Moe Lane's Blog, page 511

AT LAST. Liechtenstein Maritime Law is finally back in print!

You can order it here. I’ve already gotten several: they will make excellent gifts. For, really, who can function in this world without a deep understanding of Liechtenstein maritime law?

Moe Lane

PS: Not available on Amazon, alas.

‘Closing Time.’

Closing Time, Semisonic

#commissionearned

Two days to go on the 2022 PYRAMID SCHEME Kickstarter.

41 hours for Steve Jackson Games’ 2022 GURPS Pyramid Scheme Kickstarter! So get me some more stretch goals! …No, wait, they’re good. Well. Back it anyway?

Snippet the Last, THE FIGHT IN THE GROVE.

Three out of four done! One to go! …And it’s the toughest one, of course. Still, this could get taken care of by the weekend. Maybe.

Patreon!

Trees do not howl and scream, so I cannot tell you what the sound that came from her lips was like. It drew the Tender-husk like a crippled deer draws the wolf. But now my eyes were cleared, and I saw a bolt from my crossbow was now embedded in a tree trunk. I yanked it free and had it firmly gripped in my teeth as I leapt onto the Keeper-husk’s back.

Don’t do this, by the way.

But may the Gods bless whoever created the handclaw, for thanks to them I proved able to use mine to claw deeply into the husk’s side, keeping me from being thrown off immediately. Its remaining limbs blindly lashed out to clutch at me, but I was wedged firm against the husk’s foul side, and could not be immediately pulled off.

But I had no desire to linger there, so I ripped out one handclaw to strike again, rolling myself around to the Tender-husk’s front (if you have never done this, you have no idea how much doing this hurts. Don’t do this). Unlike the dryad, I do know what a bittersap bezoar looks like, even when it’s under a layer of bark and rot. From my new vantage point I could even see it through the rents in the Tender-Husk’s bark.

08/09/22 Snippet, TOUR OF DUTY.

Ship!

Patreon!

February 17

First full day onboard the… BL-8B M’RT? The species who built this ship may have been oxy-nitro, carbon-based lifeforms with a recognizable common bacterial ancestor (score one more for Team Directed Panspermia!), but they’re not in our databases and neither is their language. So far, we were able to phonetically ‘read’ the name of the ship, and that’s about it.

But we’re inside. The hull’s intact, but the temperature’s as cold as you’d expect in interstellar space with no power sources. I was expecting the crunch of frozen oxygen under my boots, but there was almost no atmosphere left to freeze. No complaints from me there, let me tell you. The last thing we need is anything volatile suddenly sublimating.

So far, everything’s shut down. There’s no gravity, no power, obviously no air or heat, and just as obviously no lights. One of the first things the techs did was try to interface our system with the ship’s computer — everything here uses standard Amalgamation technology, thank Eru — but there’s not even emergency power available. Janusz had a lot to say about that.

“If this was a human-built ship, I’d think the batteries were removed,” he said, scowling over his instant coffee. “And if this was a human ship, I’d think we could never restore power, either. Even the capacitors are drained.”

HARLEY QUINN apparently surviving Warner Bros’ Culling Moon?

In case you’ve missed it: this has not been a great time to be a content provider for DC comics (and shows). A new broom has arrived, and its bristles are made out of barbed wire. Lots of projects have been, canceled, finished, and in one particular case, buried alive. For those unfamiliar with this sort of thing, this is what the end of a boom cycle looks like. Product that would have been kept around in more cash-flush times will get the ax, and there’s no ruthless like entertainment company ruthless. This is simply the way of it*.

But HARLEY QUINN‘s still standing! “According to Entertainment Identifier Registry (via Screen Rant), which is what media companies use to manage content that is being released on multiple platforms, Warner Bros. Animation has already registered Harley Quinn season four.” This is probably mostly because HARLEY QUINN seasons one through three do not actually suck — which surprised me, too: I thought that they would. It would appear that this is also being translated into sufficient eyeballs that the studio is willing to do another season of the show.

This implies something about the shows that did get canceled and/or bricked up in a cellar, but it’s not nice to kick things when they’re down.

Moe Lane

PS: They’ll probably still keep the Flash movie going, because apparently audiences liked the Flash movie. It’ll likely be a one-and-done, though. Either that, or they fit Ezra Miller with a shock collar. And don’t think Hollywood executives wouldn’t like to have access to that option in general.

*The real question, though: what happens to DC’s print comics lines? – Because a lot of those haven’t made money in years.

‘The Touch.’

It is shameful of me that this did not go up last night.

You’ve Got the Touch, Stan Bush

#commissionearned

‘A Groovy Kind of Love.’

A Groovy Kind of Love, Phil Collins

#commissionearned

I got nothing except a couple of book thingies.

It’s been a dull night, sorry. Oh, I’m going to be in on another online book sale next month. The last one moved a nice number of books, so I’ll be doing TALES FROM THE FERMI RESOLUTION this time. Get people hooked, and all that. And I should be getting the art for DUTIES soon. Likewise also cool.

But not much else, otherwise.

#commissionearned

08/08/22 Snippet, THE FIGHT IN THE GROVE.

Almost done fixing up this one!

Patreon!

We kept out of challenge range while we planned. We spoke low, but didn’t whisper: whispers can carry. Even an ear corrupted by bittersap might hear it.

“Why does it not keep watch?” asked the dryad. “Did it keep no animals with it?”

I gave that question some consideration. “No,” I decided. “When you fled this place, your limb was still infected, despite your friend’s best effort. So it gathered all the animals too slow or foolish to flee, and sent them out after you.”

“Why, Jack? I would have died, if I had not reached you in time. There would be no need for it to fight me.”

I shook my head. “They were not there to fight you. They were there to bring your reanimated corpse back to the grove.”

“So now it wonders what happened to its army?” The dryad glared in the direction of her former grove. “I like the thought of that, though I wish it was not forewarned.”

“It wonders nothing,” I pointed out. “Bittersap can’t think. It just has hungers. One of those hungers is for more animals, to use them to help expand the reach of this abomination. We are lucky that it cannot anticipate that you might return, with help.”