Prioritize removing cards. Try to get to heart without any Strike or Defend. Because the heart hits you for every card played, you need block. Just beat it today on Ascension 3 with a Silent poison build. I saved a Duplication potion and started turn 1 with After Image (one block per card played.)

I work at a state mental institution, and we have constant turnover of social workers who fill a role as clinicians. The ones who want to work as a therapist often work for the state while they begin to build a private practice, then quit when they have enough clients to sustain themselves.

Boy do they love hitting people with a branch though.

Sticks and stones may break my bones — ouch!

You may have seen them from these photos that make the rounds frequently, bearded reedlings are an absolute delight

"The Ugly Little Boy" by Isaac Asimov is a short story about a researcher who enters into a parental relationship with a research subject (a neanderthal child), and it was expanded into a full novel by Robert Silverberg.

This was the only Asimov story that made me cry as a teen.

In Hyperion by Dan Simmons, one of the seven characters in the main cast is a man named Sol Weintraub, who faces the unique parenting challenge of a child who ages backwards.

My favorite thing about that game was that occasionally a character would say something politically incendiary, like, "The government's monopoly on violence is supposed to keep people safe from each other, but who keeps us safe from them?"

You touched on it in the Cyberpunk episode, but for me the appeal of Evil Corporations is that they're comprehensible: to them making money is all that matters.

"The Water Knife" by Paolo Bacigalupi depicted corporate overlords commodifying water and objectifying ppl, to everyone's detriment.

Little secret: They close the library before sunset because 38 men were hanged there and the ghosts come out after dark.

Little advice: Don't try to break up street fights, it just invites the fighters to attack you too.

I'm definitely that way, and my ratio was 5:1 last year.

I also read about equal parts Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and other novels.

I feel like I have a harder time getting into a book if the setting is too close to something else I just read, so bouncing around really helps me feel immersed.

Every one of those is appealing! It'll be fun for me to finish them before your book arrives here in the USA.

Abbie Richards does public education about conspiracy theories, and I have found her videos really useful for starting conversations with people who have embraced misinformation. abbierichards.bsky.social

I have, and it was very pleasant.

My favorites are Fantasy novels that aren't too dark. Lately I've really been enjoying cozy slice-of-life stories. And I absolutely loved the tone of The Last Post!

What romance novel would your recommend for someone who doesn't usually read them but who has preordered your book about them?