Moe Lane's Blog, page 803
December 2, 2020
Movie of the Week: Shazam!
I’ve been watching clips from Shazam! instead of pretty much anything else tonight, so we might as well use this, hey? I’m still trying to figure out how DC managed to make it. I mean, it’s cheerful. Oh, well, gift horses and mouths.
The LUPIN ‘I Find This Aesthetic Confusing’ Netflix trailer.
Is this… dubbed? Or is LUPIN just really out of sync? I dunno about the latter: I expect Netflix to have better sound production values. It’s probably dubbed. But why didn’t they just go with subtitles?
Moe Lane
PS: Yeah, I was kind of hoping for a Lupin the 3rd, too. Ah, to be twenty-three again… no, wait, that would be a mistake. Never mind.
Roland the Headless Lomar Cultist [The Fall of Delta Green]
Roland the Headless Lomar Cultist
[The Fall of Delta Green]
Roland-the-Headless-Lomar-Cultist-Google-DocsDownload
Roland was from OlathoëIn the land of the Arctic StarHe never found his home againThough he traveled farThe deal was made in InnsmouthOn a cold and squamous daySo he set out for BiafraTo make his bloody playThrough ’66 and 7He ruled the Congo cultsWith knife upraised to slaughterHe got results.Those days and nights he chantedTo gods and Great Old OnesHe sacrificed the livingTo bring back midnight suns.Roland the Lomar CultistRoland the Lomar CultistNow, cultists had spent eonsTo end old Ahtu’s rest;But of all the ageless wizardsRoland was the best.But the [redacted] decidedThey wanted Roland dead,So a deniable wet works teamBlew off Roland’s head.Roland the Headless Lomar CultistIA! IA! IA! This has happened oft beforeLomar’s bravest sonDeath will die for Roland til he evens up the scoreYou could soon see his headless bodyStalking through the nightWith his shadow cast by Roland’s Midnight Sun:With his shadow cast by Roland’s Midnight Sun.Roland searched the continentFor the team who’d done him inHe found them in MombassaIn a bar room drinkin’ gin.Roland raised his withered armsHe couldn’t say a wordBut he blew away their bodiesFrom there to Johanasburg.Roland the Headless Lomar CultistRoland the Headless Lomar CultistRoland the Headless Lomar CultistTalkin about the manRoland the Headless Lomar CultistThe eternal Lomar CultistStill stalking in the nightNow it’s three weeks laterBut he can’t give up the fightIn Libreville, in WindhoekIn Kinshasa and Cape TownNazi Galt Thinks it’s saltThat Roland has becomeAnd wants him.
Roland the Headless Lomar Cultist
Abilities: Athletics 12, Firearms 12, Health 20, Unarmed Fighting 12
Hit Threshold: 4
Alertness Modifier: 0
Stealth Modifier: +2
Attack: fist (d-1), .30 cal BAR (d+1,L1)
Armor: Resilient (bullets) [L-3]
Stability Loss: +1
Headless Thompson Gunner: Roland recovers 3 Health for every enemy he kills. Though headless, he suffers no penalty to his attacks. Roland never runs out of ammo.
Investigation
Forensics
You see these bullets? Looks like they got fired into something – but it wasn’t anything hard, because they’re not deformed enough for that. No traces of blood or organic matter on them, either. And usually bullets don’t all show up in one spot on the floor, like they were collected and dumped there.
HUMINT
There was a guy; he was right in the middle of the Biafra shitshow. ‘Rolling Low,’ they called him – but they didn’t want to call him anything, because then he’d notice. Supposed to be this hardcore sorcerer, even though he was some kind of European or whatever. He had the same kind of tattoo you mentioned. But word is, the CIA took him out. Hell, they blew off his head.
Military Science
These aren’t just any .30 rounds; they come from one particular East Coast manufacturer. The kind of company that doesn’t ask too many questions, you hear me? There’s some mercenary groups in the Biafra mess who use the rounds; they must get a discount or something, because they don’t use anything else if they can help it.
The That Which Is Not Dead Can Eternal Lie GRIZZLY 2: REVENGE trailer.
You can’t help but wonder whether Charlie Sheen, George Clooney, and/or Laura Dern* wake up from a nightmare where they somehow found GRIZZLY II: REVENGE and decided to finish it. No, they’re reassure themselves. That’s just crazy talk. The Thing We Don’t Talk About is never going to see the light of day.
…Heeeeeeeeere’s Grizzly!
Also: I love how it’s not THE Revenge. Just ‘Revenge.’ Although I suppose that it makes more sense, because this rampaging grizzly bear is a different rampaging grizzly bear than the grizzly bear which presumably rampaged through the previous film. Which I understand ends with the heroine shooting the grizzly bear with a bazooka, so at least it has that going for it in terms of cinematic merit.
Moe Lane
*John Rhys-Davies doesn’t give a damn, I’m betting.
First pass-through on REVISIONARY Chapbook done.
Second one to be done tomorrow. Then I can start prepping REVISIONARY (Cthulhu Mythos horror-style fiction, 4 stories, 4 illustrations, 32K words) for Kindle Unlimited. Got the artwork, got the text, just need to assemble the book itself and I can do that this weekend. Should be able to have it ready, well in time for Christmas. Huzzah!
…Then I can work on everything else. Huzzah?
Moe Lane
PS: Well, at least I actually am working on things and getting them out. So we’ll still authorize the use of a ‘Huzzah.’
December 1, 2020
Wait. Is the new VAN HELSING project original, or a reboot?
After relaunching its monster-movie library with the hit The Invisible Man, Universal Pictures is continuing to build up its development slate and has its sights on one of its more iconic non-monster characters. Sources tell Deadline that Universal is developing an original horror/thriller inspired by the studio’s classic monster legacy set in the world of Van Helsing, with Julius Avery (Overlord) directing and James Wan producing through his Atomic Monster banner.
(H/T: GeekTyrant) You see, I remember the 2004 VAN HELSING. …I really wanted to like that movie. There were parts that I did like. But I wasn’t broken-hearted when they never made a sequel. Caveat auteur.
Item Seed: Hellcrawler.
Hellcrawler
Description: take a M26 Pershing tank, replace the 90mm main gun with a stubbier, classified cylinder which causes nosebleeds in any human that looks too closely at the classified symbols etched on its surface, swap out the engine for a literally indestructible cube of some classified alloy that smells faintly of copper and iron, and cover the (significantly reduced) armor with more alarming, classified symbols. The machine guns remain unchanged. The sealed crew compartment is larger than a regular Pershing tank, and can carry 6 humans and their gear sustainably. Hellcrawlers have a classified life support system that can keep up to 9 humans alive indefinitely.
Weight: 45 tons
Operational Range: For as long as the crew holds out
Max Speed: 50 mph on roads, 10 mph off road
Crew capacity: 6
Hellcrawlers have actually gone to Hell and back. Or they have gone to a Hell. Whether it was the Hell is a question for theologians, or possibly the United States State Department. It turns out that access to other dimensions creates more questions than answers.
There are other questions about Hellcrawlers, and the answers are all classified. What is known about them is that they’re based on something that American researchers stumbled upon in 1943, but couldn’t get to reliably work until after World War II. This something seems to allow access to other dimensions, among other things; but most of those places are decidedly hostile to human life. It’s reasonable to assume that various elements of the nascent military-industrial complex – including the elements that show up on no invoice, org chart, or possibly even periodic table – thus got together to create the first Hellcrawlers, in order to let the USA explore and scout these dimensions in relative safety. Or at least increased safety.
There aren’t many Hellcrawlers, because they were extremely expensive to make; but each one is incredibly tough. As long as the cube that serves as an engine is hooked up to the chassis, the vehicle is highly resistant to damage, and will eventually ‘heal’ itself of its injuries. Life support is also indefinite, but has an upper limit. A Hellcrawler probably wouldn’t be able to survive on a plane of pure, crawling chaos – but ones have gone to frozen plateaus of sorcerous terror, or blasphemous cities overlooking stagnant lakes reflecting twin moons, and come back. Usually they even bring back the crews safe and reasonably sane, too. As even a cursory look at the literature of interdimensional exploration can tell you, this is no small feat.
Hellcrawlers are not something adventuring types might acquire; they are items that are assigned. If there’s a need to traverse a dangerous otherworldly space, and the US government is called upon to assist, something like this is what they’d cough up. Actually securing one for permanent use… has been tried. Unfortunately for the people who tried it, it turns out that how to keep a Hellcrawler functional is classified, too. And the people who are cleared for that information are worryingly tight-lipped about the details. As in, maybe you don’t want to know; and they definitely don’t.
Need to use up that Audible Credit? Try FROZEN DREAMS!
I’m still trying to decide whether TINSEL RAIN is going to get an audiobook. FROZEN DREAMS got one pretty much because of the Kickstarter, but it seemed to be a popular enough extra. And certainly when I have a larger catalog every little bit will help. So I haven’t decided yet.
Until then: Christmas is coming! I can’t sell merch because it’s too much a risk that it would have to be made with Chinese slave labor! I gotta work with what I got! REVISIONARIES will probably be popping up on my Author Page before too much longer, at least.
