This is a Static Age

You Have Saved This City - The End of "Arrow"

2020-02-04T13:33:00.000-06:00

Recently Watched:

Arrow

(TV-14; 43 min; 2012-2020)

(Stephen Amell, Emily Bett Rickard

“My name is Oliver Queen. For five years, I was stranded on an island with only one goal: survive. Now I will fulfill my father's dying wish - to use the list of names he left me and bring down those who are poisoning my city. To do this, I must become someone else. I must become something else.”

A year after “Smallville” ended, a new super hero show premiered on the CW. A show about Green Arrow, a character I had never been terribly interested in, and had just watched a lot of on “Smallville”. But being who I am (someone who gives pretty much every super hero show a shot at least), I gave it a shot.

And I fell in love.

Green Arrow started as a Batman rip off (he had an Arrowcar and an Arrowcave, which, in more recent days, Harley Quinn told him should be called “The Quiver”). So it was appropriate that this show said and showed us “Yeah, we totes want to do Batman but they won’t let us.”

And for 8 years now, “Arrow” has been my favorite show on TV. I’ve followed the ups, the downs, the YEAH MOTHER FUCKER! And the ALRIGHT FOLKS LET’S MOVE ON FROM THIS STORY with fanaticism.

I was hesitant when I realized that the guy playing Green Arrow was known only to me as the Punisher’s boy whore competition on “Hung”, but he quickly sold me. More so after I read about his approach to taking on the show. And then the man himself came to impress me as a human being. So that’s pretty cool.

One of the things that I love and will miss the most about “Arrow” is the fight choreography. For 8 years, it’s had easily the best fights on TV, week after week. I mean, the fight team was just fucking amazing. The only completion it had was the first season of “Person of Interest”.

Even “Daredevil” with its once per season HUGE AWESOME FIGHT couldn’t compete, because they had weeks to do that, and the “Arrow” team did it week in, week out, often with way, way more characters involved.

I’ve pretty much know how “Arrow” was going to end since the end of the “Elseworlds” crossover, because I remember how “Crisis on Infinite Earths” went and which role(s) from the comic that Oliver was taking. And I accepted that it was probably time for “Arrow” to end. I didn’t want it to end up like ”Stargate: SG-1”, “Supernatural” and so many other shows that overstayed their welcome.

But accepting that didn’t mean I wasn't heartbroken and weepy for the entire 10 episodes and 5 crossover episodes of the last season.

I love “Arrow”. I love the cast, the crew, the fans, the entire Arrowverse that it spawned. Something I never thought I would see on TV. I am pretty hyped about Amell’s new project ( a show about wrestling called “Heels”). I really hope they follow up on Diggle’s end scene (Boy, I couldn’t figure it out and then I was struck silent when it hit me!)

Thank you for 8 years and a whole new multiverse of adventure.

“My name is Oliver Queen. For seven years I have fought with only one goal: to save my city. But now a new threat has emerged. A danger so severe that it has forced me to leave my family in order to face it. And it won't be enough for me to just be the Green Arrow. To prevent the crisis that's coming, I'm gonna have to become someone else. I'm gonna have to become something else.”

You have saved this city 9/10

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2193021/?ref_=ttqt_qt_tt

"Worlds will live, worlds will die and nothing will ever be the same". -Crisis on Infinite Earths Thoughts

2020-02-01T12:46:00.000-06:00

Recently Watched:

Crisis on Infinite Earths

(2019-2020)

"Worlds will live, worlds will die and nothing will ever be the same".

In 1985, I was 12 years old, and a comic book reader. At that time, I mostly read DC (Batman was my favorite DC character and had been since I started comics). The first issue of whopping 12-part mini-series came out, called Crisis on Infinite Earths. For the next year, I, and countless others, was engrossed, waiting anxiously every month for the next part to come out. This was new, this was unprecedented.

"Worlds will live, worlds will die and nothing will ever be the same".

I don’t know how to explain this to younger folks. Maybe like what you felt when you saw the first trailer for The Avengers (I felt pretty excited too at that).

Eventually, I moved to Marvel (it was more “mature”), and then largely out of comics. But I never stopped loving the heroes. I watched all the movies (until Batman Begins – I wasn’t interested in that after having been burned by the previous 2 Bat flicks, but I did eventually watch and love that trilogy). The 1978 Superman set the characters of Clark Kent, Superman, and Lois Lane in my tiny 5-year old brain. It’s 42 years later, and Christopher Reeve is still *my* Superman.

In 2001, a little show appeared on a second-tier network. You might know it as Smallville. I was excited at the prospect of a new Superman show, even if it was young Clark and not Reeve. And I really loved Smallville even if I had numerous issues with it (my favorite part is the back third, when they really embraced the comic book nature of the setting).

In 2002, that same network premiered Birds of Prey. I didn’t fall instantly in love with it (well, I fell instantly in love with Dina Meyer as Barbara Gordon), but I thought it had a lot of potential, and I was tickled pink when one of the characters mentioned some weird things going on in Smallville. I didn’t think anything would come from it, but there was always the faintest hope that the two shows would crossover.

Of course, they didn’t, because BoP lasted only one season against the 10 that Smallville got.

By the end of Smallville, Michael Rosenbaum was my Lex Luthor. And surprisingly, Tom Welling had become my Clark Kent. Not my Superman, that was still Reeve, but he was entrenched as Clark. I desperately wanted them to cast him as Superman when I heard they were making a new Superman movie (Man of Steel which, by the way, I didn’t like at all).

Not too long after Smallville ended (you can find my review of the end of this show here) I started hearing news of a new super hero about Green Arrow. Except not starring Justin Hartley (Green Arrow on Smallville), but some guy I had never heard of. I wasn’t super excited about this, because I had never been that familiar with or a fan of GA. But I’m me, so I knew I would give it a chance at least.

And I fell in love from the start. This was, in all but the superficial trappings, the Batman show I had always wanted. Which is appropriate, since GA was just a rip-off of Batman in the first place. Arrow became must-watch TV. And eventually, on Arrow, we met Barry Allen. And I was like “Is it possible?” Are they going to try The Flash again? No. Maybe?”

And then we got The Flash. And at the end of the very first episode, we saw it, the newspaper headline:

"Flash Missing, Vanishes in Crisis"

Ho. Ly. Shit. What a teaser. But the date was years off from the date in the show, so I didn’t think there was any way we’d ever see the Crisis, that it was just a nice little Easter egg for the older comics fans watching the show.

But I still had that little spine tingle.

The show would revisit that headline occasionally. Which felt like a cruel parking lot tease.

Then, after many years and previous crossovers between the now expansive CW “Arrowverse”, we got the Elseworlds crossover (my God, it was magnificent). And how did that end?

“Don't worry, Doctor. Everything is as it should be. The stage is set. Worlds will live. Worlds will die. And the universe will never be the same.”

My entire body shivered when those words were spoken. I nearly lost the ability to form coherent words.

And then, the title cards

Coming Fall 2019

CRISIS on Infinite Earths

And I lost the ability to speak for a minute.

The only other times I’ve been that excited were when I learned that there were Star Wars prequels coming out, and new Babylon 5 D2D stories. I wasn’t even that excited for Infinity War. Because I knew something like that was going to happen. I never thought I would get more SW movies or B5. And I never, truly believed I would get Crisis.

Understand, at this point in time, Arrow is my favorite show on TV. Even when it’s bogged down mid-season, I love that show. I love all the Arrowverse shows (except Black Lightning), but Arrow is the one I don’t want to miss at all.

Then I learned that coinciding with Crisis would be the last season of my favorite show on the air. Because Arrow was ending with a 10-ep season 8. And my heart broke. I knew it was time. Oliver’s story was about done. But I wasn’t any less saddened by understanding that.

But in knowing that, I also figured out how things might go on Crisis. And they largely went as I expected (note, I still haven’t watched the finale of Arrow, have to stock up on tissues first!).

While there are a handful of things I might have done a little differently, I can honestly say that I absolutely loved Crisis. It was just about as perfect as it could have been lacking the expansive cast of the entire comic book series and tie-ins.

I mean. . . jeez. . .

I was super jazzed when we saw Hawk and Robin from Titans. I don’t even love “Titans” but it meant that show was officially part of the MultiArrowverse. They weren't just limited this to the CW shows. So was Burton’s Batman. Adam West’s Batman. The Christopher Reeve Superman, carried on via Brandon Routh was a part of this multiverse.

I thought for sure we were only going to get the CW people with maybe one or 2 surprising cameos.

I was wrong.

By the end of Crisis, we touched on just about everything. The only things that jumped out at me were nothing that I noticed (but admit I may have missed) from the Superboy tv show (and I admit, somehow I missed that it even existed until like 20 years later), Lois and Clark, and the Dark Knight trilogy.

I was disappointed that they couldn’t work things out with Michael Rosenbaum to appear as Lex Luthor. MY Lex Luthor. Because I figured that meant no Smallville representation, because I figured there was *no* way they’d ever get Tom Welling, Because somehow, I completely and utterly missed the news that they did, in fact, get Tom Welling. Both the SO and I squeed when we saw him show up. Especially since right now we’re in the middle of re-watching Smallville.

I’m mildly disappointed that we didn’t get to see Amell’s Green Arrow meet Justin Hartley’s Green Arrow.

At the same time, holy shit! Green Lanterns! They even connected the new crop of DC movies! God damn! It was much bigger and so much smaller than I ever thought they could manage.

12-year old me was emotionally eviscerated and uplifted by a comic book mini-series.

46-year old me was emotionally eviscerated and uplifted by this magnificent live action adaptation.

This was a beautiful love letter to the DC universe, to the CW Arrowverse, and to Arrow, which got us to this point.

The Multiverse is dead, long live the Multiverse.

DC Titans - A Small Review

2019-02-17T13:39:00.000-06:00

Recently Watched:

Titans
(Season 1)
(Brenton Thwaites, Anna Diop; TV-MA; 45 min; 2018 - ???)

There might be minor spoilers even though I'll try to avoid spoiling much.

The Bad:
1. Color: Starfire isn't orange-ish.

2. Color: Gar isn't green (and is so far limited in what he changes into).

3. Color: Robin's costume might as well be grey. Even the super hero shows and movies that I love still darken the colors (except for the Reeve movies) and it drives me crazy.

4. Grim, Gritty, Edgy, Grimdark: Especially in the first few episodes, this suffers from trying to hard to emulate the Snyder-verse (thus far). It slowly eases off of this in some of the later eps, but even in the finale, it's still trying to damn hard. And it's crazy that they can't get this right, because Daredevil and Jessica Jones provided great pre-existing examples of how you can do grim & gritty supers without going Edgelord Grimdark (ooo, I might have a new album title there).

5. The Casting: I'm not yet sold on Brenton Thwaites as broody moody why did Bruce do this to me Dick Grayson or Anna Diop's Starfire. It's not that they suck, they just aren't hitting quite the right buttons for me.

6. Fight Choreography: The truth is simply that 2 excellent seasons of Person of Interest, 3 seasons of Dardedevil and 7 years of Arrow have spoiled me when it comes to street level superhero fight choreography, and Titans just doesn't compare. It's more akin to, say, Buffy fighting (which was solid for a low-budget TV show of the time but that time was . . . sheesh, 23 years ago!) with a dash of the Bourne movie still tossed in. Arrow manages to stage and execute multiple awesome fights every week for 23 weeks a year. And I'm reasonably certain that Titans has at *least* an Arrow budget.

7. Blood! Blood Everywhere!! Part of being Edgy & Grimdark is that there has to be a gratuitous use of blood. And at the core, I don't have a problem with that. Street level heroes should see some blood even if they aren't lethal terminating machines. The blood problem in Titans is that there is simply *too* much of it, it's done digitally and poorly, and the people doing it have no fucking clue how blood works. Robin can punch someone in the mouth and the resulting blood splatter is like what you see in a murder mystery when someone is dismembering a body.

8. Power Levels: One thing that Snyder got right in Man of Steel is the power levels of the characters he was dealing with. But through 11 eps of this, the power levels are just dropped *WAY* too much. I mean, Starfire is supposed to be a fucking powerhouse. Like, go toe-to-toe with Wonder Woman for a bit kind of powerhouse. Donna Troy is a Wonder Woman-level powerhouse. Hell, even Hawk of Hawk and Dove is pretty solid on the scale (yet, here, Hawk and Dove are street-level seemingly unpowered vigilantes). On this, so far, they aren't even CW Supergirl powerhouses. What little we've seen is more akin to Jessica Jones' power level on Netflix.

The Good:

1. The Casting: Young Teagan Croft is doing a solid job as Raven. Curran Walters is nailing the asshole that is Jason Todd's Robin. Alan Ritchson (whom you may remember as Aquaman on Smallville is a solid Hawk, and even Minka Kelly doesn't suck as Dove. The stand-out is easily Ryan Potter as superhero fanboy Beast Boy though. He has what I think they call an "easy charm". The best parts of the show featured him.

2. The Premise of the Dick Grayson Character: The show is not afraid of talking about, and in fact, focuses heavily on, how being a pre-teen boy taken in by and taught the ways of the Batman would probably leave you pretty fucked up in the head. Not only does it address it, it gives up two first-hand perspectives of it. That of Dick Grayson, suffering the mental trauma, maybe even the PTSD of years with the Bat and the exultation of such a life in a kid who has only been doing it for like, a year, and without the initial baggage that Grayson had.

3. Potential: If the show can move away from the Snyderisms and find it's own voice, I think it has a lot of potential. But right now, when compared to other young people superhero shows like The Gifted, Cloak and Dagger, and Runaways, it's at the tail end of the pack.

Right now, Titans is rough. It doesn't suck but it could be so, so much more.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1043813/?ref_=tt_ov_inf

9/11

2018-09-11T14:23:00.001-05:00

So. . . today is another anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States. A day on which we remember and honor the victims and the heroes of that day, and *rightly so*.

It's a day on which we throw up hashtags like #NeverForget and we use phrases like "on that day, we were united" or "our hearts beat as one".

But we *have* to stop romanticizing that "unity". Because that day doesn’t exist in a vacuum, suspended in time, away from everything. That day changed every day that came after it. If we are truly going to honor the victims and heroes of 9/11, we must do *honestly*, which requires that we examine how we honored them and progressed as a nation after that day.

And we did a poor mother fucking job of honoring them. We continue to do a poor job of honoring them even now, 17 years later.

How have we paid tribute to them?

America’s longest military action, spanning *three* (3) Presidential administrations so far?

Thousands of dead soldiers and civilians?

Direct attacks on our civil rights in the name of security?

Ongoing denial of aid for the surviving heroes, who we largely ignore except on the anniversary and when a politician needs to campaign?

A dramatic increase in public bigotry?

The normalization of jingoism in place of true patriotism?

If you ask me, that’s not honor.

Even Billy Graham asked us “not to implode and disintegrate emotionally and spiritually as a people and a nation”, but we didn’t listen.

Within a week of the attack, we got to hear

“What we saw on Tuesday, as terrible as it is, could be minuscule if, in fact, God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve." – Jerry Falwell

"Jerry, that's my feeling. I think we've just seen the antechamber to terror. We haven't even begun to see what they can do to the major population." – Pat Robertson

"The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularise America, I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.' " – Jerry Falwell

That’s not honor. That’s *hate*.

In the first week and a half after the attack, there were around 600 documented incidents of attacks on Arab and Muslim people in the U.S. Nearly 600 in *10* days. A *Sikh* was murdered because of hate and stupidity.

We claim to honor the victims. Yet we consistently fail to mention that this wasn’t just an attack on America. Citizens from at least 78 nations were killed in the attack. This was an attack on *everyone*. But we don’t really talk about them.

On the anniversary, we remember the victims. We remember the heroes. But we consistently fail to *honor* them.

The simple fact is, 9/11 *broke* us and as a result, we’ve failed the dead and the living.

We should try to figure out how to fix it.

Stop the Hate?

2018-07-06T19:25:00.000-05:00

So. . . hate.

What is it? Is it bad? Good? Do we need to stop all the hate? What do we mean when we say “hate”?

Fuck if I know.

I have a friend, a person whom I genuinely respect. They’ve earned it. They’re smart (far more intelligent than I am), thoughtful, considerate, involved, pretty fair-minded. When I say not all opinions are equal, they’re one of the people I’m thinking of. I know they put a lot more thought into things than most people, so when they decide to say something, I’m going to listen, even if I end up disagreeing.

Recently, they were pushed to angrily rant about something (and yes, it’s a real possibility that I unknowingly contributed to what pushed them to actually rant about this). And as angry as it was indicated to be, certainly I had to pay attention.

Long story short, the idea was stop the hate, because we’re all human beings and should try treating each as such.

Which is a fine philosophy. I’m sure it works tremendously well for some people.

I mean, shit, the greatest thinkers, doers, heroes, the best of the best, they were *all* humans, like you, like me, like the guy across the street who was murdered in cold blood a couple years ago.

Of course, the worst of the worst in human history were *also* humans beings. As far as I know, Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler, Genghis, whomever created the reality show, they were all humans beings, like you, like me, like the guy who murdered the guy across the street a couple years ago.

So what does it mean that maybe we should try treating each other like humans beings, especially on the internet?

People have been asking this kind of question since people. Typically, there is an appeal to a common experience or denominator. Are you working hard to provide for your family? Well, maybe that woman who supports Trump is working hard to provide for *her* family and thinks Trump will make that easier, or more likely? Shit, right there is a common, shared experience. If you have that in common, maybe you have other things in common, so let’s explore those!

Of course, this position has one pretty severe flaw as typically expressed. It’s asking you to overlook, ignore, or (and god damn do I hate this one) agree to disagree on certain other beliefs and positions held in order to focus on the commonalities.

I like tacos. Despite the possible origins of tacos, there are Nazis that like tacos. Our shared appreciation of delicious tacos is simply not enough of a commonality for me to accept their Nazism.

What am I driving at here? The basic idea is that we should treat each other with respect, at least basic respect. At the same time, you more than likely grew up being repeatedly told that “respect is earned”. And it is. People confuse “respect” and “basic courtesy” ALL. THE. FUCKING. TIME.

People are, in my incredibly humble opinion, absolutely entitled to basic courtesy. Until they demonstrate that they are no longer deserving of that courtesy. And I think *that* is what we’re talking about when someone says we need to “stop the hate”.

The simple fact is that, despite our commonalities, when you support inhumane actions, inhumane positions, as far as I’m concerned YOU ARE FUCKED. You’ve abdicated the right to basic courtesy. I can even understand someone being conned for a while, if they later realize that they stupidly supported some heinous shit.

But when they *keep* supporting it, despite knowing (and often willfully ignoring) the truth? Fuck them.

Because we are all human beings. And some humans beings are piece of shit scumbags who do nothing but make the world a worse place. And I will continue to point this out to them. I will continue to support the people who point this out to them, in the most uncivil ways possible.

Some folk will ask “do you think the hate is helping”?

Yeah, yeah it is. Fighting against injustice isn’t clean, it isn’t civil. As Good Old J.R. would say, “it ain’t ballet” (though every time he says that, I’m like “You go do some damn ballet and see how easy you think that shit is afterwards, son!”) They’ll be all “What about changing hearts and minds?” or “You’re never going to change their minds acting like that!”. Except changing the minds of scumfucks really isn’t the goal.

This actually ties into the recent “civility” smokescreens. See, for as long as people have been fighting injustice, other people have screamed and cried about the lack of civility in the fight. See, these people understand something about fights against being doing scummy shit:

You’re not really going to change the minds of most people. Because most people DO. NOT. GIVE. A. FUCK. About the cause. What they *do* care about is being bothered by, constantly reminded of, or annoyed by the cause, constantly hearing about it, over and over and over. Especially in ways that are uncivil or lacking in basic courtesy.

Because if things are civil, it’s not intrusive, it’s not important, it’s not interfering with their daily lives.

You change things not by changing the minds of the majority or a plurality. You change them by making the majority so fucking tired of the shit that *they* demand change just so they can go back to daily lives. You target the comfort and/or mundane apathy. It’s how women got the vote. It’s how the Civil Rights Act of 1964 came about. It’s what drove the Klan into the shadows for years. It’s what sparked acceptance of the fact that gay people were, in fact, entitled to the same basic rights as everyone else, it’s what’s ever so slowly pushing trans acceptance.

It’s simply how it is.

Anyway. . .

My basic point is that the blanket cry to “stop the hate” is a close cousin to the paradox of tolerance.

“The hate” is a tool, a weapon. Like a firearm or politics.

Should you call someone a racist when you haven’t seen overt racism from them? Probably not. But you can call them conned morons supporting a Nazi-sympathizing scumfuck, so they’re just as bad if not worse than an actual racist, because they’re supporting it simply because they (falsely) believe they’re gaining something from that support.

Stop the hate?

Fuck no.

That shit is useful. But do try to aim it correctly. We’re not burning down Vietnam here. Though if necessary, some folk who didn’t have the sense to step to the fucking side might get caught in the effect.

Marsupial, Our Puppy, One Year Later, R.I.P.

2018-04-13T13:56:00.001-05:00

So, about 15 years ago, the SO and I were talking – JUST TALKING – about maybe getting a dog for the family. We both missed the dogs we used to have, and I think they’re good for kids to. So, one day, the phone rings, and the SO tells me that someone had some Boxer Beagle puppies, and she was in love with them and so then we had a dog.

He was an absolutely *adorable* little puppy. He was also a jerk with *tremendously* sharp teeth. How do I know his teeth were tremendously sharp? Because I still carry scars all over my lower legs from when he thought I was his chew toy, or he was trying to establish dominance over me. Still not sure what his goal was.

Now, the SO had more patience and discipline than I did, so she handled the primary training (sit, stay, etc.) which he took to pretty quick. He was a smart little puppy. I, on the other hand, was engaged in a one man, one dog war with him over who was boss and who got to chew on whose legs.

Eventually, I won that war.

I don’t think I did it the way the books say to do it, and don’t worry, I never beat or hit him (I did hold him by the scruff of his neck with my teeth once), but I did spend a lot of time on all fours acting like a bigger dog.

Me and him? We developed our own relationship, rough housing loving, like stereotypical boys for the most part.

One thing we couldn’t seem to train out of him was his primal need to bark at non-family members like he was a savage marauder who lived only to taste the blood of humans. That behavior, combined with people often mistaking him for a Pit Bull, eventually got us evicted from our townhouse apartment. Which lead to us renting a house, which was cool, because we finally had a back yard he could run around in.

He ended up smashing out two windows (on two different occasions) while fiercely letting people know he was in the house. He was a Boxer, so if there was a window or door in his way, he beat on it with his paws. Which proved to be stronger than glass.

We ended up moving into a house that we were buying, and for a couple more years, we had to put him in the back of the house or outside whenever company came over, because, again, jerk ass. I ran a weekly RPG so I had the same people coming over and *eventually* we got him to accept those guys, and then he was meek as could be with them, wanting the occasionally loving, and then ignoring him.

After a few years, when the game fell apart, he grew less used to people being over and started to revert a little but not much when people came in the house. However, he *never* stopped trying to be a fierce beast when he saw people walking outside or coming up onto the porch. I had to strategically place things in-between our annoyingly expansive front windows and him to stop him from smashing those out.

In his last couple of years, he got real sick one time (first time he was every actually ill), and stopped eating. We think he may have gotten into some chocolate, but were never quite sure. So, after more than a decade, we had to take him to the vet (we’re poor, so it was a big hit on our monthly income). They helped, and he started eating again, but he *never* forgot being sick, and became obsessed with food. Any food that was around was even less safe than before (you couldn’t leave anything unguarded), and he became far more bold when it came to getting in your face while you were eating, to the point where we had to put him up during dinner time.

But outside of food, he was still the same obnoxious jerk. Just with ever-dwindling energy. Then he started to have weird fugue spells. Those were creepy.

And then one day, he kept trying to burrow, hide? Under whatever furniture was nearby, with little energy.

And when we woke up the next morning, he was laying in the floor like normal, but when I went to pet him, he was unresponsive.

He had died sometime in the night.

I’m not prone to deluding myself, so of course, I always knew that he would eventually die. And towards the end, I think I knew it was coming up on the end. I tried to spend extra time with him because of that.

When I realized he wasn’t breathing, I called the SO to make sure (my brain isn’t 100% trustworthy). I put on my stoic face and with my middle child, wrapped him up in a blanket that we had possessed even longer than we had him, so that we could take him up to the vet so they could handle his body.

Moving him from house to car to vet to holding him while waiting was one of the most difficult mental things I’ve ever done.

When we got him, the SO agreed to let me name him, and I picked “Marsupial”, because when I was about 17-18, I lived with someone and we had one of the puppies that my family dog had given birth to. That puppy was named “Platypus”. He died early (worms, before we were able to get his vaccinations). When he died, I always knew I would name my next dog “Marsupial”. The SO added the middle name “Jones”.

They say that pets and owners come to resemble each other. I don’t think that ever happened with us, but Marsupial was undeniably one of us. When I say he was a loud, obnoxious, seemingly fierce but not really, jerk ass. . . well, I would largely apply that to myself as well. I don’t mean it as an insult, but rather a descriptor of myself and our dog.

He was ours, and we were his.

He died this day in 2017.

We miss him.

Rest in . . . peace? No, that’s not right. I’d rather think he’s barking at every intangible spirit that crosses his senses, letting them know that he’s there, watching them and they shouldn’t forget that.

I put together a little Flickr album with some pictures of him, spanning about 10 years or so.

"Star Wars: The Last Jedi" - Some Thoughts

2018-04-08T14:06:00.000-05:00

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

(Daisy Ridley, John Boyega; PG-13; 152 min; 2017)

YAY! I finally got to watch this! Not in a cool theater like I hoped to do, but hey, WOOT anyway!

This is my least favorite Star Wars movie.

I AM JUST KIDDING!!!!!!!! That's still Rogue One.

I'm actually still processing this one, about 14 hours later. There was so much to take in. One of the most common of the few complaints I saw about The Force Awakens is that it was basically just A New Hope remake, and that's a fair cop. It was a wonderfully done remake that I loved.

The Last Jedi is not a remake of The Empire Strikes Back, which I know was something I thought might happen. Make no mistake; TLJ very much revisits situations and elements from both The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, but it takes those elements and twists or subverts them. It very much felt like what Rian Johnson (director, writer) would have liked to have seen in those originals, and it does it extremely well.

Visually, this film is just beautiful. The battle between Kylo, Rey, and the Praetorian Guard was terrific. It was vicious and brutal, while being done in more the style of the Original Trilogy saber fights. Don’t get me wrong, I absolute LOV* the saber fights in the prequels. Those will always be my favorites, but I also understand that those were Jedi who were immediately post-peak of power, so their fights would be different.

Luke, Kylo, Rey, none of these people had the full training of the Jedi Order, so they all had to learn to fight differently. I don’t think any of them ever made the full connection with the Force in melee combat that the Jedi of old had, so the battles in this new trilogy so far are exactly what they should be.

The battle on the salt plains was a brilliant choice. Not just in the vibrant contrast of the red earth against the glaring white salt, but in how the movements of the Rebel forces left delicate, almost artistic streaks and patterns, while the war machine of the First Order left what looked like swaths of smeared blood on the ground.

Adam Driver (Kylo Ren), who I wasn’t super impressed with in TFA, was much improved here. I think with this one, the actor has become a little more comfortable with the character, reflected nicely in the story telling, when he smashed his mask. Both Driver and Ren stopped trying to be Darth Vader 2.0 in this one, and embraced being Kylo Ren, Emo Asshole Supreme.

Young Daisy Ridley continues to impress. She manages to convey the best and worst qualities of the Jedi simultaneously.

The story of Finn and Rose was very compelling. Remember that this movie follows immediately on TFA, and so far, Finn’s not really a hero. Finn doesn’t know who he is yet. Hell, it wasn’t that long ago at all that he was a Stormtrooper. At this point, he’s impulsive and reactionary (a bit like, I don’t know, Luke Skywalker when he was young). And here’s this young fan girl (because, like Luke, Finn’s suddenly a hero to a lot of people), who finds herself suddenly disillusioned, then thrust into an adventure she probably never expected, and unintentionally teaching someone what it means to truly be a hero.

I was not impressed with Laura Dern. They could have put anyone in that part, she brought nothing special to the table.

Anyway. . .

From the time I first watched Star Wars back when I was, like, 4, Luke Skywalker has been my favorite character. And while I know people up to and including Mark Hamill don't necessarily agree with Johnson's choices for Luke in this movie, I thought it made perfect sense for the character's arc. In the original trilogy, we see Luke go from zero to hero, his Hero's Journey. But at the end of the day, he was still only a Jedi Master by default, by being the last of the Jedi. Through three movies, we see that despite his maturation, he still retains the impulsive nature that he has back on the dustball where he grew up.

Luke gained some wisdom over time, but always remained close to that edge, plagued by self-doubt. Recall that in RotJ, he nearly succumbed to the Dark Side, and while he pulled himself back, he couldn’t get the job done; that was Anakin Skywalker.

TLJ touches on the post-RotJ life of Skywalker, in which, as the Jedi who vanquished Vader and ended the Empire, he became a legend. And he essentially admits that he kind of bought into his own press, thinking that he could rebuild the Jedi order. And that makes perfect sense, because look at who trained him initially: Obi-Wan Kenobi. Who thought he had what it took to train Vader.

And we know how that turned out.

We learned that once again, Luke almost succumbed to the Dark Side, but pulled back. Because almost succumbing to the Dark Side is in Luke’s very nature as a person. And him retreating and hiding when everything goes catastrophically wrong is also in Luke’s nature. Because despite the passage of decades, he never stopped being that desert-dwelling angsty, self-pitying teenager who dreamed of something bigger, but had no idea of how to react when those dreams manifested differently.

In the books, Luke meets Mary Sue, I mean Mara Jade blah blah blah, but I never thought the character arc in the novels was appropriate. This arc? This is pretty much exactly what I always pictured for Luke, because Luke was always going to be a tragic hero at best. And in the end, he was still a hero. He pulled himself back one last time to do the right thing. Not the thing that fixed everything and saved the day, but the thing that helped others.

Now, Star Wars has always been the saga of the Skywalker family. So does this change with Ren’s “revelation” that Rey’s parents were nobodies? Certainly, it appears that she’s not a Skywalker, so is this still the saga of the Skywalkers?

Sure. Kylo Ren is a Skywalker.

And he’s also a manipulative, unreliable narrator. We never saw his alleged vision of Rey’s parents. It’s entirely possible that he made it up in order to help sway her to his side. It’s also entirely possible that he didn’t, knowing that she would sense the truth when he spoke it.

I’m not entirely sure that Rey’s parentage or ancestry is terrible important. Given her raw power level, one is inclined to think that she must have some connection to the Skywalker family, but do we need to know what that is? Heck if I know. For all I know, she was incubated from some remnant of Darth Vader’s DNA. We might find out, we might not, we might already have found out.

I enjoyed this so much (and am looking forward to re-watching it to see what I missed the first time around in my mesmerized state; same thing happened with TFA), that I’m disappointed to learn that Rian Johnson isn’t writing and directing the next one. In fact, I have some trepidation about the next one, since it’s being directed by Arbams and written by Abrams and Chris Terrio, co-writer of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (you all know how I feel about that film) and writer of Justice League (which I haven’t seen yet, and haven’t decided if I’m going to even bother with).

On the other hand, Rian Johnson is getting an entire Star Wars trilogy to play with, and after this, I’m pretty jazzed about that.

Overall, Star Wars: The Last Jedi is an excellent ending to the story of Luke Skywalker (and ensures that his legend will live on in universe), and a very solid entry in the American Mythos that is Star Wars.

Protect Us From Tyranny? Wolverines!!!

2018-03-28T10:29:00.000-05:00

Something that fascinates me is the mercurial perception of our military strength and forces depending on the conversation.

In general years, the Right talks about the American War Machine as if it's this vast, unstoppable juggernaut, except one that is underequipped and weak so we need to bolster it even more, but UNSTOPPABLE!!!!

And the Left rightfully laughs at this bullshit.

But when there is a mass shooting and the inevitable gun violence/control arguments start, the #Gundamentalists and #Ammosexuals start talking about how 2A is there to protect us from #GovernmentTyranny (it isn't) and that's why we'll only take their guns over their cold, dead bodies.

And suddenly the Left touts the American War Machine as this vast, unstoppable juggernaut with drones and satellites and low orbital death rays and shit.

And the Right is all like #Wolverines!!

It's another example of how Americans of all stripes are willing to use the military as propaganda while decrying the same actions by the other side.

And both sides are right *and* wrong.

The American War Machine is indisputably vast powerful. As it should be since we spend stupidly ridiculous amounts of money on it. Far more than is necessary (but apparently never enough).

At the same time, 50 god damn years of American warfare has shown us that underequipped, outnumbered, technologically inferior, insurgent style opponents can not only withstand our attempts to steamroll them, but can put up one hell of a fight.

We totally rolled over the enemy in Desert Shield/Desert Storm. In a stand up, WWII style fight, there's only a very few nations on the planet that could go toe-to-toe with us.

But notice that in Operation Enduring Freedom (now Operation Freedom's Sentinel), we might be steamrolling over the enemy, but we're doing it at a snail's pace. I mean, we're now at 16 years, 5 months, and 3 weeks of CRUSHING OUR ENEMIES AND SEEING THEM DRIVEN BEFORE US!!!!

This war is almost as long as the entire Vietnam War. We've been fighting in this war longer than we fought (as in full troop commitment) in the Vietnam War.

Do we somehow think that a war on American soil, between American civilians and American military forces will be a stand up, toe-to-toe war? That's not how it would shake out. And people neglect to mention that should such a conflict break out, suddenly, a lot of those military personnel and a lot of that military might is going to find itself on the side of the civilians. It would be civil war, and that's what happens. Not to mention the side-taking of thousands of armed and kinda trained LEO.

The American War Machine just isn't very good at insurgent warfare. Period. We've *never* gone #TotalWar on someone and we sure as fuck wouldn't do it here, unless Greg Stillson was our POTUS.

Could the #Gundamentalist and #Ammosexuals *win* such a conflict? At the end of the day, probably not. But insurgent wars aren't really about achieving a straight up win condition. They're largely about making the conflict so costly, so troublesome, and so unpopular that the aggressive force has to end it. Could they achieve that?

I wouldn't rule it out.

So let's stop trying to use that as a talking point/counter-argument against the #GunNuts, m'kay?

P.S. Remember, COTUS doesn't actually mention "guns" or "firearms".

#EndTheViolence

#SmashTheNRA

#SmashTheReds
#FuckTheGOP

#FuckTrump

#FuckStormtrumpers

"Thor: Ragnarok" - A Short Review

2018-03-18T14:34:00.000-05:00

Thor: Ragnarok
(Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo; 130 min; PG-13; 2017)

First off, this is *easily* the best Thor movie they’ve made. Period.

There will be spoilers ahead.

Chris Hemsworth has frat boy Thor down to an art. Which sucks if you’re someone who doesn’t like frat boy Thor, but it is a pretty accurate modern interpretation of the mythological Thor. Myth Thor was kind of a douchebag sometimes. He has very solid comedic timing (which is also well-displayed in Ghostbusters: Answer the Call – in fact, he’s one of the best things about that movie), and if you’re into it, I’m assuming he’s pretty hot judging from the way Carrie’s breath catches when he’s shirtless.

Which brings me to one thing that got my attention in this one. He wasn’t big enough for my tastes. Hemsworth has never been big enough for Thor, even though I love him as the character. But it seemed like his workout routine for this one focused more on definition and bicep size than overall size, so he looked even smaller than in his previous portrayals. Not a huge deal (heh), but if you’ve read anything I’ve said about comic movies, you know physically matching the image in my head is a top priority. Physically, my preference is that they find someone about 3 inches shorter but with nearly the same physique as the most recent Mountain (Game of Thrones), Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson. That’s about how big Thor should be. But whatever.

This was an excellent mixture of the comic book mythological Thor with his weighty Asgardians concerns, but also the comic book Thor that often found himself mixed up in zany sci-fi adventures. It *looked* like a Thor comic from yesterwhen, which is something the previous two flicks failed to do. Someone finally remembered the contributions of Jack Kirby to Thor.

It was tremendously funny, which is no shock given that the director is the guy responsible for the Team Thor shorts (which tell us what Thor was doing during Civil War – go watch them if you haven’t), and Team Daryl (which is post-Ragnarok).

Honestly, it may have been a little bit *too* funny.

The best thing about Ragnarok, though, was that *finally* a Marvel movie showed us not the fear and torment of Bruce Banner, but the anguish, loneliness, and longing of Hulk. A lot of people think that you need the Banner character to properly do Hulk, but they forget that Hulk is a character in his own right. He’s just a bigger, angrier Frankenstein’s Monster. He has wants, needs, drives like anyone else, and like a lot of people, he doesn’t know how to deal with them. He’s got one tool in his emotional toolbox. It’s just that the one tool is the world’s biggest hammer, so every problem is a nail. That Hulk smash.

There’s something like *18* MCU movies now, and one of, if not the most, touching and heartbreaking scenes in them is when Thor goes to leave and Hulk cries out “Friend stay!”, chases Thor down crying for his friend to stay and freaks out, not wanting to change back into Banner. The movies tell us how much Banner loathes having this monster inside of him, but do little to tell us of Hulk’s imprisonment when Banner is dominant. When it’s Banner facing the world, Hulk is alone, trapped, and *powerless*. And that’s got to be something that genuinely makes Hulk afraid.

So, kudos for letting us actually meet Hulk finally.

Another thing I did *not* care for: Valkyrie. I don’t have a problem with the character of Valkyrie, nor one with casting a woman of color in the part. I just really dislike Tessa Thompson. She’s not a good actor. I’ve seen her in a few things, and “coming off as snotty” is acting. I guarantee there were dozens if not hundreds of more qualified women that auditioned for the part, and casting her was just a bad decision.

Cate Blanchett as Hela was effective, I thought (props for getting her headdress right). The whole time, I thought there was something kind of familiar about her, but it wasn’t until after the movie when I looked her up that I learned/realized that she was Galadriel in the Lord of the Rings flicks. I don’t know her other work, but she might be a pretty solid performer.

SKURGE THE EXECUTIONER!!!

On one hand, YAY for including this character in the movie! On the other hand, BOO! Skurge needs more build up than he got. On the other other hand, YAY! Karl Urban! I love Karl Urban!! On the other other other hand, BOO! They kind of wasted Karl Urban!!!!

Seriously, I appreciate that they drew from a classic story that just about everyone my age who read comics is familiar with. And it’s great that we got to see him with the M-16s. But on the downside, it was *just* the visual. We didn’t get the story that gave us . . .

-----
“They made a fool of me, Balder. They laughed at me. Everybody laughs at Skurge. Hela, Mordonna, even the Enchantress I love. They all laugh at me. Except you. Balder is too kind to laugh at Skurge. But whenever they laugh, I hurt inside. Maybe I die a little. Now I think I am dead already. And my axe was destroyed with Naglfar. So I will stay behind and the last laugh will be mine. ... I will hold the bridge myself.”

And

“And though the Executioner stands alone, and the warriors of Hel seem numberless, not one sets foot upon the bridge across the river Gjoll. They sing no songs in Hel... nor do they celebrate heroes... for silent is that dismal realm and cheerless... but the story of the Gjallerbru and the god who defended it is whispered across the Nine Worlds. And when a new arrival asks about the one to whom even Hela bows her head... the answer is always the same...

he stood alone at Gjallerbru...

and that answer is enough.”

-----
I was 12 when that issue came out. It had a powerful impact on me, and I was *so* disappointed that Skurge didn’t get to hold Bifrost alone against the hordes of Hela.

So, mixed bag on that one.

Korg (the big rock gladiator) was pretty great. I hope beyond hope that in one of the next MCU flicks, we get an extended conversation between Korg and Luis from Ant-Man. Make it an extra if necessary, but the MCU *NEEDS* this conversation to happen. Doesn’t even matter what they’re talking about.

Anyway, this was a damned fun movie, and I hope we get some more adventures from Hemsworth and Taika Waititi.

Man, imagine what these people could do for the DC Cinematic Universe. . .

"Spider-Man: Homecoming" Short Review

2018-03-18T14:27:00.000-05:00

Spider-Man: Homecoming

(Tom Holland, Michael Keaton; 133 min; PG-13; 2017)

Well, this was a lot of fun. It may be the most fun I’ve had watching a Spider-Man movie. I’ll have to go back and watch the Raimi ones to check. It’s also one of the more fun MCU flicks IMO (I enjoyed it at least as much as GotG).

Holland was excellent as a young, unsure of himself Peter, despite having faced down Captain America recently (I liked that Tony pointed out that if Cap had actually wanted to kick Peter’s ass, he would’ve done so).

Flash as a socioeconomic bully instead of a physical bully was a brilliant change.

Spidey trapped under the rubble and getting out is one of those “classic” images from the comics, but if any scene in the flick summed up Spider-Man, I think it was him sitting out on the fire escape eating a churro that a nice lady bought for him after he helped her. He’s your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man: he’s never going to get the big flashy rewards and recognition (especially while JJJ lives), but a small, simple bit of recognition from the people on the street is pretty great.

Thinking on it, I can only really think of two things that bothered me a bit:

1. Did I miss something in this and Captain America: Civil War or does this version of Spidey not have spider-sense? I guess maybe they’re going to have it slowly develop? Anyway, that grabbed my attention in both flicks.

2. Aunt May. Dag nab it. Aunt May is supposed to be *old*, not just 9 years older than me. I don’t have anything against Marisa Tomei, but Rosemary Harris from the Raimi trilogy is what Aunt May is supposed to look and sound should like.

Overall, this was a pretty great movie. The director, Jon Watts, handled everything wonderfully. He had a fine grasp on both the large and small scales of the character and setting. The story and script were engaging and touching (bonus: not an origin story! Also, one of the story and script writers was John Frances Daley – Sam Weir on Freaks and Geeks and the terrific (and my fav char) Lance Sweets on Bones).

This is pretty much all I could want from a first Spider-Man flick and I am very much looking forward to the next one.

Another Day, Another Shooting

2018-02-15T14:53:00.000-06:00

Hi everybody!

(Hi, Mister Nick!)

So, it's the day after another mass shooting. What does that mean? It means we're seeing the same things we see every time:

--> An overall lack of (re)action on the part of the GOP.

--> Talk but not much movement from the Dems.

--> Bang your head! du duh, Metal Health will drive you mad! No, wait, it's Mental health is the problem not the guns!

--> All the well-meaning but making things worse arguments from the Left ("Do what the UK/Australia/Whatever did, we're just like them" "Assault weapons ban!" "Militia, militia, militia!" - do that last one in Jan Brady's voice). I've explained the issues with this before, not going to do it again right now.

--> All the not so well-meaning, terrible ideas from the Right (these largely boil down to "MOAR GUNZ PLZ!!!!", because they seem to follow the "Starship Troopers" maxim that an armed society is a polite society, like that bastion of politeness, Somalia).

The fact that we see *THE EXACT SAME REACTIONS* from both sides, every time is a significant part of the reason why nothing is getting done.

The only things that seem a bit different this time are

--> Actual footage and communications from inside the school at the time. Expect this to be the case going forward so long as everyone is equipped with an A/V streaming capable mini super computer.

--> More victim blaming from POTUS.

Things I'd like to see come about as a result of these inevitable shootings:

--> A ground level mass movement on the part of the people *demanding* that every last dollar, nickel, and cent donated to politicians and their PACS by the gun lobby (Hi NRA! Fuck you!) be returned, and if they don't return it, the voters guarantee those muthafuckers (thanks Ron Perlman!) will be voted right the fuck out of the office.

--> The politicians and the press actually talking about *gun violence* in this country. Not just the AR-15s, not just the bump stocks, not just the mass shootings, but the actual scourge of Americans; that treasured staple of Americana, the *fucking handgun*. Because things like the school shootings grab the press, but are still only a fraction of the gun violence in the nation.

--> A lot of the gun deaths in the US are suicides, typically male (we're more inclined to shoot ourselves than women, I guess we've been conditioned to think it's a more manly way to die). I'd like to see us start to have a genuine conversation about mental health and the related violence, because while the Right does try to use mental health as a deflection from the staggering availability of guns, it *is* a factor in many cases. Why? Because *depression* is a god damn mental health issue, and one that far too many of us deal with.

Nothing is really going to change until we get the gun lobby money out of the pockets of the politicians, and that’s not going to change until we start changing the minds of millions of Americans who have been culturally indoctrinated, and then hammered with repeated fears of The Others.

I honestly believe that this is a problem we’re going to have to address from the bottom up.

Remember, as you go through your day hopefully not being shot:
#ThoughtsAndPrayersAreUseless
#FaithWithoutWorksIsDead
#FuckTheNRA

The Doctor Falls (spoilers)

2017-07-17T18:24:00.000-05:00

Spoilers.

When I heard that they were bringing Doctor Who back to TV, I was . . . hesitant. I hadn’t been fond of the people that came after Tom Baker, and I thought the TV movie was terrible. Seeing pictures of Christopher Eccleston in his simple black jacket and black shirt as The Doctor didn’t fill me with hope about the show either.

But I gave it a chance. By The End of the World, I was sold and hooked. When The Doctor regenerated into David Tennant at the end of The Parting of the Ways, I was tremendously disappointed, because Eccleston had surpassed even Tom Baker as my Doctor. But they had earned a lot of good faith with me through 9’s run. So I kept watching. And while I never liked him (or any other) as much as Eccleston, I did become a fan of Tennant, and I thought the stories during his run were largely even better than in 9’s. It was during Tennant’s run that they introduced my all-time, bar none favorite companion, Donna Noble.

I didn’t love everything they did during 10’s run, but overall, it was successful in my mind (except for the heartbreaking rueful fate of Donna Noble – I’ve never forgiven The Doctor for ignoring her choice with regards to her fate).

When 10 regenerated at the end of The End of Time (a truly excellent two-part finale), I was as surprised and disappointed as I had been with 9 (while I liked 9 more, I had spent a lot more time with 10, so the attachment was almost as strong).

With the regeneration of 10, we were introduced to Matt Smith’s 11^th Doctor, and the handing over of the show to Steven Moffat as showrunner. Now, Matt Smith was a pretty great Doctor. I like his performance as much as Tennant’s, if not more.

But with the change to 11, we also got Amy Pond and a dramatic increase in the appearances of River Song. And, frankly, I hate River Song. She never should have appeared in episodes beyond Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead. She was a poorly written, terribly boring character. In today’s terms, she’d be a Mary Sue (because that term has been twisted far from its original meaning, but the current use is spot on for River).

Not only do I strongly dislike River, I also can’t really stand Amy Pond. So that was two big, relatively early strikes against Moffat as showrunner. But the biggest strike against him was the almost complete stripping of fun from Doctor Who.

There was some goofy, stupid shit done on the show under Russell T Davies, but under him, no matter how stupid it got, the show was fun as well as dark and dramatic. With Moffat, it’s like he wanted to go GRIMDARK, but couldn’t do that just like he couldn’t apparently do fun.

So, for the first time in years, I stopped enjoying Doctor Who as much. When a season was close to premiering, I no longer got that tingle of excitement and anticipation that I had through the runs of 9 and 10. It even went from being a “Family Watch” event to an “Eh, I’ll watch it when I get around to it and the family doesn’t even bother now” non-event.

And that’s pretty much all on Moffat.

After a while, we got 11 and Clara Oswald. Clara, while cute as a button, was also a mind-numbingly boring Super Special Magic Girl companion. And the lack of fun persisted.

Eventually, someone somewhere got tired of Matt Smith as The Doctor, and we got Peter Capaldi (having previously been seen as a different character in one of the best eps of the series, The Fires of Pompeii).

I have greatly enjoyed Capaldi as The Doctor. In fact, he might be my second favorite of them all, despite the fact that he’s been saddled with terrible stories and scripts. He’s just that damn good, and his older, sadder Doctor is nearly perfect.

For seven years, Steven Moffat seemingly did everything he could to suck the fun and enjoyment out of Doctor Who (just like he sucked it out of his creation, Sherlock, from the get go). Finally, the time came for Capaldi to step aside. And considering the crap he was expected to work with, I’m surprised he didn’t tap out sooner.

Capaldi’s normal run (i.e., excluding the 2017 Christmas Special), ended this month, with a two-parter consisting and World Enough and Time and The Doctor Falls (both written by Moffat). And though not a direct part of the ending, those were preceded by The Eaters of Light (which was an outstanding episode, more so when compared to everything else in Moffat’s run).

And you know what?

They were damned good episodes. The dialogue was sharp, snappy and witty. The story was compelling even when you could predict was going to happen (and if you remained unspoiled, MAN there was a YUGE surprise!)

They were so good that I was forced to ask why in the Hell did Moffat wait for SEVEN FUCKING YEARS to finally bring his A game to the table? If he had put into the previous years what he put into these two episodes, his run might have gone unsurpassed as the best in the show’s history.

Everyone delivered in these, from Capaldi to Pearl Mackie (who had largely been pretty dull to this point) to Michelle Gomez (Missy was absolutely terrific once they toned her down just a bit) to the extras and guest stars.

When 10 was regenerating, at one point he said “I don’t wanna go” and it was heartbreaking.

Capaldi’s Doctor fought like hell to not come back! He was done. He didn’t want to come back and do it all again as someone else. And his performance was equally, if not more heartbreaking than Tennant’s.

This also marks the passing of control from Steven Moffat to Chris Chibnall. And I won’t miss Moffat. Instead of bringing us the greatness that he clearly has inside, he brought us 7 years of meh. In the final analysis, he’s done far more harm to the show than good, and his drek was a huge disservice to what Capaldi brought to the table.

I hope the door hits him in the ass on his way out.

Peter Capaldi was a truly great Doctor and I’ll miss him.

Review: Lucha Underground

2017-05-26T04:22:00.001-05:00

Recently Watched:

Lucha Underground

Seasons 1, 2

(Luis Fernandez-Gil, Matthew Kaye/Striker, Ian Hodgkinson/Vampiro; 2014-2016)

I went into this with no expectations other than "Eh, this is probably going to be like TNA level stuff." That, by the way, is not a compliment. But I was bored, and I'll be honest; I miss watching wrestling. I quit watching WWE programs after several wrestlers died as a result of their lifestyle (greatly influenced by their work schedules), but the final blow to my viewing was the murder-suicide by and of Chris Benoit and his family, quite likely a result of a type of dementia suffered from his years in the ring. I didn't just stop watching WWE at that point, I pretty much lost all my interest in wrestling, and couldn't, in good faith, support it.

But eventually, the WWE and other promotions started making some efforts to improve the conditions for their workers, and at this point, everyone going in knows the risks, and I'm far more comfortable with people making clearly informed stupid life choices than ones made without all the information. And the newer wrestlers are doing a better job of taking care of themselves.

So after several years, I finally watched a WWE program on Netflix or something. And I recognized maybe 2 of the wrestlers. Which is okay. What wasn't okay was that the matches were *boring as fuck*. I mean. . . yeah. So I tried another one, same thing, and basically gave up on finding good wrestling.

Which brings me back around to this show. As I said, I didn't have high hope for this, but at least it was lucha, which I am not too familiar with, so even if the quality was iffy, it would be new and different to me. And make no mistake; for the first 5 episodes of season 1, the quality was *very* iffy. But I stuck with it, mostly because I was bored, needed background noise, and didn't feel like watching and simultaneously commenting on anything (yes, I'm lazy).

And it slowly started to get better. I mean, the ring performances. The between-match bits were still pretty terribly acted, especially by the "owner/promoter" of the show. But the matches were getting better, the commentary was amazingly solid (kudos to Matt Kaye/Striker and Vampiro). But then it occurred to me that I was watching the show all wrong (yes, you can watch a program incorrectly). I came into it like it was any other wrestling promotion on TV; a wrestling show that was on TV, but I figured out that it's *not* just another wrestling promotion. It's not a TV show *of* wrestling, it's a TV show *about* wrestling. Once I realized that this was just like any other genre fiction that I watch (except that the violence isn't nearly as tightly choreographed), it all made so much more sense. The between-match spots, the violence-filled promos for the wrestlers, the telenovela-esque mustache twirling villain, the dragon that thinks he's a wrestler, the boy born from death and possibly imbued with supernatural power. It all made sense.

And it was pretty fucking glorious.

You know how for years, people have been saying "Professional wrestling is just a soap opera for men" (which is pretty sexist if you think about it)? Well, Robert Rodriguez and the other creators basically said "Hey! That's a pretty good idea! Let's do it!" And the result is a relatively goofy, often spectacularly cheesy show about an illegal underground fight club where anyone can try their hand, but everyone largely uses a mishmash of wrestling styles instead of MMA. There's corruption, there's intrigue, there's supernatural evil underneath, the owner of the Temple may be using the violence of the fighters to usher in the end of days, there's women who wrestle the men just like the men wrestle the men (and they always get a moment to shine, even if they're gonna lose), there's a mini-Lucha who has the heart of a lion, maybe a space or time traveling lucha. There's a commentator who likes to point out that they don't bash you over the head with gender equality but just show it instead (which sounds stupid every time he says it) and at the same time, the commentators tell the audience to stop using a homophobic Spanish slur, because, while they may not hit the mark 100% of the time, they're really, genuinely trying to be inclusive and diverse.

It's kinda batshit crazy, but in a good way, not a Misery Loves Company way.

If you're a fan of wrestling, check it out sometime. If you're a fan of wrestling and genre fiction, you *have* to check it out. Just remember that those first few eps are rough. But it's well worth the watch.

IMDB Lucha Underground

A Light in the Dark

2017-05-25T23:33:00.000-05:00

For a long while now, I’ve been trying desperately to find a bright point, something good in the elevation of 45 Orange to POTUS. And the claims of “Think of all the great art/music/whatever it will produce” don’t cut it. People were making great art and music before 45, because the government is the government and will always be engaged in something that sparks anger that then fuels art.

Some of us have known (and tried to explain to others) for a long time that a significant percentage of the U.S. population and especially the right-wing branch of politics are fundamentally anti-American. And by “anti-American”, I mean actively against the ideals that this nation supposedly represents (though let’s be honest; even the oft-faux-revered Founding Fathers frequently ignored the document they created, the COTUS, as have the majority of people in power for more of our history than not) and puts forth as an example to the rest of the world.

Hell, one could make a pretty solid argument that we didn’t even bother to start trying to live by those alleged ideals until well into the 20^th century. Even in the 20s and 30s, there were SCOTUS cases involving 1A, that sided against the exercise of free speech. If brought before SCOTUS today, a significant, loud contingent of people (including politicians and orange embodiments of fail masculine egos) would be calling for blood, siding with the state, all the while continuing to whine about Twitter and Facebook censoring them and impinging on their freedom of speech (again, let’s be honest; if Facebook stakes a position on that, it’s usually on the side of hate speech and incitement to violence, so long as no one is showing any titty). Even in the 19 mother fucking 60s, SCOTUS was upholding clearly unconstitutional laws against free speech.

Where was I?

Right, the bright spot (which, in this case, is more akin to the wet spot).

The closest thing to a bright spot from this election and the results of the Electoral College is that it has emboldened these anti-American elements to step out from the shadows, to come out from behind their closed doors, to step into the light and proclaim their anti-American beliefs (though they do so not boldly, but under a bulwark of false patriotism). “How is this a bright spot?” you ask. Bright is relative. This is bright the same way one of those incredibly dim night lights are bright when viewed from across the house:

It’s bright only because it’s shrouded in darkness.

But it’s still a light that can help you get to where you need to be. You’ll bang your shin on the coffee table, trip over the dog’s chew toy, and step on the practically invisible LEGO bricks that someone left in the floor.

You’ll get where you’re going, but you won’t enjoy the trip or come out of it unscathed.

That’s much how I view the current state of the United States. Someone turned out the lights, and we’re only just now banging our shins on the coffee table. We’ve got a long way to go. But as we continue our arduous quest to the barely illuminated bathroom and our waste-collecting god, we can now see who the enemies truly are. And by “we”, I mean those of you who didn’t believe us when we tried to tell you about the right-wing, about POTUS 45 (not a fine malt liquor), about the impact of Fox news and the right-wing mouthpieces like Limbaugh, Hannity and Beck.

I mean those of you who insisted on believing that all of this was “politics as normal” and that “all politicians are the same”. They are not. Do not misunderstand me; I certainly do not think that the Clintons, the Democrats, or Sanders are saint. No, I think each has their own form and ways of corruption. I think that’s something inherent to those who seek office (even if they don’t realize it when starting out).

But there’s a fundamental difference between the mild corruption that serves to line the pockets of one and one’s friends and allies, and the corruption that seeks to undermine the essential fabric of freedom for everyone who isn’t a member of a select group (in this case, that group consisting primarily of affluent white Christians).

There’s a difference between receiving oral sex and lying about it, and attempting to slowly, methodically turn the nation into a Christian theocracy that –will- enact a version of the Sharia Law that they seem so afraid of (because they fear they will be done to before they have the power to fully do to others).

Yes, this election (in which I must remind, as I feel it is my duty to do so, Clinton won more votes in) has made the forces arrayed against us and Lady Liberty far bolder, but it will open some eyes to the truth of our nation. One of the most potent weapons the Right has used over the last 20 years has been subtlety. They’ve been slowly increasing the water temperature on all us frogs.

But all of a sudden, they’ve turned the stove knob dramatically, and we can feel that heat. We can see what they are trying to do to us know.

And that means we have a better chance of fighting back.

But we can’t fight defensive engagements. The anti-American elements are begging for an open fight these days, instead of slinking in the shadows. And we need to give it to them on every damn front possible. We need to fight them in the media, the press, the voting booths, the Twitters, the Facebooks; everywhere.

Though they decry the Left as soft, weak, delicate snowflakes in need of “safe spaces”, they crave such spaces more than anyone else, and we (and I don’t just mean the Left, I mean every person who loves, if not the execution, the ideals of a free nation that stands example above the rest) must show them that there are no safe spaces.

For too many years, we let these people hide in the darkness while “we” claimed “victory” over bigotry, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, transphobia, and so many other social ills. That was a mistake, and now we’re paying for it tenfold. This time, when we drive them back into the darkened corners where they feel most safe and secure, we must step forth, and light that darkness up. And like the cornered rats they are, they will lash out with a particular viciousness.

And we’ll take those hits. Because we deserve too, for lettings things regress. Because we have too, in order to sculpt a better future for ourselves and those who come after us. Because America is about doing the right thing, not for reward, or a good feeling in your belly, but because it’s the right thing to do.

So when you’re sitting alone, in the dark, afraid of what’s going on around you, seek out that dim, yet bright spot this has created, and remember that we only started trying to be the nation we yearn to be a mere half century ago. We’re so, so very young. And we’ve long to go, in the dark, over the slippers, pet toys, and LEGO bricks.

But we’ll get where we’re supposed to be, though we be battered, bruised, and bloody.

We’ll get there. But only if we fight the whole way.

"Moderate" Republicans

2017-05-23T16:34:00.000-05:00

Someone just posted something about "moderate" Republicans. It wasn't anything new, instead being mostly the same "Stop being mean to us! We're not like *those* Republicans! We should all be respectful and engage in civil debate!" So I thought I'd post some of my thoughts with regards to "moderate" Republicans (because I know your days aren't complete until I share my thoughts on things!)

1. "Civil debate" is a rallying cry of the oppressor, of the person who doesn't have a dog in the fight, of the person who is in the dominant position. 9 times out of 10, when you see a "moderate" Republican calling for civility, it's a white man doing so. Typically, a middle class or greater white man. That other 1 out of 10 times is a female, or a male POC Republican (yes, they exist). But really, most of the time, when you see such a demand/request, it's an attempt to shut down a conversation, often accompanied by some variant of "Why are you getting so emotional? We're just discussing this", "I'm not going to discuss this with you if you're going to yell at me", or "I'm just playing 'Devil's Advocate'".

2. "Moderate" Republicans often like to frame these "discussions" as some kind of debate. A debate is a formal method of presenting arguments (and rebuttals). Debate is an intellectual exercise that allows you to put forth whatever ideas with no recognition of the real life consequences. That's one of the reasons they love the claim. A debate is also something that you can *win*, and make no mistake, more often than not, when a "moderate" Republican wants to "debate", what they want is to *win*. The winning condition is typically achieved when the other person explodes in anger or simply leaves the conversation (for whatever reason; it will be declared a "win"). What do they win? Nothing. But they *think* they win something by "making the liberal cry" or that doing so adds inches to their e-cock in front of the other "moderate" Republicans that view the exchange.

3. "Moderate" Republicans are like "good cops"; sure, they exist (they aren't unicorns), but they are less common than you think, and the ones claiming it, aren't. Did I just bag on good cops? Yes, I did. As with "moderate" Republicans, you don't have to be an actively corrupt cop to be a bad cop. All you have to do is contribute to the culture that allows the "bad" cops to get away with being bad. The same applies to "moderate" Republicans.

Did you vote Republican party? The same Republican party that:

----- Is actively working to disenfranchise poor and minority voters in order to game the system?

----- Is actively working to make it impossible for women to make safe, healthy choices concerning their own bodies?

----- Is actively working to make basic health care for the poor, minorities, the old, and largely everyone who isn't wealthy difficult, if not impossible to acquire without life crushing debt?

----- Is actively working to alter educational standards in such a way as to render future students even more ignorant than their predecessors?

----- Is actively working to make higher education far more expensive and difficult for the unprivileged to acquire?

----- Spent eight years doing nothing but wasting money on repeated investigations of a subject that was thoroughly dealt with and attempting to obstruct any progress in every field championed by the Democrats?

----- Spent the last eight years promoting and supporting racist ideologies in the population?

----- Is actively working against the 1A rights of citizens, while lying about said rights in regards to right-wing and hatemongering individuals?

----- Is actively working to load SCOTUS in an attempt to rubberstamp their policies when they are inevitably and rightly challenged?

----- Is actively working to enshrine discrimination in law under the guise of "religious freedom" and morality, contrary to the ideals of COTUS?

----- Continues an active individual and group campaign of lies and disinformation in order to manipulate and dupe their voter base?

----- Continues to adhere to, and advocate for standards that are good enough for them but not for the citizenry?

----- Continues to refuse to disavow the "extreme" elements of their party and supporters?

----- Is actively working to curtail the basic civil rights of citizens?

----- Continues to do nothing about gun violence (note that most gun violence is a poor or lower class phenomenon)?

----- Has repeatedly worked to rape as, if not acceptable, the fault of the victim?

----- Continues to be engaged in illegal, unethical, or immoral activities while accusing detractors and opponents of those same activities?

----- Continues to try to implement an American Christian version of the Sharia Law they so despise?

----- Continues to wage an economic war against the poor, through various methods ranging from the reduction of systemic benefits and aid to the use of a broken court system and private prisons by disproportionate incarceration?

I could keep going, but frankly, I'm tired now. The point, if you haven't guessed it, is that by supporting a party that continues to support these and other anti-American, anti-poor, anti-minority activities, you lose any right to call yourself a "moderate". There's no "debate" to be had over basic civil rights, over the autonomy of women with regards to their own bodies. There just *isn't*. You can "debate" the tax rate. You can't debate whether or not discrimination is a good thing that the law should protect. The only way you get to call yourself a "moderate" Republican is if you are *actively* working against your party in order to change it, and that entails NOT VOTING FOR OR PROVIDING FINANCIAL OR MORAL SUPPORT TO YOUR PARTY.

If you're still supporting the Republican party, despite all this, you are not a "moderate"; you're a coward.

Gun Freedom!

2017-02-28T09:07:00.001-06:00

One of the more contentious topics in U.S politics is gun control (or gun freedom, however you want to phrase it). Backed and lied to by the NRA (and the politicians they keep in their pockets) and certain media outlets, there is a contingent of American citizens who believe, to the core of their being, that Big Government and dirty libruls are scheming and plotting to take away all the guns. One of the more popular conspiracy theories for the entirety of the Obama Presidency was that he was going to take all the guns away, and that lie was repeated throughout Clinton’s campaign. Everybody knows that Big Government is for regulating vaginas and bathrooms, not guns.

I’m not going to rehash all of the arguments here (blah blah blah militia, blah blah blah) because we’ve all seen them countless times and it goes the same way every time. No, I’m simply going to tell you what my views on the subject are.

I like guns. Hell, I might even love them. I think they’re a fascinating evolution of the sling, and I enjoy shooting them (even though I couldn’t hit a barn I was standing next too). I do not own any guns, however, because I’m. . . lacking in the mindset to own one safely. If I owned a gun, there’s a good chance I would have already eaten a bullet (suicides would drop if we didn’t have guns; the more determined would still take themselves out, but many people wouldn’t be able to succumb to that snap decision to self-terminate).

But that’s just me. Luckily, I’ve got enough self-awareness to know that I shouldn’t own a firearm (plus, at the end of the day, I do prefer the melee weapon, probably because I can actually hit the target with those). And I do wish countless others had that same self-awareness.

I’m also a believer in “gun control” (a terrible phrase that has done more harm than good to the cause). I think if you buy a firearm from a Wal-Mart, a gun shop, good neighbor Joe, or that guy on the street corner, there should be a background check, and a waiting period (3 days or so, can be waived by LEA in circumstances such as a restraining order that has been repeatedly violated or the like, to be determined by the lawyers).

If the background check reveals one of the following, you should be subject to greater restrictions, as described below (note these are only rough ideas):

One conviction for a violent crime committed with a gun: 60 day waiting period; Right to own a firearm is voided for 1 year from time of release or end of probation; any convictions for felony crimes in the next year results in a lifetime voiding of the right to own a firearm.
Two or more convictions for violent crimes committed with a gun: 60 day waiting period; Right to own a firearm is voided for 5 years from time of release or end of probation; any additional convictions for felony crimes in that time period results in a lifetime voiding of the right to own a firearm.
One conviction for a non-violent crime committed with a gun: 30 day waiting period; Right to own a firearm is voided for 1 year from time of release or end of probation; any convictions for felony crimes in that period voids the right to own a firearm for 1 year.
Two or more convictions for non-violent crimes committed with a gun: 30 day waiting period; Right to own a firearm is voided for 2 years from time of release or end of probation; any additional convictions for felony crimes in that time period voids the right to own a firearm for 2 years.
One conviction for a violent crime with no gun: 30 day waiting period; Right to own a firearm is voided for 6 months from times of release or end of probation.
Two or more convictions for violent crimes with no gun: 30 day waiting period; Right to own a firearm is voided for 1 year from time of release or end of probation.
Involuntary commitment for mental illness: 14 day waiting period; notarized letter from a mental health professional required.
Voluntary commitment for mental illness: 14 day waiting period.

I also think every gun owner should be fingerprinted, and every purchased weapon should have a ballistics test run, with the data from both held in a Federal database, accessible freely by state, county, and city LEA.

None of this would stop bad people from acquiring and using illicit firearms. It would, however, help to track the firearm back to its source and aid in piecing together a timeline for the firearm. Many of the pro-2A supporters would balk at these. But I wouldn’t care, because in my anecdotal experience, most of them are painfully uninformed (how? Because they’ve bought the lie that 2A is under serious attack, when it’s other amendments that are under actual attack).

So, yes, I am in favor of some degree of gun and owner registration (go ahead, start screaming at me in the comments, I don’t read them, so have a blast).

However, I also support a citizen’s right to purchase just about any damn firearm they want to purchase. Derringer .22? Go right ahead. Barrett .50 AMR? Yep. Full auto AK-47? Sure. Browning .50 HMG? Hells yeah. Scary looking “assault weapon”? Okay. Minigun? Yep.

If I were to draw an arbitrary line, it would probably be right around 15mm ammo size. Bigger than that isn’t really a gun anymore.

“But why do you need a fully automatic rifle to go hunting?” You don’t. “Need” has nothing to do with any of this. “Want” is more than adequate.

Well why not flamethrowers and grenades and mortars and bombs then? Because those aren’t guns, don’t be disingenuous.

The simple fact is that 2A isn’t going away anytime soon, and case law largely supports gun ownership. After that, it’s just negotiating the details. No one is going to use the registry to take away your guns (that would require a smaller, more consolidated nation and a truly inconceivable gun tragedy). And there’s no compelling reason to prevent the government from knowing who owns the guns since they are stolen and used in criminal enterprises.

At the same time, there’s no compelling reason to stop average people from owning the firearms they want and can afford to own.

Anyway, now you know my thoughts, so your day is a little better.

Donald Trump Racist? Does It Matter?

2017-02-20T19:07:00.000-06:00

If you’ve paid any attention, then you’ve learned that one thing you can say to a Trump supporter that will really make them angry is that Trump is a racist. Say that to one of them, and they will (collectively) provide a host of defenses, no matter what evidence (tweets, video, whatever) you present to them.

I am absolutely willing to accept the possibility that Donald J. Trump the man is not a racist or a bigot (though I will continue to believe that he is a classist).

So let’s go with the idea that Trump isn’t personally racist. Then I ask “so what?”

If Trump isn’t a racist that means we’re looking at one of two possibilities:

The first possibility is that he’s not a racist, but then he has

Knowingly used racist rhetoric in his campaign.
Provided moral support to racists and white supremacists in social media (his re-tweeting of racist propaganda is well-established).
Provided material support to racists by appointing Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller to notable, powerful positions in his administration.
Encouraged a national atmosphere of fear, hate, and xenophobia.

And all for the advancement of his personal interests in business, ego fulfillment, and the business interests of his fellow capitalist entrepreneurs. That’s not even touching on the possible Russian connections and conflicts of interest concerning the job of POTUS and his business dealings.

All of the above does mean the man is morally and ethically unfit for the office of POTUS. This would mean that at best, he’s an amoral opportunist, and at worst, a possible criminal.

But I mentioned two possibilities, didn’t I? So, if Trump is not a racist, and the first possibility isn’t the reality of the situation, that leaves us with this one:

Trump did all of the same things described in the first possibility, but is literally too stupid or myopic to know what he did. It would have to mean he did all of those things without understanding the potential ramifications. This possibility is highly unlikely, but if it’s the case, then the man’s lack of intellect and basic insight makes him unfit to hold the office of POTUS.

This brings us back to the possibility that Trump actually is a racist and knows exactly what he’s done and has done so willingly and with bigoted enthusiasm. That would make him a Nazi-supporting racist scumbag unfit to hold the office of POTUS.

The next time a Trump supporter tells you that Trump isn’t racist, try to explain all of this to the person. They probably will not acknowledge it, but it doesn’t hurt to try. Whatever the case, the end result is that the man is simply not fit to hold the office of President of the United States.

Stealing Words and Throwing No Fists

2017-01-16T14:57:00.000-06:00

So this time, we’re going to ramble just a little bit about appropriation of words and non-violent protest. Yay!

Something I’ve seen surprisingly often in the wake of Ferguson is white people (almost always, about 99%), usually middle class or better (again, I’d guess 99% in my experience) tsk tsking the protestors for the way that they are protesting, using the images and words of (mostly) Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr.

So many white people shaking their heads in disappointment because Rosa Parks did it sitting quietly on a bus, and these young people today are just violent thugs. These same white people like to tell everyone how Martin Luther King Jr. would be oh-so-very disappointed in the savage behavior of these people.

Now, personally, I think both the U.S. government and the SyFy channel should be all up in the business of these white people, who are clearly mediums and channeling the voices of dead civil rights leaders. I mean, that has to be what’s happening, right? There is simply no way that all these white, affluent people would have the arrogance to appropriate the names and words of these people in order to chastise those seeking justice and equality, right? That’s pretty unheard of, isn’t it?

“Martin Luther King said ‘Our lives begin to end the day we become silent on things that matter.’”

That was Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick at the start of a press conference about a bathroom privacy bill that he supports. An affluent white man trying to use the words of the most well-known civil rights leader in the United States to promote a bill that is based on nothing but fear, lies, and bigotry. And there’s not even any proof that King said those words, so he fucked that up too.

Oh, I guess I forgot to mention that many of the affluent white people stealing the words of civil rights leaders are politicians doing so in order to promote bigotry and hatred.

I’m a lower-class cis white guy. It would be the height of arrogance for me to tell others how to protest or fight for their rights in this nation. It would be even worse if I tried to use the words of those who fought and died to do so. How much more arrogance does it take to do that when you’re legitimately in a position of power to restrict the liberties of others?

What does this have to do with non-violent protest and resistance? Recently, I ran across a post doing exactly that; saying that the protestors of today are doing it wrong by not following in the non-violent steps of King and Parks. This ignores that the majority of protests around the nation are non-violent, but the more egregious flaw is that doing so ignores the history of protest in this (and other) nations.

Don’t get me wrong; non-violent protest is great. It’s a very potent tool in the toolbox. Know what else is a potent tool in that box? Violence. For non-violence to work, there must be

1. A fear that someone on the side of the protestors (but not necessarily the actual non-violent protestors) will use violence to make a point.

2. Violence perpetrated by the oppressors.

Those are the minimums. What am I talking about? Well, again, let’s go back to the 60s. These people say “You have to do it like King! Non-violent! Whargarble!” What these people have forgotten, don’t know, or don’t want to acknowledge is that the non-violent protests of the 60s Would. Not. Have. Worked. If not for the riots across the country. That violence, while it turned off many white people who weren’t actually allies, helped bring national attention to the cause.

The non-violence protests did not exist in a vacuum. They existed in a context that was rife with violence and (in the back half of the decade) a genuine fear held by many that there was actually going to be a straight up race war (heck, that’s what Manson was counting on). It can easily be argued that the true fight for LGBTQ rights began with the very not peaceful Stonewall Riots.

To advance your cause, you have to get attention. And nothing – NOTHING – gets attention like violence.

I’m guessing most of the people using King and Parks to chastise haven’t thought much about this, but it’s downright silly to think that King and the Freedom Riders didn’t know what effect the violence used against them would have on public perception and awareness of the cause. If LEO and observers hadn’t committed acts of violence (and murder in some cases) against the protestors, the cause of civil rights would have been set back years, if not decades.

Violence is a tool. Applying it and taking it. Tactically, they absolutely knew what they were doing. That’s why they trained to go limp. They were fully aware of what some people were going to do.

To advance a cause, you absolutely must have a friendly hand in a velvet glove to extend to the oppressors and the observers. But you must also have a mailed fist willing and waiting to strike. Because rights aren’t given, they are taken. That’s the story of humanity, that’s the way we work. You have to use every weapon in your arsenal to either bring the mildly neutral observers to your side, or at least so they support the cause in order for it to stop interrupting their daily routines.

Alleged allies will tell you that you’re doing it wrong, that you should do it like King, like Parks. A lot of them will tell you that if you don’t do it the way they’re comfortable with, they just can’t really help you.

Guess what?

Those people aren’t real allies. Allies provide support and suggestions. They do not dictate procedures and tactics. As I noted, I’m a lower-class cis white guy. In a lot of fights, I have the least to lose. It’s not my place, or the place of these other people with no real dog in the fight to tell others how to wage their battles. It’s my job to help so long as it doesn’t violate my conscience. Note I said my conscience, not my fucking comfort level.

It’s not about us being comfortable. It’s about us helping others to demand and take what they should already have in this so-called land of the free, home of the brave (so long as you’re okay with the tactics).

Until next time.

Second Chances?

2017-01-04T08:25:00.000-06:00

Recently, a friend of friends (someone I never met) was killed in a car accident caused by a drunk driver. This mostly-preventable tragedy got me thinking, and I realized I have never articulated my position on some things.

See, the driver that caused this accident had gone down for four – 4- DUIs. Four times this person had been caught and put through the system for driving under the influence of a mind-altering substance. And that’s only the times they had been caught. Who knows how often they drove while intoxicated and were not caught?

Lest I seem completely hypocritical, I’ll admit that when I was young, I drove under the influence once. With a car full of people during a rain storm, I almost plowed into a building. It scared the fuck out of me. That was the first and last time I drove when I was the one drinking.

I learned my lesson and I was lucky in that I learned it without harming or killing anyone. Some people have to have a tragedy occur to learn that, and some people never learn that lesson, regardless of what happens.

Four DUIs.

The system processed this danger-to-their-fellow humans four times and still let them back out on the roads.

I’m a big, big believer in second chances, so I’ll say that’s three DUIs too many. After the first one, they should have lost their license for an appropriate amount of time (6 months with no injuries to others, 1-2 years at least with injuries, and 5+ years with a fatality in addition to any jail time for vehicular manslaughter).

There are quite a few severe crimes for which I still believe offenders should get a second chance in life. Most of them would likely cause quite a few readers to call me “soft on crime” or a “bleeding heart liberal” or some such. And maybe I am. But I accept that everyone fucks up sometime or makes a really bad decision, and sometimes that decision has tragic consequences.

But I also believe that most of those people can learn and change. Now, it’s widely held that external forces cannot make you change, that you have to want to change. And that’s true. But external forces can help apply the necessary pressure to force you to truly contemplate that change. That’s part of what the justice system is supposed to do.

Four DUIs.

Four times, the system caught this person, but it didn’t apply to appropriate pressure, and the offender continued to offend, resulting in a death, one that left young children without a mother.

And that never should have happened, because after the second DUI, that person demonstrated that they simply could not be trusted with a multi-ton high velocity death machine.

If there’s any justice, the offender will be charged with straight up First Degree Murder. Because getting into a car while drunk, for at least the fourth time, demonstrates (I believe the term is) mens rea. Normally, being intoxicated would discount that to some degree, but after four times, that person knew they were going to get drunk and that they were then going to drive and that’s no different than deciding that your neighbor has finally pissed you off one too many times, so you’re going to grab your 9mm and go put them down.

In this case, and so many like it, the system failed everyone involved in and affected by this tragedy. While the driver should face the maximum that the system can impose for a deliberate murder, the system itself should face scrutiny and whatever repercussions are available. Because four times, the system said “Nah, brah, it’s all good, go on with your bad self”.

This tragedy, and so many like it, have at least two perpetrators; the gun, and the hand waving the gun about all willy-nilly.

What has been done here and in so many other places cannot be undone. But you can contact your lawmakers (phone call, email, letter, semaphore, whatever) and harangue them to do something about fixing the system that allows too many third, fourth, fifth chances.

And if you’ve got a few extra bucks to spare, you can also look around on GoFundMe and the like and help out some people who have been damaged by their fellow humans and the system.

If you’re gonna drink, smoke, pop, shoot or otherwise ingest, hide your damn car keys or give them to someone responsible. Don’t become someone who needs a second chance.

POTUS TRUMPUS

2016-11-09T17:13:00.000-06:00

I haven’t really thought through what I want or am going to say here, so this may seem disjointed.

Before I get to anything else, I need to get this one off my chest: Bernie supporters, just stop. Seriously, just stop it. I keep seeing Bernie fans posting stupid macros reading crap like “Do you miss me now?” and “65%”. Yes, he polled better than Trump and Clinton in the early days. And last night, the polls gave Clinton a solid shot. It’s foolish to think he would have magically done better. He did better than Trump in a couple of places that Trump won. So, of course, many are concluding that Sanders would have won those last night, while ignoring that he most likely would have lost a lot of the places Clinton did take. The simple fact is that America isn’t ready for a Sanders. He’s actually too far left (under American standards) for America right now.

Did Sanders get screwed by the DNC? Yeah, probably so. So what? Like me, he was an Independent. He only joined the Dem party in 2015. Did you think they wouldn’t work against an outsider who only joined for an opportunistic gain? If you did, you haven’t been paying attention to politics in your life, be it 18 or 80 years.

I get it, you feel burned. And as a result, some of you voted for Trump. So thanks for not giving two shits about the nation in your petty spite.

Anyway, just stop it. We’re all hosed together, so let’s work on figuring out how to blunt some of that.

So. . . President Trump.

I honestly didn’t think this would happen. Long before it became a common idea, I had put forth the idea that Trump was essentially trolling the nation and increasing his brand recognition even more and that at some point, it got away from him. What I unintentionally ignored at the beginning was the absolute field of crap he was up against on the GOP side.

I knew that I didn’t want a Ted Cruz presidency. What I didn’t realize was just how much everyone else hated Cruz. And I wonder even now if he knew how much people hated him before his run for POTUS. I didn’t know in the beginning that, for a brilliant neurosurgeon, Ben Carson was painfully stupid and full of hate. Kasich was too bland to do really get anywhere, and Rubio, well, Rubio just lacks a certain something. Spine maybe? He seems not insincere, but not devoted. As for Fiorina, does anyone even remember her making the run? There were some others, but they were non-starters.

On the other side, we basically had Clinton and Sanders.

This election belonged to the Dems for the most part. I knew Clinton would be the Dem candidate. I feared Cruz would grab the GOP nom.

The biggest thing I got wrong was thinking that the citizens of the United States had made more social progress than they had. I knew Trump’s isolationist, xenophobic rhetoric would strike chords with a chunk of the populace, but I underestimated the hate that still lives in the hearts of our citizens. Hate of the other, hate of women, hate of change. That’s how Trump got the nom. He pandered to that hate, and he did it by escalating his words everything and then having a spokesperson go on TV and walk them back, with another spokesperson going on and saying even more extreme things. I also never thought that he would stoop to endorsing actual Nazis and white supremacists.

Again, I was wrong.

But that all together should not have carried to where we are today.

No, that took some other factors.

Apparently a lot of people, including Dems, simply don’t like Clinton and didn’t long before any of the email crap. Some of it was misogyny, yes, but not all of it.

How much of the vote, popular and electoral, would she have taken if not for the past few months? Good question.

Let’s see, there’s the email scandal. You know, that thing that has some calling Clinton a traitor (she’s not, look it up), and a criminal (she’s not, you can tell by the lack of crime). This was yet another attempt to make something more than it was in order to damage Clinton. But come on, she’s been in the biz how long now and not been busted? Either she’s not guilty or she’s a criminal super genius, and we could use a super genius in the Oval. And when that was starting to lose traction as a story (because, you know, she didn’t actually do anything), Comey came along with his new right-before-the-election letter and stirred it all up again. And then a less publicized letter that “Nope, sorry, still nothing there”, but that damage was done. That hurt Clinton. I do believe if Comey hadn’t done that (and there’s indications that he wasn’t supposed to have done it), her tally in the popular vote would be better. I can’t wait for us to find out if it was a load of crap based on incompetence on Comey’s part, or if he intentionally interfered with the electoral process. I actually have my doubts that we’ll ever find out. I firmly believe that Comey needs to step down.

I also believe that the F.B.I. needs a severe overhaul since it’s been well-established that a fifth column, if you will, has been actively working against Clinton based on some crap in a crap book. That’s not acceptable. Last time I checked, J. Edgar wasn’t running the F.B.I. these days.

Anyway, yeah, the resurgence of the “new” emails seemed designed to bring a fading issue right back into the minds of the voters.

Social media . . . Anti-Clinton forces masterfully used social media against her. It’s pretty well established that many people only read headlines, and that many who read more than the headline only read the first part of an article or item. And that we remember headlines, especially negative headlines, while forgetting retractions or the material below the headline. It’s an old trick. And boy howdy, did people rely on that basic bit of psychology. There were so many anti-Clinton headlines, ranging from the believable to the outrageous that even Snopes couldn’t keep up with them. But we remember negative headlines. Way to shape the voter headspace. There wasn’t nearly the volume of anti-Trump headlines, and many of those were simple reporting on actual things. But frankly, I’m pretty sure many people don’t care about facts or truth unless they align with the narrative in the person’s head.

Don’t forget the Reds. No wait, I mean the Russians. The Reds are running the country now. We all know that the neo-Soviets have been actively interfering with the election (which I personally consider to be an act of war), thought for Trump’s benefit (he does love him some Putin) or just as an anti-Clinton measure. And we’re probably going to let them get away with it. Which means it’s going to happen again.

Wikileaks/fugitive and alleged rapist Julian Assange. At some point in the past, Wikileaks released some documents that uncovered some uncool shit on the part of the U.S. government. As a result, the name “Wikileaks” gained some measure of credibility. Assange and other anti-Clinton forces have traded on that credibility during this election. Because Assange has some sort of beef with Clinton. They did so be releasing quite a large number of emails, including those that indicated the DNC worked to undermine Sanders (see above). But frankly, so far, there hasn’t really been anything terribly shocking or evil in those emails.

But there didn’t have to be anything actually there. Why? Because we remember negative headlines. Suddenly, Wikileaks was breaking all kinds of news and most of it was crap. But by combining negative headlines with the word “Wikileaks”, that gave those headlines even more traction in the minds of readers. Readers who didn’t read a single leaked email, let alone the what, 50k or so? Was Assange doing this on behalf of the neo-Soviets? I have no idea. Maybe, but maybe he just wanted to screw Clinton over since, as I said, he seems to have a personal problem with her.

Let us not forget the role the 24-hour scramble-for-ratings media has played in all of this. You know, the liberal Mainstream Media that the right likes to whine about? The same LMSM that has spent a year propping Trump up while scrambling to make every single bit of information about Clinton seem like a HUGE scandal. If you think I’m kidding, go back and look. The media has effectively ignored or only glossed over most negative stories that have come out about Trump except for the Pussy Grabbing, while pounding on Clinton like she was a stubborn nail. How often did they talk about the multiple rape allegations (including a mildly retracted one by an ex-wife)? How often did they talk about Clinton’s health, on the other hand?

No, as I’ve indicated for a while, the Fourth Estate has long been a semi-abandoned crack house. It needs to be burned down and rebuilt.

And with all of that, as of this writing, the popular vote stands at

Clinton: 59,796,311

Trump: 59,589,821

What happened the last time the Reds lost the popular vote but won the electoral college? Anyone? Bueller?

Right, a depressed economy, a destroyed surplus, a greater degradation of Constitutional rights. Oh, let’s not forget the more than a decade of fucking war most of which served no actual legitimate purpose.

The biggest problem that I see, among all these things, is a perpetual problem. Look at those voter results. Go ahead, take a look, I’ll wait.

59,796,311

59,589,821

119,386,132

There’s still about one-half of the country’s potential voters who Are. Not. Voting. I have to say, I’m actually moving towards the idea of voting, at least in POTUS elections, being mandatory.

I know that today, it seems like hate has won a big victory. And it has won a victory of some sort, but it’s not as big as it seems. The people against Clinton threw pretty much everything at her and she still took half the popular vote.

Assuming Trump follows through on his campaign rhetoric (and honestly, who knows if he will?), with Congress being tipped to the Reds, the next 4-8 years are probably going to be rough. I think we’re going to see a fair chunk of our progress rolled back.

But she still took half. That means of the people who cared enough to vote, an awful lot of them are still trying, and still want a better nation.

We lost this battle. Let’s not give up and lose the war.

Stay safe, and help keep others safe.

Peace.

Person of Interest

2016-06-23T02:06:00.000-05:00

"You are being watched.”

I don't recall how I got started on PoI. Most likely, we were looking for something new to watch, someone mentioned it, and I figured might as well give it a shot. Hell, we watch Blue Bloods and it's not all that good. And this looked like it was in the same niche as The Equalizer and Burn Notice, using modern surveillance fears as the launching point. Right from the start, I enjoyed the fight choreography. It was stellar, especially for a CBS show and their older demographic. And it was decent. As with many shows, the weekly victim/criminal of the week was nothing exceptional. But the characters held my attention and the seasonal arc was okay.

Little did I know at that point that what I was watching was the beginning of one of the more intelligently conceived and executed television shows on the air. Because who would’ve thought that this simple pseudo-extra-legal vigilante program on a channel that mostly caters to an older demographic would go on to address the creation of artificial life and the responsibilities that come with it? I certainly never expected it to actually address the core gimmick, The Machine, the surveillance state that we find growing more pervasive every day. I sure didn’t expect the show to be one in which we find the heroes and everyone else living in a modern techno-dystopia. I never expected the show to actually address the sacrifice of freedom for security. I didn’t expect the heroes to be soldiers in a war between two human-made gods. A war between machines for the very essence of humanity.

No, all I expected was a pretty basic helping people in need program, with typical TV resolutions and clichés. But they gave me genuine, flawed, no, broken characters. Characters that you would expect to be fixed eventually. And while they changed, shifted, and got better, I think it’s fair to say that at the end, those remaining were still broken. But they were better people than they had been.

I didn’t expect much from this show. I did not expect thoughtfulness, care, depth, and brilliance. But that’s what they gave us. Thank you for that.

If you haven't watched Person of Interest, do yourself a favor and give it a shot.

“The government has a secret system, a machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I designed the machine to detect acts of terror but it sees everything. Violent crimes involving ordinary people. The Government considers these people ‘irrelevant’. We don't. Hunted by the authorities, we work in secret. You'll never find us, but victim or perpetrator, if your number's up... we'll find you."

6-10-16 Game Forum Answer Bag

2016-06-10T11:05:00.000-05:00

PC Red Flags (OP by candidgamera)

What player character traits immediately set your GM's mind on high alert?

I've got two that popped into my head while I was pondering the subject.

1.) Pacifism in a game that includes combat. And I don't mean technical pacifism where they only fight to knock someone out, or pacifism in a game that runs 90% on social interactions ... I mean a Dungeons and Dragons, or Star Wars typical adventure campaign wherein a character will not swing or fire a weapon at enemies even if he or his party members are in danger. Had this one crop up twice (though both times, the character ended up breaking the pacifist vow when the player got pissed off about something, so it was poor roleplaying on a couple of levels).

2.) Serious mental illnesses, particularly in systems that have no way to model them. I seriously knew a dude in a D&D 4E game who decided his character was Claustrophobic and addicted to drugs. Nevermind that it's called DUNGEONS and Dragons. Nevermind that, as of the start of the game, our characters had been slaves for months, with no access to drugs. He was still going to be addicted, damn it, and he was still going to curl up into a ball in any underground space when he failed one of his self-imposed will saves.

Eh, a pacifist character can work in just about any game, including the kind of pacifist that will not attack under any circumstances. And such a character breaking and attacking isn’t necessarily poor roleplaying. In fact, depending on the circumstances, it could be great roleplaying. As for #2, that can also work in a lot of games. It’s all dependent on the player and the GM.

By Godfatherbrak:

I had a new player tell me, "my character is an orphan loner."

Me: "No he's not."

Then you maybe shouldn’t try to GM.

By Blackwingedheaven

Kender. Always kender.

Kender aren’t a problem. Shitty players allowed to play Kender are a problem. I’ve never had any problems running or playing one.

By LeighTheDwarf

I've never been a GM before,

Shut the fuck up then.

By EvilSchemer

I had a player one time make a character who was severely allergic to air. In concept, it was kind of neat. He had to wear an oxygen mask to breathe. In play, he got really pissy whenever it became an actual liability.

That’s actually pretty decent. Hell, it’s a requirement for a couple of species in Battlelords. But yeah, the player shouldn’t get pissy when it’s an actual hindrance.

By jerandall

Player: 'My character has [socially unacceptable beliefs such as virulent racism or sexism] but it fits his culture because [he's an Orc / Klingon / whatever].'

Me (GM): 'Nope.'

Then perhaps you should not be a GM also. Because that’s pretty easy to work with and can generate some tremendous roleplaying.

By thorya

For me it's "I'm going to multi-class."

For new players that means I want to do all the roles and I will be upset when I do none of them well. For experienced players it usually means, I found a loophole I am going to exploit.

Then you’ve got shitty players and should find a new group.

By Devil’s Avocado

Amnesia. It almost always means "I want the GM to write my background for me but will complain if there's anything I don't like in it".

If they complain, tell them to shut the fuck up. Taking amnesia is shorthand for “Gamemaster, do whatever the fuck you want to do with my background and origin!”

By BASHMAN

Yeah the pacifism one on Dungeons & Dragons is a real irritant. So you get a share of our XP and treasure... but refuse to do anything at all to help earn it? (this was AD&D when most XP was from killing monsters or the amount of treasure you collected from killing said monsters).

If you think that the only way the character can help is by taking up arms against an enemy, then you’re a fucking moron. That’s a problem with you, not the other character or the game.

By sulldawga

The player who wants to play the same character concept, regardless of the rules or setting.

Especially when you're running a gritty realistic sandbox D&D game and the guy still wants to play his female 12 year old mage. So she's smart enough to cast spells before puberty but dumb enough to think dungeon delving with a bunch of inexperienced murderhobo-wannabes is a promising career path?

You should get a better grasp on the difference between Intelligence and Wisdom.

Most of the remainder of the thread is bickering about the “red flags” already discussed. Essentially, it’s a thread by people who should either not run games, or should find new players.

GMing advice--reconciling players who have different political opinions? (OP by MistahJ)

I need advice about something very specific that's happened with a gaming group of mine.

Okay, so normally politics don't come up with my gaming groups. Ever. And normally I have a rule that says "leave that at the door, this is about elfgames, please." Usually there are no problems.

But I've run into one problem with one particular group lately. I tend to try to be inclusive with my content if people request stuff they want. One player has requested something--it's nothing major--it's just that one of my players (we'll call him Z) wanted his barbarian hero to save a Prince rather than a Princess, with a romantic plot there. Not a big deal to me, and my group never spends any significant screentime on romances anyway. I thought it was a very minor thing. It's arguably the tiniest piece of LGBT content I could include. It would just be for this part of the plot; Z said he doesn't want to make it a huge focus or anything.

One of my players (we'll call him R) is very upset. R doesn't like this being included. He's ridiculously upset and says that if I allow this as a GM, I am violating my rule about leaving politics at the door. I was floored. R and I have never argued over anything; he's typically been one of my most exemplary players (always on time, never misses a session, pays for snacks if I'm hosting, has often helped new people to the group adjust or learn). But Z is also just as exemplary a player.

“R, shut the fuck up and play the game. Bitch about it if, at some point, your character is required to engage in homosexual sex. Until then, hush. If it’s so bothersome to you that you can’t play, we’ll enjoy having you back for the next game, gimme a call.”

Bam! Problem solved.

By Godfatherbrak

He would never call saving a Princess and having a romantic subplot political. His prejudices are making something political that is supposed to be romantic.

Yeah, pretty much.

By damiller

I'll probably regret this but...

Then maybe you should rethink how you’re going to say it . . .

I don't think R is out of order for letting you know that a topic in the game is making him uncomfortable. I don't care what the topic is. If it were about rape or racism no one would be upset at R, in fact he might be applauded. The fact that R seems to have views that are not currently acceptable is besides the point.

Awesome. You just compared a same-sex romantic sub-plot with rape and racism. No wonder you knew you might regret your post. You were aware beforehand that you were going to be a dumb fuck.

I am not a therapist, I am not gaming to change or challenge anyone's views. And presumably no one is there for the that reason.

No, you’re not a therapist. You’re also not a thinker, from the sound of it.

For me in this game as a GM if Z wanted to save the prince great, but there would be no mention at all of any romance. I'd say, great you saved him, fade out, next player.

Because you suck.

By the OP

Very hard to try to find balance with this. I feel like he's entitled to his beliefs and opinions--it's just a matter of what degree do I feel comfortable letting those beliefs influence my group's game.

Of course R is entitled to his beliefs, even if they’re stupid. R is not entitled to screw over the game because of them, and his or her misguided notions of what is political. As was said above, if it were male/female, R wouldn’t have a problem. That makes this R’s burden to carry, not yours, not the other players. This would be different if R’s objection were to any romantic sub-plot, but that’s not the case according to what you’ve said thus far.

By Michael Brazier

Let me take a different angle on this: have you considered the political effects within your game's setting of a homosexual Prince?

Let’s not, since that’s not important to the topic at hand.

By baakyocalder

Me, I'd be more willing to side with R since the 'saved the royal, get a romantic relationship' meme is stale.

Then I’m comfortable determining that you’re

A. An asshole

B. Don’t actually understand what’s being discussed and should shut the fuck up and pay attention.

By RavenMM

Maybe it's a non-american thing, but I can't understand this divide between non-political and political some people express here.

Some are arguing that having homosexual relationships are not political because they exist in real life (which of course they do). Well, COmmunism, Liberalism, Mocharchism, Sexism and a whole other bunch of different -isms also exist in our world - yet they seemed to be banned by the gms "no politics" rule.

I say you should have a talk with your players what they think your no-politics rule mean and then decide a common interpretation, so that nobody is blindsided by a topic they thought would not come up in play.

That is not a “non-american thing”, it’s you being stupid. A homosexual relationship isn’t anywhere near the same as Communism, Liberalism, and what not.

No, this is a "you’re stupid" thing.

By the OP

Okay, so I met R and Z for breakfast to talk; R specifically asked for Z in his message.

It was a weird talk.

R let me ask him questions, and it turns out that yes, there was something going on in his life that makes him not want to see a gay couple in a RP.

R's brother came out as gay less than a month ago, and there was a really bad break with the family. R's brother left and refuses to speak to R's family any more. Religion was the big starting point of how it all blew up for R's family, too. R is still feeling hurt. He also said he's been clinging pretty hard to his religion because he picked the rest of his family and religion over his brother, which has him a lot more 'militant' than he really is. He conceded he was venting too many RL frustrations into the group.

Man, that’s rough for R’s brother. R can go fuck right off though.

Z surprised me by being really sensitive about this; I thought Z wasn't going to compromise at all (and I didn't necessarily see a need for Z himself to compromise--plus, Z had been super angry during the initial disagreement when his character romance was first broached), but Z thought about it and asked R there was anything that might make this a more tolerable subject for him. R explained he was frustrated because LGBT content is being allowed, but my "no politics" rule has kind of barred some of his favorite topics from the group, so that was another reason he was getting frustrated. Z apparently knows some of R's favorite tabletop games, and asked R if the compromise could be that Z's character can have the barbarian/Prince relationship, but...the group would play Dark Ages: Inquisitor after this campaign, which Z knows R really likes.

R was surprised at the suggested compromise and asked if Z would even be comfortable playing that game because of the blatant Christianity themes and had assumed Z wouldn't play it. Z pointed out that there was room for nuance in that sort of game, and so long as R didn't demand he play a "perfect Catholic," they could probably enjoy the game and all its political nuance. He also said it was a game where it would be fun to have characters have religious and philosophical disagreement and that Dark Ages: Inquisitor's appeal for Z was precisely in that sort of thing. R and Z both agreed playing that particular tabletop might be cathartic for them both, and they both conceded that they might fight IC, but they'll stop fighting OOC. They'll let the dice decide what happens if they disagree and asked if I'd allow PvP. It'll be our "heavy game" after this light-hearted hack n' slash elfgame.

It’s nice that you all worked things out, but you’ll notice R is still being an ignorant douche, so you’ll want to keep an eye on that.

Splitting the party? (By Seiberwing)

There's a single person in a few groups I've run with who always plays the mysterious rogue-type character (which is fine), and in the games I've been in with her always seems to find a reason to be away from the rest of the party for long spans of time (less fine). I'm told she does it a lot.

In one of the two games I've been in with her she spent most of it somewhere else. I've also been in games where the party seemed to split apart often and for long periods, meaning that there were long spans where the rest of us just went out to 7-11 or lounged on the couch doing nothing. I don't entirely understand the appeal of breaking up when it means folks have to wait for the spotlight to get back to them, but no one else seems to have a problem with it. Possibly it's IC, but it's not bringing the fun. The one time we made it work out was when the GM swapped back and forth between us, giving a few minutes to each group (for those in combat, a full round before moving to the ones fleeing the area for a few minutes), which made it less excruciatingly dull for me.

What are your experiences with this issue?

What issue? Splitting the party? That’s not an issue. It’s something that happens. You go back and forth if each group is engaged in something, or, if they are not, you tell the players with the unengaged characters “Hey, run and get me a soda pop please and thanks”.

That was what tended to happen with the mysterious rogue person, which they seemed to be totally okay with. Which confused me, as mentioned. Why would you not want to be doing more actual playing?

Doesn’t matter, because it’s not your concern, and your understanding isn’t required.

So, a PC dies… (By Caplin)

I was playing Horror on the Orient Express, and sacrificed myself to blow up a bunch of cultists. This effectively ended my participation in the session for the evening, though I wondered if I might end up playing an NPC at some point.

Has anybody come up with innovative approaches to solving the PC death problem?

Well, first you would have to define the problem. I don’t see one in your post. Your character died. In a CoC game. It happens. You move one.

Oh, you mean what will you do while the rest of them forget to mourn? Right. You start pondering your next character and how to integrate them into the game. The GM might give you an NPC to run for the rest of the session. It really depends on what’s going on in the game at the time.

The rest of this is mostly some not great ideas and the on-going “Well I don’t allow death in my game unless the player wants it” which is stupid, since the OP said they sacrificed themselves, which means they wanted it, so shut the fuck up.

[DnD5e] My best player is a Gamergater....what do? (By TheDiceMustRoll)

So then he asked me to add him on facebook, and his profile picture is Vivian James. His wall is filled to the brim with tons of links from KotakuinAction, most of which is having a tantrum over a woman saying...something or a person getting screamed at(BTFO, apparantly) by random nobodies on twitter.

I broached the topic with him and he got pretty defensive. I didn't want to start a fight in front of everyone but he talked about it a bit and he does unfortunately live in a fantasy world where 'SJWS' are trying to ruin just about everything good in the world. He even opened the player's handbook and pointed at the little blurb about gender stuff on the character creation front page and cited it as an example of "SJW Cancer".

So I'm at something of an impasse here. He's actually until recently come off as a really cool dude, and like, my other players are good at playing their classes, but they dont know the setting like he does and they probably wont enjoy playing without him due to him sort of uh, elevating the style of game.

So should I kick him out and go back to just running more traditional quests? It's guaranteed to be less fulfilling for me. But....he's from fucking gamergate........

What do?

This is pretty simple:

Are you comfortable with this person playing so long as they keep their vile beliefs and views out of the gaming space?

If Yes, then continue to play until they actively make the space unpleasant or toxic

If No, then you tell them thanks, but their presence is no longer required.

By JetstreamGW

Just in case it isn't: Y'all have been playing together for how long? It didn't come up before, just don't discuss that sort of thing. Who cares about someone's political views, if you don't discuss politics?

Indeed. I mean, who cares if JoeBob is a Klansman if we don’t talk about race? Because some people need to be excluded. Period. Some views are so vile that simple ongoing association effectively validates them. If you don’t hold that position, fine, but don’t act like it’s some fucking mysterious thing you don’t understand.

By neowolf

It's all down to what you can tolerate. If your personal ethics makes associating with him intolerable, well then, that's it. You've answered your question. If not, then the suggestions as to how to just avoid the topic like it's the plague are your best approach. If he's perfectly agreeable in every other way, and you're comfortable doing so, compartmentalize him to just a gaming friend and leave it at that.

As a side note, if this is a make it or break it issue for you, while it's certainly sad, it's not something you can help. It's nothing for you to feel guilty over.

Well, darn, I should have just waited and quoted this person for truth.

By ClassDunce (a known asswipe)

Oh yeah. It sounds like he's a total piece of shit. He showed up to the game actively helped everyone enjoy it more and kept any and all personal toxic opinions to himself. Until he was asked. What a piece of shit.

By Blackwingedheaven in response to ClassDunce

Strangely enough, a person can be a lot of fun to hang out with and still hold beliefs that make him a total piece of shit. The two things aren't mutually exclusive. If you find out someone is a member of a hate group, it's important to evaluate how much you value "having a good time" versus "not dealing with people who are in a hate group."

There’s not anything I can add to that.

By Sunsword

I would unfollow him on Facebook. But if it doesn't come up in your games, and he isn't a distracting player, your essentially booting him because you disagree on an issue.

No, the person would be getting the boot for being a misogynistic shit stain who endorses swatting, doxxing, and rape and death threats. Because vidya games!!!

Don’t be a fucking moron.

By Moonmover

I don't see what his political* affiliations have to do with your D&D game. If everyone at the table is having a good time and he isn't offending any of you, then why are YOU the one bringing politics into this?

You clearly lack an understanding of what Gamergate is. It’s not “political affiliations”, it’s a mother fucking hate group.

By conduit (member for 2 months with 22 posts at the time of this posting)

Let him stay. If for no other reason, being in an RPG group is an exercise in empathy. Players, and their characters, have to try to see things from the other point of view, and learn to think critically about motivations. It could be good for him.

I've been gaming with many of the same people for a decade. I've seen people change for the better, over time. I'm not saying that a game group is a panacea for every ill, but I really think that positive interactions with good people in a creative environment fosters mental health.

For all anyone knows, this could just be an embarrassing phase. Maybe he doubled down because he got called out and became over-defensive. Maybe he's in a bad place right now, and is grasping at straws for some kind of thing to hold on to. If there's a chance this dude is redeemable, you oughta try.

Fuck you. It’s not the OP’s job to try and make the gater a better person, and especially not during their happy fun hobby time.

By Black Vulmea (often wrong on things)

Shunning doesn't redeem pariahs; it breeds them.

That’s true! IF YOU IGNORE HISTORY AND THE WAY PEOPLE WORK.

By TheMouse

I think that the nicest I'd have been able to pull off in response to the, "SJW cancer," comment would have been, "And I'm the Social Justice gods damned Game Master, and if any more of that bullshit sticks its nose so much as a quarter inch into my game in the future, you're out."

I'm plenty willing to give people some slack when it comes to accidentally saying something offensive or not having thought through a particular perspective. But GG is a hate group. They make bomb threats and shit. The degree to which I'm willing to extend slack toward such individuals if very, very limited. And I value all of the trans, gay, female, etc gamers who might potentially join a gaming group too much to give a GGer any leeway.

Fucking right.

By Gilda (3 months as a poster at this time)

It's up to you if you're willing to play with someone of a different tribe than yourself.

I'll just say that as a Christian, I don't kick people out of groups I'm in for Christian-bashing on Facebook.

Christian-bashing isn’t really the same as belonging to a hate group that has literally attempted to use terror as a weapon. As in, the fucking definition of terrorist.

Lot of hate group apologists in this thread.

By Jigawatts

Being unable to game or be friends with someone who has differing political viewpoints is myopic and small minded. Dont be that guy. If he is respecting everyone while at the table, thats all that matters. And sounds like he is an awesome roleplayer anyway.

Lot of GamerGate apologists in this thread also. Interesting how many people keep trying to classify this as a political difference. Doing so either requires no knowledge of GamerGate, in which case, they need to shut the fuck up, or a deliberate attempt to excise from discussion the truth of GG.

Disclaimer: I think Gamergate is stupid, I think complaining about boob armor/sexy attire is stupid, I think complaining over the new Ghostbusters movie is stupid, I think complaining about Black Widows characterization/role is stupid. The rage/trigger/pile-on culture that has risen in the last decade is ridiculous and silly. People take entertainment far too seriously.

Awwwww, someone thinks they’re edgy and cool and above the concerns of the too-sensitive internet people. In other words, Jigawatts is a fuckhead. Oh look, they’re not done:

I'll be honest, I dont know much about Gamergate, I thought it was more of a conservative/liberal standoff type thing. I remember the original accusation levied was that some girl had slept with a journalist in order to get a good review on her game, with the opposing side saying that had not taken place. I had also heard there were some extremists, some on the one side who were threatening violence and rape, but I also remember hearing a story on the other side threatening violence in that they were going to find someone and literally castrate them. Seems like both sides have some issues. Honestly I tend not to waste personal time or brain space on these things.

So Jigawatts decided, with no actual knowledge of the subject, to come in and tell everyone that they’re wrong, myopic, and small-minded. Man, living in righteous ignorance must be fucking nice. Also with a nice helping of “BOTH SIDES!!!!!”

I will say this akajdrakeh, my personal policy is to treat everyone I meet with respect, and to continue doing so until their actions dictate otherwise. Using politcal stances as an example, I have friends that are both super liberal and super conservative, their political viewpoints have zero impact on my ability to call them a friend. My initial response to this thread was based on the information the OP shared in his first post, and what I saw described was a person whos actions hadnt dictated anything to constitute his removal. If this person has personally threatened people (or taken other such deplorable actions) then that would indeed change things, but everyone should be judged solely based on their personal actions.

This is bullshit. Which Jigawatts would know if they weren’t such a stupid mother fucker. Fucker’s trying to vaguely walk back their position. But only vaguely, enough to hope they don’t get jumped on anymore. Fucking chickenshit.

From shosai (joined same month as this post, 3 posts at this time)

I think you need to first determine if he actually harbors the toxic views that we're projecting onto him. Since he's open about his opinions, instead of speculating about how he feels about women and minorities in games, maybe just ask him? From his play sessions, it sounds like he's gotten along with female players fine, but you know him better than we do. Has he ever encouraged or aided in threats against other people? What about his facebook posts? If he just dislikes Anita Sarkeesian or twitter e-celebs its one thing, but if he's ever actually hurt people then he needs to go.

Read the thread. Including the VERY FIRST POST that establishes that the person in question does harbor these views. Fuckwit.

From Nahash (3 posts in 4 years)

I feel that this is very much a case of missing the nuance in the potential views of someone else, and believing that they are extreme in some fashion that they may not be. Not everything is black and white, not everything needs to be full of hate and opposition. People can hold moderate or even contradictory viewpoints. People who believe in different things can still be friends. That's my feeling.

Yeah, OP! How can you miss the nuance in supporting the terrorization of people because of them being women who dare to have opinions on things?!?!?!?

The rest of the person’s post is more apologist, tone-policing, tolerate intolerance bullshit.

And hey look! Coincidentally, with all these new and/or low-count posters showing up to defend the continued presence of the GG in the game, we find that this thread is linked to in one the main places on the internet where GGs like to socialize with each other. I am shocked and amazed at this development.

I hate half races (By Death; join May2016, first post) (note the the OP on the thread is also all in bold text)

I just want to say, half races are lame. How do you cross an elf that lives thousands of years with a human that lives 100 years? Or an orc with a human. Just because its DnD and there is magic dosent mean that science still doesn't exist. Genes and stuff. Different races have completely different genes & different creators.

Its kind of like mating a male lion with a female tiger, you have offspring, but it can't reproduce.

I just think the world should know how much I hate this half race bologna . I flip threw DnD Players guide, Human, Dwarf, half elf, half orc, half halphling, half gnome, gnome, Dragonborne. wtf.

o by the way hi I'm Death

That’s nice, now go fuck off and try to come up with an original thought, or at least a more original argument for your position. Also, you’re not Death, you’re a fucking sockpuppet, and I’ll put money on that.

Huh. 173 posts in the thread, and we have yet to hear back from the OP . . .

It's 2016. Can we please get rid of the girl gamer/PC stereotype? (By Lemue, one month on the forums)

When I started gaming and DMing, back in 1979 girl gamers were a rarity. I've absolutely no clue why, unless it may have been in that timey old time, boy gamers might have felt nervous inviting us girls into the game.

There isn't much more creepy than guys thinking that because you're a girl gamer you are a) single (often not true) b) looking for a date (often not true). No. We are girl gamers looking for a good game.

And then even creepier is guys who want to play girls who want to be ninja strippers. Ugh. But even that I can deal with if they focus on RP.

Meanwhile 30+ years have passed, and many of us have taught our DAUGHTERS to play these games.

Maybe a little respect, decency and less of the "I want to play uncle creepy" madness

Yeah, you know some people are working on that, but they’re outnumbered by the assholes. And here is the very first response:

By RogerBW (5 years on, all of 42 posts)

I've not witnessed the problems you describe. I think the male gamers I know have tended if anything to be slightly over-deferential to female gamers, on the basis that they probably have more social opportunities than we do and we'd like them to come back.

Oh. Well, fuck, go home, everyone! Roger hasn’t seen it, so it’s not a problem or a thing that happens.

Stupid mother fucker, that’s what RogerBW is.

By IanTheMoxious

I've only witnessed poor treatment of female gamers at one shop that is now closed. My personal group is usually 50 to 75% female. As somebody said above, I generally see female players treated with more respect than males.

Seriously, go home everyone. Ian agrees with Roger that there is no poor treatment of women in gaming, because the behavior at the one place (because Ian, though they don’t mention it, has been at every gaming table during every game ever), so clearly this is not an actual problem.

By Churchill

Not this thread again...

Someone call the cops! Someone’s got a gun to Churchill’s head and is making them read a thread that they don’t want to read about a subject they don’t want to read about!!

By DavetheLost

I guess I have been lucky.

Yes, you have, by being a male and therefore not really subject to the sexism that the OP is talking about, you stupid fuck.

Then the thread devolves into an argument about what does and doesn’t qualify as roleplaying, with a dose of VictorVonDoom talking about how the subject clearly isn’t a problem since he’s never seen it in his vast expanse of gaming experience. A position that he ends up tripling down on.

By DeathbyDoughnut

. . . I do find it unfair that threads like this pop up again, and again and again all over the internet, preaching about breaking stereotypes against women while simultaneously reinforcing stereotypes against men.

Right on! How dare the people subjected to this behavior in far, far greater numbers and an even greater percentage or players not talk about the menz with equal time?

By Michael K (one year, 73 posts)

I feel uncomfortable continuing this discussion because I feel that I cannot say where the boundaries of in-thread behavior exist. As a final word, I would not deny the experiences of female posters.

Except that you’ve been doing that. That’s why you feel you can’t continue within the rules the mod just reminded everyone about.

By Got no guts (one month, 83 posts)

With the fear I will suddenly for some reason be cut off by red text for some reason:

If you think that’s going to happen, that means you know you’re about to post some bullshit and are grabbing at pre-victim status.

As a just post adolescent guy I guess I can answer to that question on behalf of some of them;

A) No, we/they don't believe that you are single. or B) looking for a date.

BUT

It does mean that (In the opinion of an awkward gamer) You are pretty smart. And probably nerdy. And that you have atleast something in common with the really socialy awkward adolescent gamer. And whats the harm in asking if you are single, right?

Because they’re there to play a fucking game and not get hit on by dipshits like you?

By Nibbler

I don't know if this has been mentioned before, but I think the social awkwardness in RPGs comes from both sides.

If a girl shows up to a con, just like if a guy does, a good chance exists that she's gonna be socially awkward and not have a good understanding of social cues.

In fact, anecdotally, when I think back on this MOST of the girls at cons are pretty weird... along, of course, with most of the guys.

So this creates a ton of misfired social situations on either side.

I think, really, both parties in these situations are often 'Strangers in a Strange Land'... guys, sitting at a con table with the rare girl (in my neck of the woods, it's still roughly 3/1 ratio, and back in the 80s it was more 10/1)... and girls, sitting at a con table with a bunch of guys.

We're all pretty nerdy folks.

No, we’re not all pretty fucking nerdy, dipshit. And hey, anecdotally, you can’t speak to MOST of the girls at cons because you haven’t interacted with anything approaching a significant percentage of them.

Then there’s a significant derail about sea-lioning and the comic it comes from (look it up). Also, by the time VictorVonDoom picks up the thread ban, you get the impression that he’s a GG apologist and sexism denier, but is relatively good about staying just inside the rules.

Well, that's all for now. Maybe next time there will be better questions and fewer shit stains.

Castle: Thanks

2016-05-24T23:18:00.001-05:00

I gave Castle a shot purely on the casting of Nathan Fillion, the ever-lovable Mal Reynolds. And I enjoyed it, even though it was another murder mystery of the week. But it truly locked me down with season 2, episode 6, "Vampire Weekend". Why? Because of this exchange between Castle and his daughter:

Alexis Castle: What exactly are you supposed to be?

Richard Castle: Space cowboy.

Alexis Castle: Ok, A: there are no cows in space. B: didn't you wear that like five years ago?

Richard Castle: So?

Alexis Castle: So, don't you think you should move on?

Richard Castle: I like it.

Everyone involved in making the show was well-aware that a chunk of their viewers came from Firefly, and they weren't afraid to play on that a bit. But Castle stood on its own. It gave us a typical precocious child, but she wasn't immediately hated, and grew into her part fairly well. And it gave us underling cops who didn't actually need the star to do every little thing for them. Ryan and Esposito were tremendously competent. And funny. The actors Huertas and Dever have some of the best on-screen chemistry I've ever seen. So much that I would happily watch a spinoff starring them.

Sure, the murder mysteries of the week weren't terribly interesting (you often knew who was guilty by looking at the guest starring credits for names you recognized), and frankly, their long arcs weren't very compelling either. But I kept coming back because all of the actors did a hell of a job at keeping me interested in them.

Did they stumble along the way? Sure. What show hasn’t? And yes, the quality dropped off in season 8 (the LokSat arc was mind-numbingly dull and required prodigious use of the idiot ball), especially in casting the charisma sink of a performer, Toks Olagundoye (two expressions: confused and constipated), but the primaries were still fun to watch.

Apparently, it’s cancelled now, I imagine largely due to the loss of Stana Katic. And I’m okay with that. Ultimately, they gave us 8 years of some pretty fun television. Everyone involved should be proud of the work they did.

Thanks, people.

In the Shitter

2016-05-24T11:12:00.000-05:00

Golly, I know it’s probably slipped under your highly tuned radar, but lately, people sure do give a shit about who is taking shits and where they’re doing it.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m talking about the sudden surge in attempts by lawmakers to stop trans men and women from using the bathrooms appropriate to their actual gender, forcing them into bathrooms based on the genitalia they were born with.

This has been an issue for a while now, but seems to have really hit the public’s collective, myopic eye with North Carolina’s House Bill 2, the Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, which also stomped all over local ordinances (so much for small government). But people have been pushing these bills in some states since at least 2015.

It was inevitable that once the issue jabbed in the public eye, we’d see bigots, hate-mongers, and the purely ignorant from all walks of life throwing their two cents like rice at a wedding. and I mean from every walk of life, from the lowliest peasant like me, to politicians and actors.

Some of what we’re seeing is pure hatred, often Biblically-inspired (because God hates a lot of people apparently, which makes one wonder why it made them). Common with this type is the idea that transgender is bullshit because “God doesn’t make mistakes”. Which, frankly, hurts my brain a little when I see it. Because if you ask them “What about kids born with pretty severe birth defects?”, they’re still all “God doesn’t make mistakes.” Everything that happens is God’s plan, except for the stuff they don’t understand or agree with (if a kid is born with no legs, that’s God’s plan, but if you’re gay, you hate God or some such BS).

A lot of it is pure ignorance along the lines of “Why are they letting men use the women’s bathrooms?” Some of this I at least understand. It’s a confusing subject that many people have never, ever thought about. Much of the ignorance is because many people, when they hear “transgender”, think “cross-dresser” or “transvestite”. You, brilliant reader, and I know these are not the same things, but I don’t think the average man or woman on the street is aware of that.

When you try to explain it to them, you can occasionally see that, yes, they do see the difference. But many don’t, can’t, or won’t. Some people can’t conceptualize the idea that there could be a physical, demonstrable difference between the gender the brain says it is and the sexual organs the body was born with. It’s like trying to conceptualize a hundred million billion trillion, it just isn’t going to happen with some people. The best you can do with them is try to get them, not to understand fully, but to accept that it is, despite their lack of understanding, and that these are still just people trying to piss like everyone else.

The most common argument (that I see anyway) against trans men and women using the appropriate bathroom seems to be some variation of “Well now men are going to dress like women and assault women in children in the public bathrooms!!” The problem with this is that, wait for it, people were assaulting kids and women in bathrooms, dressed as women and not, for a long god damned time before anyone gave any thought to trans bathroom use.

It’s a bullshit argument used by the ignorant (see above) and the deceitful trying to provoke the ignorant. And the people that use this argument get really mad when you point out that statistically, they are a far greater threat to people in bathrooms than any trans man or woman. And it blows their minds when you point out that it’s entirely possible they, their sisters, moms, wives, and daughters have quite possibly already used the bathroom with a trans woman, and hey, they weren’t beaten, kidnapped, raped, or killed. Let alone that when it comes to bathroom assaults, trans men and women are victims, not perpetrators. Sometimes, you can get through to these people, but not often.

Something here that I find very telling is that the conversation is almost always about what will happen to people in the women’s bathroom. It’s further evidence to support the idea that men and women, as a group, think men are fucking animals just waiting for the opportunity to savage any vulnerable prey if out of sight of polite society.

Touching on that is that more than one prominent male has said (paraphrasing) that if they had been able to say “I feel like a girl today” they totes would have gone into the girl’s locker rooms and showers lol. So basically, we’ve got people like Mike Fucking Huckabee and Louis Waste of DNA Gohmert admitting that they would be sexual predators if they had the opportunity. And that’s a part of the problem. A lot of the male resistance to this comes from the fact that a lot of men would be sexual predators if they thought they could get away with it. So maybe there is something to the idea that men are fucking wolves in sheep’s clothing. An awful lot of guys sure seem to think they are.

But I digress.

One reason we’re seeing this is because it’s far less socially acceptable to hate and discriminate against people based on their skin color. Due to some hard fought recent battles, it’s far less socially acceptable to discriminate against gay people. But we’re people, and importantly, we’re in an election cycle, so we have to be able to discriminate against someone. Especially if you’re a politician on the right (fear- and hate-mongering is a common right-wing tool). Yeah, you can use unauthorized immigrants and Muslims, but doing that still gets a lot of pushback. So you can stir up hate for them, but only to a point, because, oh, right, they still vote in sizable numbers.

But trans men and women? Eh, no one care about them, so we can discriminate, slander and libel them all we want. Hell, tv shows and movies still make “tranny” jokes with almost no repercussions, right?

But the truth is that a major push for these and other hateful, discriminatory laws is coming from a single source: Mathew Staver and his Liberty Counsel legal organization. Note that the Liberty Counsel is a hate group according to the SPLC.

The Liberty Counsel has done everything from waging a legal war on abortion to endorsing the criminalization of homosexual sodomy to supporting that stupid clerk in Kentucky who wouldn’t issue marriage licenses to gay couples because God.

And if you look, you’ll find it’s the Liberty Counsel who is drafting a lot of the out-of-the-blue anti-trans bathroom laws. Because the Liberty Counsel is only about the liberty of Christians to hold power and screw over anyone they hate or disagree with.

And people are easily manipulated and directed.

So if you’re trying to explain to someone why these anti-trans laws are discriminatory bullshit, feel free to mention that they come from a hate group that’s still pissy about SCOTUS and marriage equality.

If you’re all up in arms about men dressed as women in the women’s bathrooms, take a moment to reflect that not only are you being an ignorant bigot, you’re also being used as a blunt object by a hate group that doesn’t give one single shit about you, regardless of which bathroom that shit is taken in.

Fight the power however you can, brothers and sisters.

Peace.

5-24-16 Game Forum Answer Bag

2016-05-24T10:06:00.000-05:00

What Broke 4E (OP by Zardnaar)

The following is my opinion on the main reasons why 4E broke.

What follows is a tremendous amount of bullshit. Pretty much like every post Zardnaar has made. What’s sad is that this thread has 2,712 fucking posts in it!!!

[Any] How is D&D tacitly unrealistic (e.g. breaks the laws of physics)? (OP by Seroster)

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaa

PC's plan is awesome but stupid - should I let it succeed? (OP by EvilSchemer)

The plan requires several things to happen in order:

Doesn’t matter what the plan requires, and you’re asking the wrong question. It’s not up to you, as GM, to let the plan succeed or not. It’s up to you to adjudicate the rules required and let the plan unfold as it unfolds. If it works, yay for the players. If it doesn’t, that’s how it goes sometimes.

My dilemma as DM now is this: Should I allow the plan to mostly succeed?

As I said, that’s not up to you. And if you think it is, you need to step back and ponder if you should be running games or writing stories.

Let me be more clear - would you make the PC roll to succeed/fail - thus possibly discouraging out-of-the-box planning in the future? Or would you hand-wave and let it ride because it's a wacky plan?

Yes, I’d make them roll. If I were running a game that used rolls for those things. If you don’t want to leave it up to the dice, don’t use a game that leaves shit like that up to the fucking dice. I don’t understand why this is so hard for some people to get. But more importantly, if having to make the necessary checks to see if it works discourages your players from out-of-the-box planning, YOU NEED BETTER PLAYERS.

This case is especially tricky because:

No, it really, really isn’t.

Reply by Swamplor:

Only read the thread title.

Answer: Yes.

Fuck off.

This is where people's feedback is helping me plan. My natural tendency is to make some die rolls magically "succeed" in order to allow a crazy plan to succeed.

Then what you need isn’t feedback from the forums; it’s to stop, stand back and examine your flaws as a GM.

G1? Best module ever? Whaaaa? (OP by GamrGirlSue*)

Oldest? Sure. Classic. Yes, definitely. Best? You gotta be kidding me.

Oh my gosh, people have different opinions about things?!?!?!

*I’m still uncertain, based on GGS’ 38 posts, whether or not they are a gamer, a girl, or a Sue. Because most of their posts are pretty mellow but blatant trolling.

How do you want the forthcoming Middle Earth D&D rules handled? (OP by vivsavage)

Huh. I didn’t even know this was a thing. As for the question, I have no idea.

I need help killing a vampie party member D&D (OP by DerpyTurtle)

So, there is a vampire that had joined our group after I bought him as a slave. He later then turned me into his own vampire slave. And then another party member knocked out the vampire and ripped a chunk of him out so that I could drink his blood to become free of his control.

Fastforward and I started creating a city. My old slave/master then asks for a huge fancy building to be built in my city eevn though he had done nothing for me but turn me to his slave. He had even called ME his right hand man! Evn though I wanted nothing to do with him. Because he had drained me of my blood and that we had to force him to let me free of his control. Also, our DM had said that while he dosnt have control of me that he can still controll my vampire slaves which can be a huge problem since vampires will be the majority of my city.

So I want to kill him for turning me, disobeying his slave master because he sucked my blood, for sayying that I was his right hand man, that he deserved a spectacular house in my city, and that he can cause choas if he told my vampires the right things.

Anyway, he dosnt know that I had made a wish for me and my vampires to be able to enter any buildings since vampires normally need permission and since im a thief. He made a wish for when he dies that he dosnt need a coffin to regenerate back to life. So I was planning on having either me or a vampire slave stab him in the heart with a wooden steak in his sleep but im not entirly sure how I could lure him to his second home and kill him, any ideas or help you guys can provide? Any other murder attempt ideas? Btw because of dm trying to make vampires just fair somewhat, light dosnt kill, garlic has no effect, we cant cross flowing streams, no stat bonuses and I beilieve thats all. Thanks! (Sorry if that was long) (We use a mix of editions)

Nope. You’re on your own for this one.

[5E] Ammo (OP by Norrec)

Once he realized the flaw in his build the player decided he'd just buy bucket loads of ammo. They're fairly cheap and don't weigh much.

This made me realize... well the systems not really worth it, is it? If you've got three spears that you throw tracking them makes sense. If you have 200 arrows tracking them suddenly seems pointless. However I don't want to toss ammo out the window completely. It's likely at points in this campaign the party will be in 'survival mode', meaning no easy access to shops and blacksmiths. Food/water I don't bother with because if food/water is a problem then it's because it's a Serious Problem. Serious enough that saying you have a Food Ration isn't enough to solve it ("Ok, that gets you past breakfast. Now it's dinnertime. And what about the next month?"). I'm really hesitant to give up ammo completely.

I’d say either track the ammo specifically or don’t track it at all. I’m not a fan of the assorted roll a die, ix x then you’re out. That’s not how people track their ammo. But since you specifically call out that they will be in “survival mode”, then IMO you should absolutely track ammo down to the last bolt, and that includes trying to reclaim used bolts and everything.

Ammo is a balance to being able to kill things from a distance.

By Vaalingrade:

My problem with tracking ammo is the fact that it penalizes ranged builds. No one runs out of sword and in 5e, you don't run out of magic either, so ranged builds are the only ones who can be rendered useless by means of logistics.

It’s almost like ammo is a trade off in that you don’t have to run up to the creature to kill it . . .

By Deliverator:

The problem with that argument, Sensei, is the third category: casters. They can both stay at range and never run out of ammo (cantrips).

Sounds like the problem there is with casters, not ammo.

From Arilou:

D&D's hit points system really breaks down when it comes to ranged weapons, honestly. You can kind of argue about hit points representing stamina, etc. for melee combat, but when it comes to ranged combat it gets... weird. "Well, I miss him 9 times but the 10th exhausts his reserves and he dies" just feels weird. Melee-wise you can fluff it as parrying, feinting, etc. but with ranged weapons taht either means you really only fire very rarely or you miss a lot.

Once again, as with every time, your lack of comprehension and imagination isn’t a problem with the fucking game.

[Savage Worlds] [Rifts] Savage Rifts!

Every single thing I’ve read about this so far tells me that, for all of the many, many issues I have with the Palladium system, I’d hate this one even more.

Juicers, by their very nature, are the candles that burn twice as bright, but half as long. This wasn't addressed mechanically in the original game,

Uh, yeah, it was. In more than one place. With surprisingly extensive rules. If you’re that ignorant of the source material, you should probably hush about this subject.

I hope that people have fun with this, but from everything available so far, this conversion fails to capture Rifts on all levels.

How stressful is GMing for you? (OP by hyphz)

Not very. And if someone finds it to be particularly stressful, I’d recommend that they step back and take a break. Hobbies shouldn’t stress you out.

Why not simply copy a tattoo map? (OP by jasin)

Someone more practical asked why not simply copy the map.

So what are some fun, engaging, weird reasons why that's not feasible, or in any case less feasible than having along a recent enemy/untrustworthy ally?

I wouldn’t bother to come up with a reason. I’d think copying it was a great idea. And then someone else might use the map on the character to seek out the treasure/object/etc. If you don’t want anyone else getting their hands on the map, well, there are solutions . . .

It has come up, naturally, but we're largely trying to play the heroes here

Well, so much for some of those solutions . . .

More prosaically - the person in question flat out refuses to let you copy the map and insists on going to the destination with the party.

If the party aren't evil they should hopefully respect this and not just knock her out and copy it anyway.

What if they’re neutral?

I'm uncomfortable with how many replies in this thread deal with this character like property, and assume the party will do so unless they have ample reason to.

That’s nice.

Right. Especially in light of the threads about sexism in gaming, I'm really uncomfortable with the idea that people would sit there and roleplay either murdering and skinning, or forcibly stripping and fully shaving, a prisoner. The OP specified that the group are at least trying to be heroes - which I would have hoped would be sufficient indication to subsequent posters that these kinds of abuses would be out of character - but in any case, I would quit any group which was OK with going through with such a scenario.

And for you, also, that’s nice. Some people aren’t meant for some tables.