#just a little 1984 lore applied here

[mxhlon]

He liked that answer, liked that she was willing to play into it and indulge. The bartender leaned forward, and Mahlon repeated martini, adding, "an old fashion, too. And a round of shots. Surprise us." The man nodded, and Mahlon sank back into the booth. "'Cause fuck it, why not?" That was his mentality for most things. Consequences came either way: the choosing or the unchoosing, motion or stillness. It came all the same. Might as well have a little fun on the way.

"They make an, uh, absinthe drink, but y'can't really get the same shit they used to use anymore. So they use etheroid." So Mahlon had been given some fuck-ass directions here to make a delivery, much to his confusion, as he wandered around the alleyway for a solid twenty before a couple opened up the cellar doors.

Mahlon enjoyed watching Greer, seeing the way she perceived the world. It was hard to read her sometimes. Expression clouded, closed-off, so when he caught a glimpse beyond or beneath, it was a special thing. She was looking at the walls, at the collection amassed here, and he too was looking at art.

The crone of the music set a warm blanket over the space, and he hummed along eyes wandering, familiar with the song. "They play this shit on the rebel radio," Mahlon mumbled. Cat and Nano and their illegal broadcast -- felt like a lifetime away. "Y'know my favorite part of it? Y'can hear them breathe," he listened for the gasp between verses, the gulp of air the singer took that just felt...real. Capitolite music didn't have that. It was so edited and polished that you could barely distinguish it from AI, from something entirely computer-generated. A song, and not.

"Martini," she answered decisively. It wasn't her usual drink, but it struck her as something more fitting to the venue. It was an unusual place, and Greer felt like it called for something a little outside of the same old whiskey on the rocks she'd get at the Tower Bar. "And a round'a shots? 'Cause fuck it, why not?" She added, testing to see if he was willing to indulge her. "How'd you find this place anyway?" She asked, swiveling her gaze to the art that hung over them, trying to piece together the things she didn't recognize.

[sillygoblinantics]

Woah mama,,,,, /pos i love this guy a lot i need more gothitelle in my life

Thank you! This is Romare he’s a country Gothitelle

(Sorry this post got long cause I started gobbo spergin about science in fantasy and a topic that if not for frog dissection day in middle school, would be studying biology or being a veterinarian XD so I’ll leave a lil thing to make this shorter lol)

I’ve been playing around with how I’d apply the same type of sexual dimorphism seen in birds and insects (or the general animal kingdom) with Pokémon!

Since I’ve done it before with the ralts line I thought playing with the concept for a majority of the human shaped pokemon would be fun!

And there’s a lot of human shaped ones for psychic pokemon so to make them more alien I’ve been mixing today bird and moth type shtuff and spicing it up with ideas for hybridization traits from other pokemon species which are present in Romare here!

With hybrid designs I keep to mind the in-game/in universe rules to Pokémon genetics: baby is the same as the mom with little to no traits from dad if the dad isn’t a different species but same egg group of Pokémon.

Romare’s mama was of course a Gothitelle but also a cross between Gothitelle and Grimsnarl. As bizarre as it may seem, but given the properties I headcannon for the reason the Pokémon who have “clothes” have them being made from what I can only describe as similar to moth scales, gossamer and cobweb but it’s a Pokémon specific variant of keratin (think nails and hair).

While the ralts line favor brighter vibrant colors and abundant chest plumage (the bleeding heart); the Gothita line favor males with (I forgot my own notes ohnu) either the longest/most or the shortest/least “skirt” tiers.

Also I just realized I might’ve pulled this one tumblr original gem of a meme out when I was coming up with designs for Romare so uh, thank you 1984 goth anime legs uncle XD

I really need to get some shtuff out for the added “Bonnie’s day out!!”worldbuilding/lore and the general “pokémadhouse” flesh-out/rewriting!

I’ll have to add sketches of the species notes later! I got two animations to work on and some Bonnie pages to get done XD

Glad yall like this guy tho

[kinsey3furry300]

A very confused Star Wars Fan desperately tries to justify their belief that “Caravan of Courage” shows the way forward for the franchise. No, really.

Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve loved Star Wars. And I mean, all of it. The books, the games, the Lego, the spin-offs: I even enjoy the Holiday Special in a The Room so-bad-you-just-need-to-see-it sort of way.  But particularly the films. But here is when we run into the big problem: I’m just the wrong age. The original trilogy launched before I was born, the prequel trilogy hit cinemas when I was already a teen and while I went and saw them and enjoyed them, I was at that age where I was self-conscious about seeing a “kids” film, and hyper-aware of how silly and cringy those films were in parts. So my indoctrination, my inoculation with the Star Wars bug didn’t happen in the cinema, and it didn’t happen with any of the main franchise works. It happened on home video, on a skiing trip in the French Alps in the early 90’s. I’d have been about 6, and this was the first time I’d ever been abroad other than to see relatives in Ireland.  And I loved it: to this day I love skiing, but more than that, I have very, very fond childhood memories of this trip. This was shortly before I lost my biological mother to cancer, she’d have received her diagnosis just after we got back from the trip. This was when my younger sister stopped being an annoying screaming thing and became and became an actual person I could talk and play and share ideas with, this was before the combination my mothers long illness and my father having just launched his own IT start up meant I didn’t see him or her any more, despite the fact they were in the same house as me. This was this wonderful, nostalgic child-hood bubble when my family was intact, and nothing could ever go wrong. I skied all day with mum and dad, and would come back to the chalet in the evening. It was an English speaking chalet, I met my first real-life American there, and having grown up in the 90’s in the UK nothing was cooler than making friends with an actual American my own age. He had a hulk Hogan action figure with springs in the legs so if you put him on a hard surface and punched his head down, when you let go he’d jump really high in the air. We used to play with it together in the bath, back in that weird 90’s time-bubble when it was possible to convince two sets of parents that this kid you’d just met was you best friend in the world and of course shared bath time was, somehow, normal and appropriate. And fresh from bath time, tired from the day, the parents would give us some hot coco, dump us kids in front of the tv and grab the first shitty low-budget VHS they could find to keep us distracted while they went to the bar. In this particular time, in this particular place, that shitty low budget cartoon was the  complete set of the 1985 Lucasfilm/ABC Ewoks cartoon, plus the two spin off movies, and to this day that cheap, kitschy, kind of bad series has a special warm and cosy place in my heart. I remember being enthralled by the world, in love with the characters, applied by the bad guys and the injustice they caused (to this day I’m still irate about that time Wicket lost his set of beads documenting his progress towards becoming a full warrior and the older Ewoks basically said, tough, you need to re-earn all those merit badges from scratch. This struck me as exactly the sort of bullshit an adult would pull, and pissed me off) and on tenterhooks about what would happen to the characters.

It was also, by a coincidence, the first ever Star Wars media I was exposed to, and the above combination of events probably explains a lot about me.

So I was surprised, the other day, when scrolling Disney+, to find they’d added Caravan of Courage AND Battle for Endor to the roster in my region. Surely Disney wouldn’t want their slick, cool brand associated with this old trash? Surely there could be no place for this in the post-Mandalorian Star Wars cannon? Surely this is a horrible mistake some intern made, right?

Unless…. What if I’ve miss-remembered? What if it’s not just rose-tinted nostalgia goggles, and it’s, in fact, secretly really, really good?

I rushed to my comfy chair, got a blanket, dimmed the lights, made some coco (with rum in it, because why the hell not?) and sat down to re-examine this lost gem.

And wow: it’s every bit as shit as you’d expect.

It has aged exactly as poorly as you’d expect a cheap, mid 80’s direct to video spin-off to age. Caravan of Courage? More like Caravan of Garbage, am I right?

And yet… I still enjoyed every moment.

And it was sitting there, in my pyjamas, watching a cheaply made direct to video cash-grab from just before I was born, seeing it again for the first time in nearly 30 years, and I realised something.

It doesn’t really matter if this film is bad, so long as I enjoy it. And if it doesn’t really mater if this is bad, then I, like many Star Wars fans, wasted a huge amount of time and emotional effort on being butthurt about stuff I didn’t like about the Rise of Skywalker and it’s ilk. Because somewhere, right now, a tired and frustrated parent is putting Disney+ on to keep their kids quiet for two hours. And they won’t think too hard about what they put on, so long as it keeps little Timmy busy for a bit. Somewhere, right now, a kid is watching Rise of Skywalker, and it’s the first Star Wars media they’ve ever seen.

And that’s okay. Because we don’t know what that kids home life is like. We don’t know if it’s good or bad. Maybe it’s great, maybe it’s about to take a dramatic plunge like mine did, and this moment here will be the cosy, warm memory they look back on in 30 years time, and that’s beautiful.  They’re getting introduced to a fun, wonderful fantasy world that could be with them all their lives, through good times and bad, and as fans we should be happy about that.

Star Wars will never, die: it’s too darn profitable, Disney will never let it. And while I hope they learn from their mistakes and make sure every future Star Wars is a timeless gem of story-telling, statistically, if you keep making enough films, some of them will be bad. And while I’d like them all to be great, it’s still okay if they’re bad.

Because nothing can take away my memories of that week in that chalet. Nothing can take-away my memories of when they put the original trilogy on in cinemas for the special edition and I had my jaw hit the floor with how good it was on the big screen, not knowing or caring who shot first. Nothing can take away you memories of the Original Trilogy, the Prequels, or the Clone Wars. Nothing can tarnish the bits of the sequil trilogy that you like, and there are good bits in there.

But wait, what about continuity? What about the sacred, perfect written time-line that used to exist?

Well, what about it? Have you seen any other big, epic fantasy universe before? They’re all a mess. A work of fiction, particularly fantasy, can be extensive, or tightly written, but not both. Harry Potter is only seven books, and the last two feel, tonally, like they’re from an entirely different series. I love them, but the grim-dark kicked in so fast you’ll get whiplash. The Hobbit is a perfect written self-contained novel, and LOTR is *The* big boy high-fantasy trilogy: fast forward 50 years, and Christopher Tolkien is desperately squeezing every last drop of money out of his father’s corpse by finishing and publishing every unfinished note JRR ever wrote right down to his shopping lists. Even Dune goes of the rails with sequels. I can only think of four fantasy works that are both extensive and consistently tightly written, Song of Ice and Fire, Wheel of Time, Malazan: Book of the Fallen and Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere universe. And even then, the prequels and spin-offs mess with the timelines: the Dunk and Egg novella’s change some character’s canonical ages and timelines, Wheel of Time was going slowly off the rails even before the Jordan died, Forge of Darkness made what was a good metaphor for the creation of it’s world into a literal war deep in the past, and Sanderson’s first Novel Elantris got a re-write to bring it more in line with the rest of the shared universe. The MCU, oft held up as the modern example of tightly planned, well thought out ongoing storytelling, is a lie: it was never as pre-planned out as Disney wants us to think; the first Iron Man, apparently, barely had a script, with Downey ad-lib-ing most of his scenes. None of the MCU films are direct sequels to each-other other than Infinity war and Endgame. There are three Iron Man films, and Three Thor films, and none continue an ongoing story line across multiple films, and the Cap films barely continue an arc, but only where Cap’s relationship with Natasha and Bucky is involved.  Much like these, Star War’s cannon is a complete, nightmarish, confusing, tangled, illogical mess. And it has been since 1984, as Caravan of Courage proves. It was never consistent and well planned.

And that’s okay.

I used to care about plot holes. I used to care about which works were cannon in Star Wars lore. I’m over that now. I’m happy to imagine the books, films and games not as a blow-by-blow historical account of a galaxy far far away, but as campfire stories from within this fun, imaginative world that we’re all invited to listen to. Stories that are in-universe myth and folklore, that we can all snuggle up and listen to while drinking highly alcoholic rum and remembering better times, knowing that wherever the future throws at us, no matter how the world goes to hell around us, we’ll still have the memories, and the ability to make our own new stories in the wonderful Star Wars world we all share.

And that’s okay. No, more than that: that’s beautiful.

Also Star Wars is completely unambiguous on the fact we’re allowed to kill fascists no matter how many times they keep coming back with a new logo, so that’s timely I guess.

So, there’s my hot take two-years after everyone else stopped caring about this stuff, as per bloody usual. Tell me why I’m wrong below, and does anyone else have any truly awful spin-off shows that they kind of have a nostalgic soft spot for?

[drshebloggo]

how to make WW84 a stronger movie

As sort of requested, here’s a beefed-up version of the list of notes I made watching WW84 because I was getting cranky with the execution of this movie and couldn’t help but jot down ideas. I WANTED to love this thing but the script was not selling its ideas to best effect.

For me, I think there were a few challenges inherent in the movie they wanted to make. BUT with a few different choices here and there in the way the story was told, it would’ve improved its impact without sacrificing what they were going for with tone and characters. 

CHALLENGE #1: this movie is set SO far in the future from the events of the first film. 65 years have passed, and Diana is still just gliding somberly through her life and that makes me SAD. All her friends are dead! She’s on her own and cursed with immortality!! She lives in an ‘80s decor sadness chamber surrounded by photos and memories of people she’ll never see again!!!

And yet the film gave us no real textual information about that. They did the laziest thing possible, which was pan the camera around a million photos on mantles and told us NOTHING. Literally WHAT has Diana done for the past, say, THIRTY YEARS since her Earth Friends all died without her??? Has she literally made NO OTHER friends? She’s still sad about Steve 65 years later and nothing else has progressed?

This lack of specificity leaves Diana fading in the lead role of her own movie despite the fact that there’s TONS of material there that they just... ignored. For me, she read flat, which bummed me out majorly. Her best stuff was with Steve because that actually MEANS something. But it’s all she’s got in this film. They didn’t bother filling in any other information about her life. 

FIX IT: literally just make Barbara already friends with Diana at the beginning. Not only does it make Diana more interesting, it reduces the sheer amount of exposition that the film piles on in the first 45 minutes. This also means you can bring Steve back sooner than the 45 minute mark, which would help grease the wheels in the first third of the movie. And it also means that Diana losing Barbara to inhumanity would actually have a greater impact on Diana beyond “oh my kooky new friend turned into an evil cat; this is vexing.”

CHALLENGE #2: the tone is WILDLY different than the tone of the first. They went from WWI trench warfare to shopping malls and fanny packs. It’s a HUGE tone shift, and it takes some getting used to. But there are good things to it; namely it provides great comedy for Steve, who is a definite bright spot in the movie. 

Overall I’m on board with doing a superhero movie that pivots away from grit and darkness and toward camp and comedy, and it’s cool to do something new rather than reiterate the same tone from the first film. But I think they could’ve done more to sell the tone shift. 

There are HIJINKS inherent in the premise that I’m guessing were fairly unilaterally unexpected. There’s a vaguely historical magic WISHING STONE and three buffoons each made a wish and turned shit upside down. I myself wish that Maxwell and Barbara and Diana were rendered in triplicate, as equal collaborators in this batshittery. I don’t think you’re watering down Diana’s role as lead (no more than giving her no other emotions to play than sadness) by doing so, and it even works nicely to own the idea that Max and Barbara are on equal narrative ground as Diana.

As far as the villainy goes, Max is more recognizably a Bad Guy, but Barbara is NOT, and it’s fascinating to show at least Diana and Barbara working together but slowly falling apart as shit goes SIDEWAYS. Hijinks can be zany and also meaningful! What if a villain is just a friend who wants something different than you and you have to come to terms with that and stop them from doing dumb shit? There’s an element of screwball to this premise and I wanted them to lean in more. This would also give Diana more to do than cry and fight.

FIX IT: show Barbara getting her powers using the same tropes of other superheroes getting their powers and figuring them out. Play it like she’s Peter Parker finding out she’s Spider-man. Hell, do a montage with all three of them using/abusing their powers: Barbara beating the shit out of things, Maxwell manipulating people, Steve and Diana making the fuck out and enjoying the shit out of it. These are the joys of wish fulfillment! 

AND, if they had set up the rules of the artifact beforehand (see Challenge #3), then the audience would know they were watching very happy people who are going to have their LIVES RUINED SOON. And that is good storytelling. (Maybe this is oversimplified, but honestly half of good storytelling is just making the audience feel two opposite emotions at the same time. The other half is dramatic irony, which would also apply to this trio montage.)

CHALLENGE #3: What the hell are the rules of this magic wishing artifact anyways??? The audience should know them before the characters do. The way this movie doled out information was bananas. They waited right before they were going to the tell the audience something to show us what they were about to tell us. Just show us earlier and tell the characters later!!! That way WE’LL already know because we’ve seen it, and THEY’RE not saddled with expositional dialogue to make sure the audience follows the idea.

FIX IT: For the love of humanity, nix the opening sequence with the horse race and make it about the damn stone!! Rip off Lord of the Rings and tell the history of the innocent but dangerous thing. Rip off Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and animate something about how it gives wishes at a cost. Hell, let Connie Nielsen and Robin Wright(’s unbelievably ripped arms) tell young Diana the story so they can still hang out and be a part of the film! Throw in some lore about the gods, just to remind us where Diana comes from and her belief system, and we’re good to go.

While you’re at it, toss in the whole point of the film into the moral that Diana’s moms impart to her at a young age. It’s not a spoiler. We don’t wonder if 1984 Diana will do the right thing. She does not need to LEARN this moral. She already knows the moral, but she still has to make the hard choice to let Steve go and of course it doesn’t come easy.

In summary: that horse race had little to do with the rest of the movie and it’s wasted story space, especially for setting up the entire magical premise that the movie hinges on, let alone the actual message of the film.

CHALLENGE #4: Do we care about Maxwell and his kiddo enough to rest the entire movie’s resolution on it? Ehhhh. The glimpses into young Max’s abuse is another example of showing information RIGHTBEFORE it’s important, rather than setting it up earlier to pay off later. It’s a far weaker choice.

FIX IT: Age up Alistair. If he’s a teen or preeteen, then the stakes feel higher because it seems more monumental to undo the trauma of neglect at that age. Much like in his business pursuits, the clock is ticking and Max is running out of opportunities for success in all realms of his life.

Maybe show Maxwell trying to reason with Alistair earlier in the movie, saying that he’s a good dad because he’s not as bad a dad as his own father. It shows us how he justifies his behavior, gives us the information that he had an abusive dad, and gives an actual interaction between father and son other than “daddy you’re not here” and “shhh son here’s a pony.”

Possible other fix-it which connects to other fixes: what if Barbara actually renounces her wish before Max does? It should be more painful to the audience to lose Barbara to her wish because we’ve technically LIKED her at one point. She means something to Diana, and so she means something to us. Honestly, the audience has rooted for her independent of Diana! The scene where she realizes she’s not powerless against her harasser but then completely loses herself in violence against him? One of the movie’s best. It’s pretty dissatisfying that she just goes completely off the deep end and then nothing with her is resolved after the wishes are broken.

But, with the way the movie is set up, the big emotional climax is the scene of Diana getting through to Max/the entire planet, so it’s hard to undo that and give it to Barbara instead, considering that it won’t wrap up the plot. But geez, do SOMETHING with Barbara that’s based in actual emotions. Don’t hinge your entire movie’s emotional resolve on a father-son relationship that’s two-dimensional and doesn’t have anything to do with the main character! You had emotional investment in Barbara; use it!!

At the very least, have Diana get through to Barbara in some way, either before Maxwell renounces or after, and maybe even intercut it with Max and his kid. 

CHALLENGE #5: I experience great existential malaise at watching a mylar balloon drift off into the ether. Was there no better visual for the final moments of the film? Asking for myself, and also the planet. (This one is mostly a joke... but seriously, you guys, the PLANET.)

[hermanwatts]

Sensor Sweep: 9/30/2019

Weapons (Ammoland): On the Internet, and in print, many people claim that pistols lack efficacy in defending against bear attacks. Here is an example that occurred on freerepublic.com: “Actually, there are legions of people who have been badly mauled after using a handgun on a bear. Even some of the vaunted magnums.” OK, give us a few examples. As you claim “legions”, it should not be too hard. I never received a response.

  Fiction (Walker’s Retreat): As the book just went live in paperback, product linking will take a few days, but both versions are meant to be linked. I’ve set it such that any paperback purchase gets you the ebook for free. The same applies to other features such as Look Inside.

BACKERS! I’ve ordered your copies. They’re due to arrive at my house between the 8th and the 16th. I will begin turning around and sending them to you as soon as they arrive.

  RPG (RPG Pundit): Lion & Dragon contains a bestiary chapter, which has 40 different entries for creatures (not counting 13 animals and a bunch of entries for human NPCs; and also not counting Demons which have their own section in the “Summoning” rules of the magic chapter, alongside the homunculus and the golem).  Many of these monsters have names that you would see in any number of OSR/D&D monster manuals, but their version in L&D is very different, being based on medieval lore and styling.

  Fiction (Cirsova): The idea is that wars on Earth created a race of albino Khan Noonien Singh-esque Mutant supermen whose intellect and self-determination put them at odds with a socialist global superstate, so said superstate booted them and other non-Mutant freethinkers off to the moons of Jupiter. The societies and states on the moons of Jupiter have a nominal perpetual peace, except they’re actually in a state of perpetual strife and intrigue acted out via agents.

  Comic Books (Paint Monk): It’s the same group who thought Avengers: No Road Home and Savage Avengers were good ideas. Editorial is a milkmaid and Conan is the cow.

I feel like I’m beating the same old drum. Conan the Barbarian is a terrible comic. Jason Aaron’s prose is just abysmal. Mahmud Asrar’s art is merely serviceable in that for every brilliant panel there are two or three he must have drawn while sleepwalking.

  Ian Fleming (M Porcius): One of the issues one might raise about some of the first four 007 novels is that Fleming didn’t do much to flesh out the lead villains.  For example, we spend very little time with the Spangs, the twin brothers who head an American crime family in Diamonds Are Forever before Bond sends them to hell with his .25 caliber Beretta or a handy 40mm anti-aircraft gun.

  RPG (RPG Confessions): These vocabulary words are useful in that they summarize complicated concepts, and that leads to greater communication. But we live in a time where everyone skims, and no one is very good at reading for context anymore, and subtlety is gone and nuance is out the window, and…I guess what I’m saying is, “Sandbox” and “Railroad” are positioned in our current lexicon of geek patois as Yin and Yang, a positive and a negative, one to emulate and the other to assiduously avoid at all cost.

  History (Swords Sorcery): During the French and Indian War (1754-63), the French capture of Fort Oswego on the shore of Lake Ontario opened the rich farmland of the valley and the homes of the British-allied Mohawk nation to military threat. The valley survived the war mostly intact. It was a very different story twelve years later in the American Revolution.

  Book Review (Everyday Should be Tuesday): If it wasn’t entirely clear after Cold Iron that Cameron is writing an Epic Fantasy with a capital-E and capital-F, it certainly isn’t now.  This is also definitely Flintlock Fantasy—early modern guns play a much more significant role in Dark Forge than they did in Cold Iron.

  Cinema (Postmodern Pulps): Last Blood, on the other hand, appears to have been conceived for the sole purpose of getting to the last 20 minutes of the film, and no one gave any real thought or care as to how the film got there. In order to talk about this, I’m going to have to deal with some extensive plot spoilers, so now is your chance to bail now if you don’t want this.

  Fiction (Hi Lo Brow): Sixty-five years ago, the following 10 adventures — selected from my Best Nineteen-Fifties (1954–1963) Adventure list — were first serialized or published in book form. They’re my favorite adventures published that year.

Please let me know if I’ve missed any adventures from this year that you particularly admire. Enjoy!

  D&D (Skulls in the Stars): WG5: Mordenkainen’s Fantastic Adventure (1984), by Robert J. Kuntz and Gary Gygax. This adventure is reeeeeally old school, even though it was published in 1984! The name sounds a bit silly, but don’t let it fool you: this adventure was first written in 1972/1973 by Robert Kuntz in order to challenge the skills of none other than Gary Gygax, who used his wizard Mordenkainen! It is a quite punishing dungeon.

    Fiction (Superversive): The Goddess Gambit is the series’ first novel, telling the tale of a post apocalyptic Earth, ravaged by a mysterious event called “The Storm.” Humanity is now primarily concentrated around an immense fortress called the “Zigg,” with the fortunate pure ones living inside in relative luxury, the unfortunate– mutants, aliens, and general undesirables– living in slums clustered around it. (If you’re thinking Final Fantasy VII‘s Midgar, you’re on the right track.)

  Storytelling (Wasteland and Sky): What I dislike the most is anything that makes the universe smaller. Any story device that clips the wings of potential from the outset is one I cannot get behind. And, unfortunately, this has happened more and more over the last decade. There are two examples that are functionally the same thing, but both are very good at making me lose interest in your story.

Gaming (Bell of Lost Souls): Come take a look at some of new rules and changes to existing ones that turn up the newest Warhammer Underworlds season’s competitive heat! Source: https://www.belloflostsouls.net/2019/09/warhammer-underworlds-beastgraves-seasonal-delights.html

  Westerns (Paul Bishop): If I could only choose one Western novel to recommend, it would be The Cowboy and the Cossack. The traditional cattle drive formula is given a refreshing twist when fifteen Montana cowboys sail into Vladivostok, Russia, with a herd of five hundred longhorns. The experienced wranglers are fired up to drive their herd across a thousand miles of Siberian wilderness, but are startled to find a band of Cossacks—Russia’s elite horsemen and warriors—waiting to act as an unwanted escort.

Horror (Too Much Horror Fiction): So within a couple months I’d tracked down Lansdale’s 1987 novel The Nightrunners (Dark Harvest hardcover 1987, paperback by Tor, March 1989). I recall coming home one afternoon from the bookstore I worked at with my brand-new copy, going into my room, locking the door and then reading it in one white-hot unputdownable session. That had never happened to me before; I usually savored my horror fiction over several late nights.

Edgar Rice Burroughs (DMR Books): February 1912 saw the ground-breaking publication of Under the Moons of Mars—later rechristened A Princess of Mars—in All-Story Magazine. Readers clamored for more adventures on Barsoom and Edgar Rice Burroughs gladly obliged. The first installment of The Gods of Mars was published in January of 1913. ERB, no fool, ended TGoM on a cliffhanger. John Carter fans demanded the conclusion to the saga and Burroughs delivered the goods. The Warlord of Mars saw its first publication in All-Story beginning with the December, 1913 issue.

Comic Books (Brian Niemeier): Everybody has a theory of how the American comic book industry died. “It was the early 90s investor boom,” some say. “The glut of variant covers and similar sales gimmicks created a bubble, and when it burst it took out the direct market.” Others lay the blame on publishers driving out seasoned writers and letting rock star artists run the show.

Detective (Moonlight Detective): An anonymous comment was left on my review of The Fort Terror Murders explaining Van Wych Mason’s long-running Captain Hugh North series has two main periods. The first period covers the fourteen novels published between 1930 and 1940, which have the word “murder” or “murders” in their title and “tend to have elements of the Golden Age detective story,” but the second period moved away from detection towards more spy-oriented intrigue novels – starting with The Rio Casino Intrigue (1941) and ending with The Deadly Orbit Mission (1968).

Dashiell Hammett (Black Gate): Sam Spade, the quintessential tough guy shamus, appeared in a five-part serial of The Maltese Falcon in Black Mask in 1929. Hammett carefully reworked the pieces into novel form for publication by Alfred E. Knopf in 1930 and detective fiction would have a benchmark that has yet to be surpassed. Hammett, who wrote over two dozen stories featuring a detective known as The Continental Op (well worth reading), never intended to write more about Samuel Spade, saying he was “done with him” after completing the book-length tale.

Sensor Sweep: 9/30/2019 published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

[pressography-blog1]

Kordell Stewart presented $three million in damages from blogger

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Kordell Stewart presented $three million in damages from blogger

DECATUR, Ga – A DeKalb Superior Court docket judge has presented former NFL quarterback Kordell Stewart $3 million in damages from a blogger who claimed he and Stewart had a gay courting.

Stewart efficiently sued Andrew Caldwell, Jarrius Ken Moon, and Catalyst Next LLC last 12 months. A damages hearing turned into held in February, at which none of the defendants chose to appear.

decide J.P. Boulee presented the damages on Friday.

Catalyst Subsequent is the discern enterprise of BossFM and The ShakeUP Morning Display.

“The actions of these irresponsible human beings are dangerous and adverse the logo that I and others like me have worked very hard for,” stated Stewart, who spent eleven years in the NFL and changed into called “Curb” for his jogging style of play as a quarterback Vlogger Faire.

Stewart’s attorney, Antavius Weems, said his purchase has been the difficulty of diverse rumors ranging from him overspending in a lavish way of life and homosexuality to buying the tv network Wager and splurging on a non-public island.

“Mr. Stewart has chosen a public existence, and knows in reality that a large a part of that comes with human beings targeting you for income,” Weems stated. “But he became concerned while his minor son became the target of those humans.”

The suit claimed that Caldwell, a solid member of “The Gospel Fact,” colluded with Moon to generate interest for the Display via claiming Caldwell and Stewart dated each other.

Stewart, who lives in Atlanta, performed for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Chicago Bears, and the Baltimore Ravens.

Flutie become Really Ahead of His Time

Doug Flutie became a gambler’s dream. Consider it. His team became constantly the underdog and but he continually came thru inside the take hold of and blanketed the spread. From his Hail Mary pass in college to beat Miami to his scramble for a landing to beat Jacksonville inside the professionals, Flutie changed into a born winner. Sportsbooks hated this guy, because whether or not they liked it or no longer, his teams have been always getting points, yet they knew he would win the sport;–in some way.

In spite of this, when you think of Doug Flutie, you suspect of a short quarterback. you believe you studied of a little guy who was amazing for a few trickery in near games, But not a player you’ll construct a franchise round. you watched of a participant who becomes suitable enough to dominate Canada, But no longer the NFL. Why?

Atlanta QB Michael Vick turned into drafted number one normal in 2001 due to the awesome upside he possesses. Vick is a phenomenal athlete with pace, electricity, and the uncanny potential to throw the football as much as 70 yards. Vick dazzled whilst gambling his college ball at Virginia Tech and is a herbal chief. These are Truly intangibles you cannot educate, But can build a team and a franchise round.

So I encourage to invite one query: what is the distinction among Vick and Flutie? Much less than two inches in top. Vick stands at 6’0″, with Flutie lagging simply behind at 5’10”. Flutie has the cannon that Vick has and is also a extraordinary athlete who continuously makes performs along with his legs. Flutie additionally dazzled in university even as gambling for Boston university, and he even received a Heisman Trophy in 1984. Even Vick can not declare that award. when speak about leadership competencies, nobody will ever overlook Flutie’s forty eight-backyard Hail Mary skip that dissatisfied the Miami Hurricanes on November 23, 1984. One can even argue that Flutie has the brink on Vick in relation to soccer smarts, and greater importantly, accuracy. Vick has a profession final touch percent of best fifty-four.1 percentage.

So if the two are so flippantly matched, why became Flutie drafted 285th usual in 1985 even as Vick become the first pick out sixteen years later? The answer is simple: Flutie turned into a man In advance of his time. In 1985, the mobile quarterback had no location within the NFL. Now this form of quarterback is the present and future of the sport, and Flutie was one of the first prototypes. Flutie, the anti-Ryan Leaf, has no individual flaws in any respect and if he have been to come out of the draft now, he might be a first-day pick. The modern-day coaches of this era might be drooling on the several approaches they may make use of this athlete.

Now, after 21 professional seasons in football, Flutie known as it quits on Monday. Flutie leaves at the back of a legacy of heart and resolution, six participant of the 12 months awards in Canadian soccer, and of course, his Hail Mary bypass on the way to live for all time in college football lore. But, maximum of all, I agree with he leaves behind the unhappy legacy of a player who became born in the wrong technology and who become always underestimated.

Flutie made his resurgence in the NFL with the Buffalo Payments in 1998, voted the AP Comeback player of the 12 months. In ’98, Flutie threw for over 2700 yards and 20 touchdowns to simplest eleven interceptions. The very Subsequent year Flutie upped his numbers to over 3000 yards passing and turned into voted to the Seasoned Bowl. However alas, any other stereotype would stand in the manner of a fruitful career: his age. with the aid of the end of 1999, Flutie changed into 37 years old and the Bills did no longer need to build a crew around an vintage-timer. It become just too past due. two years later, Flutie could sign with the Chargers, only to give the process as much as some other young quarterback: Drew Brees.

Flutie’s potential turned into there for all to see. You do not just make the Pro Bowl in case you’re now not a extraordinary skills. Again, timing ruined what might have been a Corridor of Repute profession. Flutie just wished the breakthroughs of gamers like Kordell Stewart, Antwaan Randle El, and of path, Vick, to set the stage. Kordell started the fashion way returned in 1995 while he got here in as ‘Decrease.’ Pittsburgh teach Invoice Cower tried to apply the multi-gifted QB in every way possible and ended up with superb fulfillment. This opened the door for Vick to be the pinnacle select in 2001 and Randle El to sign with the Redskins for $27 million. Consider all the cash Flutie should have made in this era, for himself and gamblers alike.

Properly, you can not change records and you absolutely can’t pick out the technology in that you are born. That is the sad reality of Doug Flutie’s profession and the careers of many others who did not make it on the expert level. However, what you can do is recognize something. while you think of Michael Vick as the only participant who modified the way we view what a quarterback can do, suppose Once more. There may be one innovator who got here before Vick, before Kordell, before Randle El, or even earlier than Vince younger. This innovator was Doug Flutie.