Moe Lane's Blog, page 61

The FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH Apple TV trailer.

I know that FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH is an Apple TV movie. It’s also a Guy Ritchie movie, so yeah: I’m gonna watch it. I also admit to being curious as to just how much Ritchie liked NATIONAL TREASURE.

#commissionearned

Kind of mixed feelings, right now.

On the one hand, I dislike tariffs*. On the other hand, I don’t like how the gaming and independent fiction industries talked themselves into using products and services from the People’s Republic of China, despite the fact that the PRC’s supply chain is corrupt and unreliable at best, uses wink-and-a-nudge slave labor at worst, is run by people who are ideologically opposed to several core principles of Western society, and is about as ecologically friendly as a guy spraying out chlorofluorocarbons from his extra-leaded gasoline-powered mobile throne while directing a Soviet-era hydroelectric project.

And on the gripping hand? This has been a possibility for about a year, a certainty for four months, and a ticking package for weeks. There’s a lot of people out there suddenly blinking on how their books’ profit margins have just taken a huge (and frankly inevitable) hit, and it’s all I can do to not shake them while asking, Why did you not plan for this situation? I publish with Amazon and DriveThruRPG for reasons, and this is one of them. They’re not immune to tariffs, but my per-book costs with them aren’t going to go up by a half next week, either.

I guess I just don’t get why any of this is a surprise.

Moe Lane

*Just accept that I do, please.

#commissionearned

04/02/2025 Snippet, BOOT.

Time to get into this one, apparently.

…

Saratoga National Historical Park, State of New York
(Saratoga National Historical Park, State of New York)
3054 AD

Ghosts are worse than dogs, when it comes to waking you up suddenly. You think a cold nose is bad? Try an entire spectral hand. Worse, the specter it’s attached to will know exactly what it feels like to the living, but probably won’t care.

Still, it worked. I went from fitfully unconscious to ten-ten alert in nothing flat, to find… Sergeant Louis, hovering above me. “Sorry, sir,” he intoned. “You’re needed on the Camp Ground.” I reached for my glasses, but Louis had already materialized enough to hand them to me. Which meant that whatever was going on was serious. Ghosts don’t solidify themselves for no reason.

“This a quick matter?” I asked my adjutant-bodyguard as I stamped my feet in my boots. “Or is it a dead one?”

“It’s a dead matter, sir. There’s a problem with a walk-in. Some of the others, well, they’re not real thrilled he showed up. They don’t want him here, and things are starting to get loud.”

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My one exception to April Fools Day shenanigans.

When somebody comes up with a joke product that would actually work. That’s always cool.

Medieval fantasy ratfolk book cancelled. Introducing "Shadowtail City," our new "verminpunk" open sandbox heist game featuring gene-spliced rat-human cybermutants in a post-apocalyptic neon future. Run the Cheese-Grid, hack into NIMH-Corp databases, plant viruses with Fievel.exe,… pic.twitter.com/lk3fmyqUee

— Aeres (@AeresChronicles) April 2, 2025

Best of April Fools: Warhammer Tactical Rock. pic.twitter.com/w554JNbxcI

— Grummz (@Grummz) April 1, 2025

My fortunate art accident.

I was making an animated gif for my Patreon banner (we’re past the proof-of-concept stage, and now I’m just tweaking it), and this popped up at one point of the process. I thought Affinity Photo could handle a gif, and it turns out that it cannot:

…I kind of like it, though?

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‘What’s Simple is True.’

Time for bed.

What’s Simple is True, Jewel

#commissionearned

My adventures in gif.

I have spent the afternoon and evening trying and failing to figure out how to make a gif for my Patreon front banner*. I am either old, or this is harder than it looks. Or I am old, and this is harder than it looks. That’s always a possibility.

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Moe Lane

*Although I did fix it so that the resolution was good, and you could see that I wrote a book. So that’s a win.

I am doing a LOT of infrastructure work today.

Changes to the appearance and structure of the Patreon, editing work for the Fermi Resolution worldbook, and other non-sexy, but useful things. If you have opinions about any of that, feel free to speak up. I’m cleaning up stuff anyway!

Yeah, I got nothing.

Except for my annual pledge that I won’t be doing anything for April Fools’ Day tomorrow. I’ve got nothing against that tradition, I just don’t follow it anymore. I dunno why.

The March Patreon stuff is up!

I feel the story went well this month, so of course nobody will agree with me. If so, I won’t even be mad about it. That’s just how the universe works.

Anyway…

Short Story: Le Bete. I’ve never had any shame, really. It seems… inefficient.RPG Material: The Cunning Land, Part 5A: The Old World. 5B may be a bit more recondite.

Thanks for reading!

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