Jamie Hayter, and Thekla. I recalled at that moment when Wheeler Yuta pinned Chuck Taylor with that same pin while Orange Cassidy was on commentary and Orange just saying, with sadness in his voice, “Chuck taught him that pin.” Speaking of Orange Cassidy, it was greatly hinted at that his return would be this Wednesday in a segment during the show, which added to the hype for me. Finally, the ladder match for the tag titles was insane, terrifying, and awesome. AEW could have pulled the trigger on giving Jetspeed the belts, or return them to the Young Bucks, but I was glad we’re continuing with Brodido, who were equally insane, terrifying, and awesome in this match.

Finally, the main event. I’ll never get tired of seeing Hangman Adam Page being the top babyface, the guy, the man, the world champ, and backing it up in one of my favorite matches of the year against TNT Champion Kyle Fletcher. I had no doubt going into it that Hangman was going to win, but the match gave me just that small amount of doubt that made this even more exciting. Kyle Fletcher is definitely going to be World Champion sooner than later, probably via beating Will Ospreay two years from now, but the chemistry between Fletcher and Hangman was top-notch. The poetry of Fletcher not getting the Tiger Driver ‘98 off, but Hangman Page being able to do Swerve’s Big Pressure was chef’s kiss. This is on my list of matches I am going to rewatch from this year, the first chance I get.

Books – Summer Reading Slump

It’s officially autumn here in the Northern Hemisphere, and I’m hoping my summer reading slump isn’t turning into a Fall one. Something about this year has been making it difficult to sit down and lose myself in reading like usual. I’m not reading any slower,r but carving out less time to read than I usually do. It honestly feels like a reflection of current events. I want to read more. I’m not enjoying reading any less. Hopefully, now that summer is over, I will get back into the reading swing.

I realized in the writing of this that I’m not taking my own advice. People who find out I read a lot of books often ask me how, and I often give the advice I first read in Stephen King’s book On Writing, you have to choose to. If you want to read a lot of books, you have to make the time in whatever part of the day you can, waiting in line, on the toilet, right before bed, right when you wake up, while eating breakfast, etc. Writing is this way, too. You can’t just wait for the perfect time or wait to be inspired you have to take the time by force and use it.

Books, Games, Wrestling Vol. 1 – Noodles, Knights, and NJPW

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

I’m not going to give a long explanation yet to what this is or why I’m writing, because before I know it, I’ll have a thousand words, and that’ll be this entire post before I get to the point of the thing. To sum it up, I want to write about what I like in a shorter format than my book reviews on Geeklyinc.com or on No Page Unturned. I love books, I love video games, and I love wrestling, hence Book, Games, Wrestling. I hear the Aesop Rock song Food, Clothes, Medicine when I say it, but here we go before I get off track again.

Book – Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz

My review will be up soon enough, but I have to say, my reading habits this summer have been such a mess. My To-Be-Read pile has grown too tall this summer, yet my reading habits have been subpar. Fall and Winter are such better reading seasons for me as someone who doesn’t do well in the heat.

Automatic Noodle, though, has been a book I’ve been thinking about since I first heard about it. The premise is essentially set in an unidentified future, where robots want to, for once, serve good food to their patrons and are given an opportunity, out of sheer luck, to open their own noodle shop. It’s labelled as cozy, but there is definitely a cloud of desperation hanging over most of the plot, both from the bots, the humans, and the overall world that is in the vibe of a dystopian future run by megacorporations that we seem to be getting a lot of, gee, wonder why? The feeling of dread and oppression is not what I would call cozy, but I’d still recommend it regardless.

I mean, just because it’s marketed as cozy but doesn’t mean it’s not an interesting read. The oppression of sentient robots is a subject I’m sure will be explored more as technology advances and more rights get taken away in the United States and beyond. I will admit I’m holding back for my review, pretty sure, but I really enjoy how Newitz makes each of the bots distinct.

Game – Hollow Knight – Team Cherry

Silksong is real and will be out as of this post in a little over a week. I’ve done everything but the Godmaster DLC on the Switch edition of Hollow Knight because by the time it was out, I was already finished with Hollow Knight, at over 100%. Plus, in 2018, on the Nintendo Switch, I remember being kind of insane, as well as my life at the time being kind of insane. When I bought a Steam Deck last August, Hollow Knight was one of the first games I bought during the next Steam sale because, quite honestly, though it had been six years since I played it, I still felt it was one of the greatest games of all time or at least one of my greatest games of all time.

Now that Silksong is coming out, I felt it was time to play it on PC/Steam Deck. It was like riding a bike again to be honest, and I was aiming to get that achievement of beating the game at 100% under 20 hours. I got very close at about 20 hours and 23 minutes, so annoyingly close. I do not remember there being achievements on the Switch edition; it probably had in-game quests as the equivalent, but it’s not quite the same. Take or leave achievements, I do often find them fun, even if Steam achievements feel lesser than other platforms. I’ve left just enough time between Hollow Knight playthroughs that the challenge remains thrilling, yet not so much that the backtracking feels tedious, while retaining enough memory to avoid repetition. I’ve already beaten it, and once I did, I thought to myself, “Oh shit, it’s still not September 4th.” I started a new file, intending to hopefully get that achievement this time, and also to leave Zote to die, the ungrateful little shit that he is.

Wrestling – AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 2025

The build to Forbidden Door was messy, it’s always messy, and to be quite honest, even with the mess I still do find it fun. However, a lot of MJF’s creative ideas I do not find fun, and it felt like, with the stipulations he had forced Hangman to agree to under the pretense that he was going to light Mark Briscoe on fire, that I’m being forced to watch Triple H from the early and mid 2000s reborn. In 2023, I was annoyed with MJF, but in 2025, I’m just tired of it. His promos to all his opponents feel the same; his nicknames for his opponents are all terrible, not in a fun way, but in a way that makes me want to look at my Steam Deck and continue playing Hollow Knight. It just feels all the same. But Josh, you might ask, isn’t that just what heels do? Well, I’m not sick of what Kyle Fletcher and the Don Callis family are doing, nor since All In am I sick of what Jon Moxley and the Death Riders are doing. Ricochet with the Gates of Agony is quite interesting, and Christian Cage, who often has the same edgelord shtick as MJF, quite frankly does it better because he’ll do enough to at least give me the illusion of changing it up. Except for Christian, the difference between a lot of those heels and MJF is that they actually wrestle quite frequently. Maybe if MJF took up so much TV time wrestling as well as promos and segments I might feel different but as of right now, I’m quite tired of MJF.

This isn’t about MJF, though; it’s about Forbidden Door, and despite Max’s terribly convoluted idea for a finish, yes, I am one hundred percent sure it was his idea because it reminded me of the era of WWE I know he loves. Hangman’s world title defense against him, I thought, was excellent before that. It’s how I felt about the pay-per-view overall, quite good overall. Hiromu Takahashi looked great against Kyle Fletcher. Toni Storm defeated Athena in what I thought was a very good match, but I thought they might be holding back for a future rematch. I took a break during the beginning of the tag title match and came back just in time to see some mysterious masked men drive the Hurt Syndicate back to the airport before Bandido could even get the pin on whichever member of FTR was pinned (I think Dax? Don’t correct me, I do not care.). Bozilla, Persephone, and Alex Windsor all showed out for the four-way against Mercedes Mone for the TBS Title, impressing me with ideas I don’t think I’ve seen in four-ways before, and it felt like Mercedes made sure to make them all look good in defeat. Swerve versus Okada might have bee my match of the night. Say what you want about Okada’s efforts I felt he really put his all or at the very least 90% into his defense of the Unified Title against Swerve. The main event lights-out cage match, was both fun and intense, and if this is the last we see from Ospreay and Swerve in a while, it was a great showing by both of them.

Was it my favorite Forbidden Door? No. Was it the best Forbidden Door? I don’t think so either but I felt happy watching it, and when it was over, I was more curious about what was going to happen next rather than worried about the direction AEW was going.

My First Dragonborn character in D&D 5E – Harailt Bloodcloak

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

Before I ever played Dungeons and Dragons I was listening to Dungeons and Dragons podcasts such as Nerd Poker, Critical Hit, and Drunks and Dragons. I didn’t start playing D&D until October 2015. It was literally the same day as my first day of therapy, something I needed but had been avoiding, that I got a text message from a friend asking “Would you be interested in playing D&D? I’m getting a group together.” It may be a bit of revisionist history on my part but I’m pretty positive I send back a resounding hell yes.

We started with the 5th Edtion Starter Set – The Lost Mine of Phandelver and the pre-made characters that came with it. I was a dwarven cleric but after our first session, I was immediately hooked. I did a deep dive online about D&D 5E and next paycheck I headed to my favorite comic shop to buy my own dice in green, my favorite color, and a copy of the 5th Edition Player’s Handbook so I could make my own character, a dwarven ranger by the name of Bhruic Forgeworthy.

Then one of my players loosed an arrow at a green dragon and ended up getting the party wiped out. So, we started a new campaign, The Hoard of the Dragon Queen and so I wanted to make a new character. I had heard of Dragonborn from the Drunks and Dragons podcast with Thom the Dragonborn and to be quite honest, thought they looked cool. So they’re like humanoid Dragon people? That’s awesome! Plus I wanted to hit things so a chose barbarian. Harailt Bloodcloak was born, a silver Dragonborn Berzerker barbarian who was raised by copper Dragonborn. While they were simple farmers, Harailt began training with the greataxe until he joined a mercenary company that was slaughtered, leaving the cloak he was wearing bloody, hence the name.

Afterward, he joined the party as we headed to a burning town being besieged by Kobolds. I remember kobolds carrying something out but not noticing us. Harailt hated kobolds so naturally, I did something stupid.

“I shout out to those kobolds,” to the groan of everyone else.

“What do you say?” My DM asks. I had no idea so I said the first thing I could think of.

“Fuck off,” I shout.

“Roll for initiative.”

Harailt was brash and a loudmouth. That is as far as roleplaying him as I was good at. My greataxe was called Retort. The +1 fiery greataxe I eventually found I called Sunder. We defeated a white dragon deep within a castle of the Dragon Cultists. Then we transitioned to The Rise of Tiamat. I don’t remember it very well except for the ending. Tiamat was rising, three heads had emerged, and almost every party member was down. Harailt was the last one standing, and then he wasn’t. However, I forgot about an essential part of my level 16 barbarian, Relentless Rage

Starting at 11th level, if you are raging and you drop to 0 hit points and don’t die, you can make a DC 10 Constitution saving throw. If you succeed, you drop to 1 hit point instead. Each time you attempt this saving throw after the first, before completing a short rest or longrest, the DC increases by 5.

I managed it twice, passing both the DC 10 and DC 15 before Harailt was able to chop off the three emerged heads of Tiamat. I believe I still have the date saved in Google Calendar. Yes, March 16 – Harailt Bloodcloak chopped off Tiamat’s heads before she could rise.

In Hoard of the Dragon Queen, Harailt traveled with the bard Luken Songsteel, a paladin, and a rogue. In the Rise of Tiamat, he traveled with Gamdanf, the wizard who only said “I am Gamdanf,” a ranger named Frevor who at one point summoned twelve badgers to kill kobolds. Honestly, those campaigns were a bit of a blur now. I could play in those campaigns again and only have a vague recollection of what happened. There was a vampire we failed to kill. Luken Songsteel said he’d fire his rapier off his crossbow by mistake but he rolled for it and sure enough, he shot his rapier with his crossbow.

I’d probably play Harailt Bloodcloak completely different now, but I still think fondly of him looking back.

Here is his level 7 character sheet which I still have.

Harailt Bloodcloak – Barbarian