On the Failure of The Last Jedi to be Star Wars

I've seen the movie twice and listened to other people's complaints. I've even read one or two articles defending The Last Jedi.

One just has to look at the huge discrepancy between critic reviews and audience scores to know that something is wrong. 

So today, I am going to lay out what I liked about the movie, and what it got so very very wrong (from my perspective and those who I agree with).

Spoilers Ahead! (Obviously)

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Still with me? Ok. Cool.

First, I'll handle what I liked. 

The visuals were beautiful. Even the weirdest creature had enough substance to seem real enough. The (one) lightsaber fight scene was wonderfully choreographed and brutal (violence should be violence, for better or worse). The humor was abundant and enjoyable, if perhaps the most silly since Jar Jar came on screen in the Phantom Menace.

I'm just going to say it. The acting is probably some of, if not the, best that the series has seen. From Luke and Leia to new characters like Kylo Ben and Rose, the acting was spot on.

If visuals, action, and acting are all you really care about, then I can see how you would really enjoy The Last Jedi.

Now for the fun slog of what I disliked.

I feel that I should mention that I don't expect all movies to be high art. I don't expect most of them to be high brow in any fashion. At one point in my life I was watching too many videos from CinemaSins and getting down on all movies. It wasn't fun, and movies are supposed to be fun.

Thanks to the lovely videos of CinemaWins, I thankfully changed my criteria for a movie to look for the very simple answers to two questions: Did it make sense (by its universe's own rules)? Was I entertained?

The answer to the former was a definite NO. This is especially true if all you've ever seen of Star Wars are the movies. TV shows like Rebels and Clone Wars open the world up and add more force abilities (I've been told that Yoda once used the Force Projection power in an episode of Rebels). 

I want to make sure that everyone gets that I'm not ragging on The Last Jedi because of nostalgia or one of my theories got blown up (because that's apparently an accusation that gets thrown around when one defends the movie?).

I'm ragging on The Last Jedi because, objectively, it is at best a mediocre movie, and more likely a bad one once you allow yourself to see past the surface shine.

Problem #1

The story wastes time and doesn't make a lick of sense. Or, it doesn't make sense within the scope of previous movies. This problem generally encompasses the other problems, but here's a few quick points. 

45 minutes of film could have been cut out if Holdo had simply told Poe that "Yes, I do have a plan. I just need to you to trust me." instead of the whole "You're a dumb jock flyboy and we don't need your sort."

The Force Awakens basically said that the destruction of Starkiller Base disrupted/destroyed the First Order's military capabilities (and if they'd spend 30 years converting the planet into a superweapon, that's believable), and yet... Right at the start of the movie there's a whole damned fleet of star destroyers threatening the Rebel... Resistance because the First Order took the destruction of a massively expensive asset to take over the galaxy in the 5 hours since they destroyed the capital of the New Republic. Ugh.

Problem #2

The movie is entirely unfair or untrue to its characters.

I'm looking at you, Luke. But seriously, how do we go from the most hopeful and optimistic jedi warrior in the franchise to a cowardly middle aged man tempted to kill a boy because he "sensed the darkness growing in him."?

This was a man who forgave and believed in his father after the man blew up an entire planet, cut off his hand, tortured his sister, and killed who knows how many people.

And... we're supposed to believe that he almost killed a boy because he was suddenly afraid of "the darkness" inside of him. AND THEN instead of trying to fix the problem he created (which is supposedly something Jedi do and DEFINITELY something that the Real Luke would do) he runs away for 15-20 years to... fish and drink green milk and feel bad for himself. 

This wasn't just not MY Luke. This character wasn't Luke. There's probably more to say, but why dwell?

Snoke was grossly underserved. Of all the new characters, I think this one smarts the most. Built up as a mysterious, knowledgeable, powerful replacement to Palpatine who is interested in obtaining Rey and wants to finish Kylo Ben's training in The Force Awakens... in The Last Jedi we get a figure who mocks Kylo for losing to a girl and wearing a mask. Who, as soon as he gets his fingers on Rey, immediately decides to torture her and order her death. 

Then Kylo kills him and leaves us with no answers for this suddenly petulant character. That's just stupid.

Rey is still a Mary Sue. If Kylo is believed and her parents really were nobody, that she lived on Jakku her entire life until TFA... then she has no reason to be as good as she is at everything. The fighting and the piloting, hell, even the engineering aspects of her character are fairly believable with what we're given in her introduction. But if you're not trained in the force, no matter how powerful you are, the most you can expect is heightened reflexes and the odd precognitive flash. Actual force powers, even using a lightsaber without dismembering yourself, takes time, training and practice.

Time, training, and practice that Rey (apparently) hasn't had.

Unless Kylo is just blowing smoke. There's always that.

Finn and Rose do nothing. Their romance kind of just comes out of nowhere. This is a little nitpicky, but have you noticed how much Finn knows about everything First Order for having been a Janitor? 

Also, they go for a "master codebreaker" and settle on DJ because... he's there.

My biggest complaint about Finn's non-arc is that the one moment they gave him, where he was facing his fears and might have made a difference... Rose took his sacrifice away from him and bye bye Rebel base. For all the people that the movie killed, losing Finn would have actually raised the stakes. But I guess killing the only black character would have been a little too daring for Disney.

Poe. Apparently Poe's character is off as well. Gonna be honest here. I'm not invested in Poe and I can barely remember him from the first movie. I guess he's a little more headstrong and reckless? Honestly, given how terrible of a leader Holdo was, I can commiserate with him trying to find a clear path forward.

Phasma is still being underserved, and for someone they keep trying to portray as a talented intimidating character, they sure to like to treat her as a punching bag. It's so bad that she's beaten in hand to hand by a frickin janitor. A janitor.

This one isn't a complaint. Kylo Ren not turning to the Light is great. Too bad he's still coming across as a petulant child rather than something to be feared. 

Problem #3 

Twists for the sake of twists. Finn is sacrificing himself! No he's not. Kylo is turning to the lightside! No he's not. Leia's dead! No she's not. Luke's here and he's facing Kylo! Oh, no he's not. And on and on and on. 

"No, Luke. I am your father." Was a great twist. It was kind of foreshadowed, but it totally fit the story.  What we got in Last Jedi was stupid twist after stupid twist that progressively lowered the stakes until there was no reason to care what happened because there was no reason to believe what we just saw would hold for more than a few seconds. 

How can you remain invested in a movie when nothing it shows you turns out to be real? Hell, Snoke probably wasn't actually there to die. It was a life model decoy. They can do that now because Disney owns Marvel. Hell, JJ may make it so that Luke isn't actually dead either. The whole of The Last Jedi was just a dream...

Nitpicks!

Too many cutesy animals. You have the porgs (apparently they couldn't get rid of the puffins where they were filming so they made do. Forgivable enough, I suppose). The horse-cat things... Cute, but like that whole arc, pointless. And the crystal foxes. It's all just so... ugh. New and weird creatures are a part of Star Wars, but the vast majority of the time they should just... be a part of the world the characters are living in. Not showcased and making a pointlessly long movie even longer.

Finn really should have been allowed to sacrifice himself. None of the characters we "care" about were harmed or killed in any way and that just keeps the investment and the stakes low.

The force is broken now. One of the big points made in previous movies is that as powerful as the force is, those using it have limits. Anakin can't bring back the dead. Mace Windu (arguably second most powerful Jedi of his era behind Yoda) can't survive a 100 story drop after force electrocution. So why can Leia, with no meaningful training, suddenly survive in vaccuum? (Really, this nitpick could have been its own separate problem).

Hyperspace is a separate level of reality that ships travel through to circumvent the speed of light. Hyperspace is affected by heavy gravity from planets and stars but not much else. Suddenly it is a weapon to be used when the story calls for it. If Star Wars' FTL could be weaponized, surely we would have seen it before.

Who designed those God awful bombers? Y-Wings would have been WAY better and at this point in the story those are like, 80 year old designs. These bombers somehow have fewer defenses and move as slowly as a... I don't know, a crippled nonagenarian?

-And were those bombs pushed out by their racks or by gravity? If it was gravity, then Rian Johnson, like JJ Abrams, needs to brush up on his physics because that far from the planet's gravity well there isn't enough gravity to pull diddly to squat.

Did we really have to replay the beginning of Empire Strikes Back but with red salt and crappier rebel equipment? There's an entire galaxy for these directors and writers to explore and we keep getting the same beats. It's boring.

Summing it all up

The Last Jedi had so much potential to build on from the entire franchise. It could have taken us so may places. Instead it chose to play it (relatively) safe while trying to seem edgy. If Disney keeps playing fast and loose with this franchise then it will die. Not all at once, but each movie will start to make less money, and audiences will lose more interest because the thing that made Star Wars... Star Wars, isn't being put out there.

The last Jedi makes it seem like Rian Johnson has never seen any other Star Wars movie, and that's just a shame.

I hope JJ Abrams can turn the franchise back around with Episode IX, but I won't be seeing it opening weekend. Unless it's free. Can't really turn down free, can I?

Really, Higher Education?

College and University cost too much. And I went to one of the cheaper universities around. I mean, there's the old story about baby boomers working for a summer and paying for everything they needed for a year of school (tuition, food, housing, and the like). I usually had to work all summer just to pay for food and housing. In general, I was very lucky in paying for college. A lot of people aren't.

I bring this up because the other day I received the following email (edits mine) from my Alma mater:

Did you know that 25% of freshmen students at [University] leave after their first semester, many because they simply cannot afford to stay? You have the power to keep these students in school.

As you think about your year-end preparations, we hope you will remember these [University] students who need your help. It only takes 20% of our generous alumni and friends like you making a tax-deductible gift of $25 to provide a semester of tuition for one student. This, or any donation, would help to ensure that the student returns to school and stays on course to finish their education.

Please make your gift of $25 (or any amount that works for you) by Dec. 31st. No matter the size of your gift, you can help make a difference in the lives of [University] students.

The [University] Annual Fund supports academic programs, undergraduate research opportunities, nationwide student competitions and most importantly, scholarships for those deserving students who will benefit from your gift.

Now, there are two sentences in this thing that drew my attention. The first:

Did you know that 25% of freshmen students at [University] leave after their first semester, many because they simply cannot afford to stay?

And the second:
It only takes 20% of our generous alumni and friends like you making a tax-deductible gift of $25 to provide a semester of tuition for one student.

Now, I am too lazy to actually look up statistics on numbers of alumnus, but I didn't go to a small school (maybe not a huge one, but still). But... 20% of their alumni to pay for one semester of school for one student. That's ridiculous. 25% of new students can't afford to keep going to their school after the first semester and instead of considering that there might be a fault in their prices, the University's first instinct is to ask for more money.

I had a friend during my time there who enjoyed harping on this subject. He would point out the thousands of students going there every semester, paying thousands of dollars for the honor. He would point out how much the University gets from Alumni contributions and from the Government. A thousand people making paying a thousand dollars makes for a million dollars.

Basically, Universities and Colleges are making millions and millions of dollars ever year, and yes there are salaries and upkeep to pay, and buildings to build, but I have a hard time imagining them not turning a huge profit even after all of that.

So we're left with greedy schools who keep raising prices (at a rate well above the rate of inflation or any other measure) instead of considering the needs of their customers (sometimes called students). And then those students need to get huge loans to pay for degrees that are increasingly worthless (excepting those for engineering or the hard sciences).

Not long after I received that email, I came across this article explaining why exactly things are the way they are.

Spoiler: The reason is the government. Does anybody remember that whole housing bubble collapse a few years ago that caused the great recession? Yeah, student loans are pretty much in the same place as those housing loans were then.

A trillion dollars of debt. That's how much debt students have been accrued so far. That's a thousand dollars that aren't being spent on new cars, homes, clothes or any number of things that could help drive the nation's economic growth.

Have you noticed that every private institution that the federal government shoves its way into tends to have costs rise exponentially before imploding? It already happened with the housing market. It is going to happen to the student loan market, and after that it is going to happen to the healthcare market.

When the government doesn't stick to the limited role defined for it in the Constitution things never end well, and our government has really been overstepping itself these last few years (and arguably the last few decades).

That article I linked has two videos that go into more depth.

Thanks for reading! Here's some Animaniacs for your time.

A Multiverse of Possibilities

For my own entertainment... I'm going to try to break your mind with this one.

With all of the video games that promote choices, as well as comic books, and movies, and books that rely on this premise, I find that a lot of people I know haven't thought very hard about the mechanics of a multiverse and alternate realities. I'll warn you right now that at least some of this is going to verge on time travel territory and you know what I always say about even thinking about time travel, right? (You never say anything about time travel, says the reader).

If you think too much about time travel then your brain will explode.

True story.

Regardless of that, there are two main types of universes I'm going to talk about here. The first one is an adjacent universe. This one is easy to visualize (more or less). If our universe is expanding (it is) then what is it expanding into? The answer that seems obvious to me would be other universes and the space between them. It's like spreading out a bunch of coins on a table, where each coin represents a different universe. They may have different sizes, but each one is its own independent entity.

The fun thing here is that there is no reason to think that adjacent universes all act according to the same physical laws inside themselves.

What does that mean? Well, it means that there very well could be universes extremely similar to ours, except that the laws of those universes might allow for magic, or faster than light travel, or any other fantastical thing that we can only dream of.

That's the simple part to think about. Things get much more complicated when you add in alternate realities.

If adjacent universes are like coins spread flat on a table, then alternate universes would be like stacks of those coins on the same table. You might have a stack of pennies standing next to a stack of nickels or loonies or pesos. Each are very different from the other stacks (adjacent universes) but are very similar to each other. Of course, even within a stack of the same coin, each coin will bear slight differences from the others of their breed.

Alternate universes are generally stacked on top each other, but probably not in the same sense as the stacked coins. In Star Trek there is the idea (I'm sure it shows up in other places) that every piece of matter has a certain quantum frequency, that's part of why, despite the huge empty spaces between atoms and molecules things don't simple pass through each other. But if every alternate universe has a different quantum frequency then a limitless assortment of universes could inhabit the same physical space without interacting at all.

How does it feel to have a cow and an airplane standing in your chest at the same time?

I guess it's more common for alternate universes to be called parallel universes.

Well... here is pretty much THE episode for parallel universe exploration.

If we suppose that adjacent universes all form more or less the same way, how then are parallel universes created?

I think it would depend on who you ask, but from a storytelling perspective, it seems to come down to the choices of sentient beings.

There are two ways to think about this. In the first view, time is much like a tree, where history forms the trunk and main branches, and the outcomes of major events create different branches. This is the main model used in comic books and a lot of pop culture when characters time travel.

This is the route that X-Men takes with both Days of Future Past and Age of Apocalypse (although I have no idea if they'll do that with the upcoming movie version). But both stories involve one or more characters travelling back in time and changing events to create a new timeline, and by extension a new parallel universe. What these stories do not say is that while the characters think that they are changing the future, their original universe will continue to exist in its own bleak form. When they arrived in the past their presence simply caused a new split in the branches. So... Simple, right?

The other way to view time and parallel universes, is to liken it to a rope, or even a bunch of ropes, bound together with each thread representing a universe. The threads in one rope would be a group of parallel universes close enough in similarity as to be almost indistinguishable. These different universes are caused by every decision that every individual makes in a day. In the morning, I exist in one timeline, but when I choose to wear my yellow t-shirt instead of my red one, I create a split where I am actually wearing both.. but since the choice of a color of shirt rarely makes for a meaningful difference in a day or a life, then when I take my shirt off at night, both timelines fold back into one. (You can stop imagining me shirtless now. You're making me self-conscious)

But when say, the President of a nation declares war upon a neighbor instead of seeking peace, that creates a rift that would lead that rope of a timeline to split into two very different ropes that will never mend back into a single timeline.

That made at least some sense, right? I think it would be too easy to end up gibbering like a madman trying to explain all this.

But really, even though there is scientific/mathematical and heck, even religical proof for a multiverse (see string theory, for one) I am mostly coming at this from a story telling point of view.

So what does all of this mean? Whether fictional or real, this view of existence gives us a truly infinite multiverse of possibilities. And in an infinite existence, anything we can imagine can exist. The worlds of Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, and more could very well exist out there somewhere. And that makes me kind of happy.

Who's Feeling... Superheroic?

I had a friend recently tell me that he thought a post describing my feelings on a few of the upcoming comic book movies would be interesting.

This is that post.

So if you haven't seen the details on the upcoming slew of comic bookical moving pictures, take a moment to peruse the calendar below.

Finished? Good. Let's get on with it.

The movies that my friend wants to hear my opinions on are Dr. Strange (2016), Aquaman (2018), and Captain Marvel (2018).

I'm excited for Doctor Strange. You've got Benedict Cumberbatch all but confirmed to star as the mystically inclined surgeon, AND if you don't know that much about Doctor Strange well... He is the Sorcerer Supreme of Earth. The most powerful mortal mystic in the universe (although a few people can occasionally come close like Doctor Doom [did he ever actually get a doctorate?] or Scarlet Witch).  What we have in this movie is the opportunity for one of the funnest and trippiest Super Hero movies... ever. Magic and planar travel, Dark Dimension gods and treacherous wizards. This'll be a fun one.


Aquaman, on the other hand, is always the butt of jokes, right? Oh, Aquaman, outside of the water he's so useless...
I was going to put a video link here... but they're all just terrible, terrible quality.
The best reason to look forward to this movie, and I really cannot stress this enough, is Jason Momoa as Arthur Curry. I don't think that anyone could watch this man do this:



And think that the Aquaman movie will be anything but badass. Aquaman is the warrior king of Atlantis and with Jason Momoa in the lead I'm pretty sure that even Supes and Batman will get intimidated by this guy.

But really, there's been a dearth of female heroes out there. We have Black Widow and... occasionally Wonder Woman. I don't doubt that Gal Gadot will be wonderful as Wonder Woman (that was unintentional, I swear). But the way that DC is going they're going to take just about all of the fun and hope out of the character. It's all dark and gritty, dark and gritty with DC. That's all fine and good with Batman, but it doesn't work as well with their other characters.

That's why everyone should look forward to the Captain Marvel movie.

Carol Danvers was an air force pilot and CIA operative (and in some universes Shield Agent) before she got caught up in the Kree Captain Mar-Vell's shenanigans. Then she got whammied by a Kree wishing machine (basically) and some of Mar-Vell's alien DNA to gain powers that, honestly, are quite a bit more powerful than any other Kree's.

Carol is a strong female character who can lead others in battle like Captain America, is strong enough to go toe to toe with guys like Hulk and Thor (although she may need to absorb some energy first). She can fly, and as I just mentioned, she can absorb and direct energy. With that energy she can either shoot it from her hands, or boost her other powers.

The only thing to be disappointed with Carol Danvers about, is that her date with Spider-man did not go well at all. But that's just a small quibble that has nothing to do with anything.

No actress has been announced or even rumored to play her (although there are some interesting wishlists some people occasionally put out. I rather like the idea of Katheryn Winnick from Vikings fame), but with Marvel Studio's overall record, I'm confident that this is going to be a movie that everyone is going to want to see.

I'm not going to lie, I'm probably going to go see just about every movie on the list as it comes out. It's just what I do. But on the other hand, this glut of movie knowledge is kind of disappointing. Most of us can remember the first time we saw the after credits scene for Iron Man, right? How awesome was it to see Samuel L. Jackson show up as Nickolas J. Fury and talk about the Avengers program? Seeing Thor's hammer at the end of Iron Man 2 or an invisible Loki manipulating Dr. Selvig after Thor? That kind of excitement is mostly over until the end of Phase 3.

Cracked.com already ran an article about those complaints though. So read through that for a better analysis.

Most of the movies are going to be great. I have faith. It's just kind of a shame that the excitement of not knowing exactly what's coming is gone.

Thanks for bearing with me. Enjoy this video.

This Durn Edjamacation

Man it's been a long time. I guess I enjoy slacking too much. Anyway...

So a while back I saw this meme a few times:

And it got me thinking about the whole education thing. Not even thinking about the mess that is Common Core (although that is a symptom of the problem, I think).

Well, looking for an actual picture of the meme I read a bit about Joseph Sobran and I just read a bit more about it. Politically the guy (who has now died) ended up being some weird iteration of Libertarianism, but the thing that gets most people's goats is that several of his columns can easily be construed as anti-Semitic (which you can probably figure out how I feel about that) and/or Holocaust denying. The point is, Sobran was controversial, but I think he has a point here.

What are we actually teaching children these days?

I tutor my nephew with his math and English a little bit, and I try to keep my eyes open for other goings on in education (just because you don't have children yet doesn't mean that kind of thing doesn't effect you, right?).

Education right now looks, to me, a whole lot like indoctrination to create unthinking and compliant adults.

One thing I've read, by someone trying to point out the flaws in Sobran's statement is that, a hundred years ago, only about 20% of the population could afford to go to secondary education. Now, I think that the person who wrote the article missed the point of the quote he was trying to refute. Sobran wasn't talking about who could afford to go the high school but about the actual curriculum of it.

The point is this: In the last hundred years, we have stopped teaching subjects that force people and students to learn and employ actual critical thinking, discipline, and other skills important for functioning adults in the real world.

And it certainly isn't like money is really an issue with most school attendance anymore. According to this article I found by the Heritage Foundation, the Federal government spends, on average, $9200 per student every year, to the tune of several billion dollars of about 4% of GDP.

Heck, since the Education act that was passed in 1965 spending per student has just about doubled

And yet scores have remained pretty flat. Kind of reminds me of the whole War of Poverty thing (also started by President Lindon B Johnson) where we still have 20% of the population below the poverty line despite trillions of dollars thrown at the poor. But... that's a different topic...

So money certainly isn't the issue here. And I find it interesting how standards keep getting lowered and yet test scores basically remain the same.

Maybe the problem is that there are too many students now and not enough teachers? This... might actually have some ground to stand on. Driving around town it certainly seems like every elementary (except this one in Salt Lake City that looks to be about twice the size of my high school) has multiple portable class rooms because the schools weren't built with so many students in mind. Of course, this could also simply be because I live in Utah which has the highest birthrate of all the states and fourth highest birthrate of all US territory.

Huh, a short aside. The birthrate needed to maintain a population is 2.1. Only five States in the Union have rates that high or higher. That's... concerning, for more than a few reasons.

To get back on topic, I suppose that there could be too many students per teacher, and in some places that could certainly be the case but... when I was going to college, I could swear that every other girl I met there was getting her teaching degree. So I only partly buy there not being enough teachers.

Honestly, the problem has the be in the way that the whole system has been set up. I mean, we always hear about how stupid Americans are but...

Sorry about the language, but that's people from the US and the UK comparing grading scales. If there's any truth to that at all then an American C is a British A.

So here's my attempt at a solution. First off, we need to get the Federal Government out of education. The Feds are completely incapable of not mucking things up and I think history backs me up pretty good here. Especially recent history involving, you know, the health care debacle. Second, we need to take a good long look at the curriculum(s) that were taught before the Feds got themselves involved and update subjects like science and add in things like computer technology where necessary. Third, relax the grading scale a little so that students can focus more on actual learning and less on stressing over what are essentially meaningless grades. Finally, in places where there are too many students per teacher, the States could look into additional incentives to... lure... I guess is the word, more people into the career.

Now, I know that there are plenty of students who have learning disabilities, and they should be attended to with the proper care, but overall, I think that I have a pretty good approach here.

Thanks for reading! Now enjoy a comedian making my point.

On Learning to Go With the Flow

I recently began a Dungeons and Dragons campaign with four of my friends. I volunteered to be the Dungeon Master and run the world they were going to play in.

Now, the world that I created is basically a mash-up of David Gemmell's Drenai series, Glen Cook's Black Company series, and a few bits and pieces from Skyrim all within the framework of the 3.5 ruleset. 

Basically, I set it up so that there were pretty clear 'good guys' and 'bad guys' in this world and I was interested to see if my friends were going to choose to become heroes intent on deposing the Dominator and his evil empire, or villains to enslave the last few bastions of free and good people. 

My friends chose to become con-men.

I was prepared for brutish warriors, intellectual wizards, and greedy rogues ready to be anti-heroes or villains looking to slaughter villages for the fun of it.

But how do you handle a group of people who, with world shattering events happening around them, simply want to dupe everyone they meet out of their money?

From a story telling perspective, what they want to do is actually kind of hilarious. And they do make me laugh a lot.

From the technical aspect, that laughter usually ends up in the tired/incredulous category with me wondering "What's the rule for that?"

This last time that we played was pretty much the best example I can come up with for their behavior. 

After scamming a military officer out of 2000 gold pieces, the party took a boat headed for the south. Unfortunately, during a random encounter with dinosaurs (because I can, that's why!) one of the party members turned into a werewolf for the first time (whoops). When everything was settled, the ship's crew was a little... miffed... that one of their passengers has torn out the throats of some of their friends. A little bribing and a lot of high diplomacy rolls convinced the captain to allow the party to stay onboard until they made port the next day.

So what do my lovely little scoundrels do the moment that their feet touch dry land? Well run a huge scam of course! First they found passage on another ship heading along their course leaving in two days (that's important), forge some official looking documents, and then they hire a bunch of unskilled labor to begin constructing a ring for a tournament. They make posters and hire town criers to spread the word about a single combat tournament that's happening in three days. So one of them sits and takes admission fees from hopeful fighters from all walks of life, another sits and sells tickets to the rich and poor alike, while the last two help the town criers. The morning of the tournament they're on a ship heading south with a few hundred more gold than before and they didn't even leave so much as a note saying sorry at the unfinished stadium.

The most annoying part is that no matter what I set the dice checks for their rolls,they made them. The only control I had was how much they made.

And of course, on their new ship, they just had to look for things to steal. Well, they found some, and in the process, they killed a guard, a druid, and framed an innocent indentured servant for the crime while making it look like one of the Dominator's lieutenants was responsible for instigating the act against another lieutenant even though the druid was creating gifts for the former at the behest of the latter.

This story is getting complicated.

Like I said, I was ready for the normal archetypal characters that most people make, and I thought that I was ready for the chaos that inevitably follows the actions of two of my friends when they're players (when one of them is DM and the other is a player they tend to counter each other fairly well).

You can see why I have fun with this even though they make my brain tired.

There are some DM's who will try to control and influence the path of their players as much as they can. Some groups are just fine with that, but that's not how I want to play. I'm going to keep giving them the opportunities to interact with the big events happening in the world as the Dominator keeps trying to, well, dominate it. And if they want to keep pulling scams and running away from angry mobs well... I guess I'll just have to deal with it as best I can and learn some new rules. 

Thanks for reading!

Is It Just Me, or Are Things Getting Biblical Up In Here?

First off, I just want to apologize for missing the last few weeks. I've been in something of an energetic and creative slump. I'll try to do better, I really will.

 Anyway, a topic that's come up a few times with my friends and co-workers has been prophecy. Particularly prophecy concerning the last days before the Second Coming. And I have to tell you... I find it rather convincing and extremely interesting.

 One thing I remember is reading through Revelations back in Jr High, and it talked about huge armies besieging Jerusalem. At the time I couldn't imagine where those armies would even come from. I don't think we really need to imagine anymore. Israel is surrounded by Muslim nations just waiting for the right moment, ISIS is cutting a bloody swath through Syria and Iraq trying to establish a new Caliphate (and right now the US is letting the barbarians do it). We have widespread violent persecution of Christians and everyone not Muslim...

 My point, that I'm so inelequently trying to make is that Islam is making itself pretty clear to be one of Satan's mockeries of more divine systems.

 This article makes that point fairly well, I think. Don't get me wrong, not all Muslims are violent extremists, but it's becoming fairly clear that any Muslims that take their 'religion' seriously should be dealt with cautiously. There have been too many cases of "Sudden Jihad Syndrome" not to.

Seriously, the symbol of Islam is the Morning Star... also known as one of the Devil's titles.

During a lunch break a week or two ago, one of my co-workers brought up Jewish prophecy concerning different periods of time that are about fifty years, I think... I forgot the term he used, but essentially, the British (an overseas empire) ruled Israel for 2 or 3 of these periods, and the Prophecy says that the Jews will self-rule Jerusalem for one of these periods (which I believe started in 1967 and look at that, ends in 3 years...). Apparently every time that there's a blood moon something big and/or bad happens... and we've got 2 or three more to go before 2017? My Co-Worker also said that the prophecy talked about a Pope who resigns without the cause relating to health, age, or death and... That gives us Pope Benedict XVI. And after that Pope will be the last Pope, who came out and said that he probably only has about, get this, 3 years left.

My co-worker made a much better presentation of it all, and he does have the gravitas of age and experience, but isn't that cool? We've got Christian and Israeli prophecy coming to be all the time. Honestly, if 2017 isn't a big year I'm going to be disappointed. At least there'll be 8 comic book movies that year to take solace in.

Was this a depressing topic? Because it's one that I enjoy talking about and hearing about. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thanks for reading!