Moe Lane's Blog, page 465
November 14, 2022
11/14/2022 NaNoWriMo, BANSHEE BEACH: 1512/32070.
Although that number will change. I’m just putting this up now, and finishing the daily posts. Then I want to get a few hundred more words in.
“Ah, Mr. Vargas. Or should it be ‘Shamus?’ I’m never sure what to do, in informal situations.”
I turned around: sure enough, it was Rodriguez. He didn’t look very informal: white shirt over black trousers, with a colorful, sleeveless waistcoat draped over his shoulders. I suppose he wore shoes, but I never actually stopped to look.
“Either’s fine, Senor,” I told him. “I’m on vacation this week.”
“Shamuses take vacations?” he replied. “I thought nobody ever left you alone for long enough to let you get away from it all.”
Which was absolutely true, dammit. “Let’s just say somebody insisted. Anyway, I’m not dressed for the job, so you can call me anything polite you like.”
“I should have realized, of course. You’re not wearing your Shamus clothes.” Rodriguez gave me a smile that seemed genuine. “Would you believe that I envy you your ability to wear that suit?”
“Really?” I snorted. “Most people see it, they think it’s an invitation to throw a fist in my face. Or tell me their troubles. Sometimes it’s both.”
“Really, Mr. Vargas. Really. I have a taste for the past, you see. History has always fascinated me, particularly the Time Before. That suit of yours evokes the era of the fabled Old Americans! I imagine you must feel honored to wear it every day.” He switched his smile to a grin. “Even if you also enjoy having a night off from time to time, to just be a regular man.”
Disney cancels new PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN project.
I guess the Mouse really is clearing its decks.
In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Oscar nominee Margot Robbie officially confirmed the current status of the female-led Pirates of the Caribbean project that she has been attached to for quite a while now. Robbie has revealed that the potential spin-off has been canceled and is no longer moving forward at Disney after the company rejected the initial idea for the project.
The exact reason for the cancellation hasn’t been mentioned. Personally, I’m going to be boring and assume that Disney doesn’t really care why it’s not cost-effective anymore to do this film. It just cares that it isn’t – and, in this economy, the phrase ‘not cost-effective’ has teeth. I suspect it’s gonna be a grim couple of years for content creators…
Short Film: MIGHT (DUST)
MIGHT is very interesting, and very well done: but it’s also relying just a touch too much on its liner notes. I liked it, but not everything was explained properly. Still, definitely worth a look. DUST’s stuff generally is.
The Daughter of the Lilies webcomic returns November 22nd.
It’s a classic good news / bad news situation: Meg Syv had to shut down making new Daughter of the Lilies comics because apparently Disney has draconian rules about what art their artists can and cannot do in their spare time. But Disney just did mass layoffs, so her entire project’s been fired! Boo! But that means new comics soon! Yay! And she’s apparently out of work. Boo, again, and here’s her Patreon.
I think that covers it.
November 13, 2022
Can’t decide on my new D&D character.
It’s a surprisingly hard question. Basically, we’re doing Spelljammer, so I can either bump up my existing character (half-orc NG cleric of Tyr) to fifth level, or start a new character. If I play a new character, it will absolutely be a giff with mirrorshades, a long leather coat, and as many firearms as I can carry*. On the other hand, my cleric is in the habit of trying to tell the good news of Tyr to every entity that can talk back, and it’s been working surprisingly well so far (it’s also funny).
So I’m stuck: cool old character, or cool new character. Thoughts? Note that fifth level is where my cleric can start getting access to third level spells and just vaporize weak enough Undead, which is nice.
Moe Lane
#commissionearned
*Giff are large humanoids with hippo heads and advantage on Strength checks, so they can carry a lot of guns.
Semi-regular reminder: Review People’s Books!
If you read independent and self-published authors (ahem), remember to review their books. You can also buy them, of course, but reviewing them is always going to be well-received. The almighty algorithms are based at least partially on reviews and reviewers…
#commissionearned
11/13/2022 NaNoWriMo, BANSHEE BEACH: 675/30558.
That number will likely change later: I’m about to go play some D&D. But, just in case: that’s my current number for the month. 50% done!
I don’t know how to ride a surfboard. I mean, I know: lie down on the board, get on your knees, stand up, keep from falling over. Easy enough? — Oh, hell, everybody knows it can’t be that easy, and it ain’t. It’d take me at least a week to get to the point where I could handle anything more than a swell. That’s why the bad guys were doing the ritual out on the water: without a way of me getting out there, I might as well be back in Cin City.
The thing was, I didn’t know how to ride a surfboard. A hover-board, though? Like the ones I rode, in my misspent youth?
Yeah, I can manage that.
Come, I will conceal nothing from you (to quote the Lore): I grabbed a board from the most entitled-looking brat looking on from Poor Boy’s Point. I almost got away without him even seeing me do it, but the kid had a nose for property rights. I could hear the falsetto shrieks of “Stop! Thief!” rise behind me as I pushed off on the board as hard as I could getting just enough speed to hop the board up and clear the handrail keeping people away from the churning seas below.
I was half-expecting somebody to try to stop me from going over the side, which would have been a real problem unless I was willing to let my brass knuckles do the explaining. People hate it when you steal from kids. I swear there was a reason for it, besides social commentary and/or karmic comeuppance: I needed something waterproof and absolutely forgiving of mistakes, and a rich kid’s extravagant toy looked like my best bet. It was a long shot, but so was everything else about this rescue.
Nobody in the crowd stopped me. Maybe they saw the Shamus hat. Maybe they all quietly agreed that the kid was the most entitled-looking brat on the boardwalk. Probably they just wanted to see a grown man fly a hoverboard off a wharf and into the drink. I mean, wouldn’t you?
Patreon Microfiction: Better Safe.
It’s not really established just who is ‘Better Safe’ in this scenario, is it? Although it’s probably diagnostic that this story is reminding me I need to spend December whipping GHOSTS ON AN ALIEN WIND into shape. I don’t want to push back publication on that any longer than I need to.
