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The Dragon Kaseraak

I have a new tumblr, dedicated to my books, The Dragon Kaseraak Series. You should probably check it out. Please follow me there!

The chances of me posting here are pretty slim, but you probably knew that from the inactivity over the last year or so.

Patrons only!

A few days ago I got a message from Suz Korb, a friend of mine on Twitter and a rather prolific YA writer. She has a new project called Flutterby Girl and asked me to help with her cover reveal. Here’s the cover:

In my experience with writing and self-publishing books, the cover image has usually been the last thing to do before sending it off to be printed. Suz is doing it the other way around: she has the cover, but hasn’t written the story yet. She’s going to live write the story over at Patreon and plans to post a chapter a day, so you can watch the story unfold.

What interests me most about this rather bold plan is how this process will undoubtedly influence and shape her work. The closest I’ve ever come to doing something like this was when I wrote Draft 1.5 of “Falling Through the Bed” and posted chapter by chapter to Livejournal back when Livejournal was the equivalent of what Tumblr is today. It also reminds me of a fun pre-web internet chatroom where stories would be written serially, one or two paragraphs at a time, passed from person to person. It was great fun, but not great literature.

There’s a conceit there, mind you, that I think every person who’s dreamed about being a writer needs to rid himself or herself of before actually getting anything done, and it’s that every piece of writing needs to aspire to be great literature. There’s no surer path to writer’s block than to set that sort of standard for oneself. Perhaps someone out there can spit out great literature in a first draft, but I’d doubt it if anyone claimed to.

With Flutterby Girl, Suz has effectively committed herself to pushing out what’s a first draft. Maybe she can do some minor editing of each day’s chapter, but she’s not going to be able to, once she’s at chapter fifteen, go back to chapter twelve and insert the wheelbarrow that was left with the albino. (Five points for you if you understand that reference.) From what I understand, there’s been minimal planning for this book.

That, I think, is going to be the fascinating part to watch about this process. Can Suz pull it off? Will she be willing to take the sorts of risks necessary to tell a compelling story without getting caught in a situation where the character has no escape? Will she resort to deus ex machina? Will she be able to foreshadow events?

I think Suz’s writing style lends itself to this project and to this style of authorship. She has a very direct style and doesn’t bog down her stories with gratuitous pages of imagery. I have no doubt that each chapter will be able to move the narrative along from point A to point B. The biggest question is: where will that lead her?

I have no idea, but it should be interesting to find out. Her patreon is at the link above.

(Disclosure: In exchange for writing about her new project, Suz has generously offered to talk about my books on her blog. I do not consider this a quid pro quo—I’m happy to help Suz regardless and I don’t yet know what she’d think of my books. In the interests of full disclosure, though, I feel it necessary to mention.)

Rhode Island: Cooler & Warmer

As you may know, last May I got a certificate in graphic design from the Continuing Education department of Rhode Island School of Design. From this process I not only learned a heck of a lot about design but I also made some good friends who are design oriented. And from Rhode Island.

Rhode Island recently revealed a new logo, designed by Milton Glaser of “I Love NY” logo fame. There’s quite a bit of consternation that Rhode Island felt it necessary to go to New York to get the logo—apparently not even asking the kind folks at RISD for advice.

Well, there now should be even more consternation, because the damned thing is a turd.

Here’s the logo:

I’ll let my Rhode Island friends handle the part about whether “Rhode Island: Cooler & Warmer” is a good tag line for the state. (I’m a resident of Massachusetts, so I have no skin in that game.) Instead, I’ll focus on what appear to be several glaring technical problems with the mark.

Now, to be clear, there are multitudes of design decisions that are subject to opinion. The color scheme, the framing, the typeface used, all of these are subjective decisions and there are some I don’t like. But I don’t want to talk about those. What I want to talk about are more technical issues, the sorts of specific things that came up at times during my classes and every single person agreed, once the issue was identified, that it was a flaw.

First I’ll focus on the image in the center. The three forms form a counterform that is shaped like a sail. Normally creating something out of a counterform is a fun thing to do in a design, but in this case the effect is somewhat muted because the forms themselves don’t have any symbolic value. There’s only the counterform that makes sense, no shifting between form and counterform that makes for an interesting visual effect. But that’s really splitting hairs at this point. I want to talk about glaring errors. The first error has to do with the sail.

It’s going the wrong direction.

We generally read from left to right, and one of the strongest design cues that one can guarantee is that people will tend to start on the left side of the image and move to the right. But in this case, we have a sail of a ship going from right to left. It’s pushing against that flow. The wind is in our face as we travel through this design. The sailboat is sailing in the wrong direction.

A second error has to do with the corners of the design. Look at the corners, where the three forms meet. Except they don’t meet, not quite. They almost do. But they don’t. It looks like a printer error that they do not meet (particularly because they aren’t all exactly the same distance apart.) Why don’t those forms meet? Why is there a big gap on the lower left, a smaller one on the upper right, and a minuscule one on the lower right? What sense does that make?

The third error has to do with the typography. Now, I could rail against the typographical choices here for quite a while. The letters appear to be monospaced—I don’t know why. Typically you’d want monospacing to create some vertical alignment between letters, but here there’s no such alignment possible. Yes, the C and O in “Cooler” are aligned with the N and D in “Island”, but I needed a ruler to see that. (The letters in Rhode and Warmer are not aligned at all). The problem with making the letters monospaced is that the resultant space between the letters looks wrong because of the lack of kerning available. Look at the L and A in Island. You could park a barge in there! These words beg to be kerned.

The letters are also so far apart that the words are barely keeping together. Why is the letter spacing so large?

But let’s throw that to one side for a second. I mean, let’s suppose the monospacing and the broad letter spacing were client demands. There is still an alignment issue going on here! Yes, the end of COOLER is aligned with the bottom of the symbol frame, as is the left side of the & (Ugh!) to the left of the symbol frame. Similarly, the end of RHODE is lined up with the right side of the frame, and the left side of the I in ISLAND is lined up with the top of the frame. I would lay dollars to donuts that the way they did this was to convert the type into an outline and then align the outline with the edge of the frame.

The problem with doing it this way is that the combination of monospacing and the unfortunate narrowness of the “I” letterform means that the word “ISLAND” appears misaligned. The other words just graze the line formed by the edge, while the whole left side of that I is slammed up against the line formed by the top of the frame. It wants to be dropped lower. (In this case, using a typeface with bars on the tops and the bottoms of the I might have prevented this problem!)

There’s a saying I’ve attributed to the guitarist Joe Satriani. The beginner breaks the rules because he doesn’t know what they are. A person with some experience follows the rules. The expert breaks the rules deliberately for a very specific effect.

There are a bunch of rules that are broken in this design, rules that harken back to my earliest classes in my design certificate program. If they are broken for a good reason, well, I can’t see it.

A Primer on why “Ladies” don’t like nice guys.

So there’s this image that’s going around Twitter and Tumblr, of a note some guy left posted on a window somewhere. It really embodies the “nice guy syndrome” so I thought I’d just deconstruct it for people who just don’t get it.

Here’s the note:

Let’s start line by line.

O.K., ladies.

Stop right there. Anytime you generalize something to all women you’ve got a problem. It shows that you discard the individuality of each women and treat them as some sort of amorphous group against which your understanding of relationships is judged. Women are unique. If you have a problem with an individual woman, name her. If you have a problem with all women, well, the problem is most likely you, not them.

I get it.

I’m skeptical.

You don’t want a pleasant evening chat.

“Pleasant” is in the eye of the beholder. I think most people like pleasant evening chats, but that doesn’t necessarily mean what you think is pleasant is what they find pleasant.

You don’t want a gentleman to walk you to your car.

If there’s an established relationship, that’s one thing—but a person one doesn’t know well offering such a thing is kind of creepy. He might try to get into the car. He might do all sorts of things.

You don’t want a friendly dude to help you carry your groceries…

Not unless he’s employed by the grocery store to do so, no.

or hold open the door…

Where do people actually get this? I have never met a woman who got angry that I held a door open for her. Granted, I’ve never made a big deal out of it, so perhaps the writer is just doing it wrong.

or crush the life out of other men that would do you harm.

Wow, we went from “friendly dude” to psychopath pretty damned quickly there. If you think it’s strange why women wouldn’t want to associate with someone who would kill someone else, allegedly on their behalf, well, I’m not sure I can help you there.

Fine—fear the good guys…

Here’s a little tip: you are not one of the good guys. Something about one sentence ago threatening to murder people might have given you a clue.

I guess we’ll just have to suffer through watching you get broken over and over by the scum you think you love.

All right, let’s do a little bit of an experiment here.

Let’s suppose by some miracle the person who wrote this note actually gets a girlfriend, one who is willing to overlook his possessiveness, his rage, his patronizing bullshit. Maybe she thinks she can make him better, maybe she’s settling, maybe she’s misled.

I would be willing to lay insane odds that some “good guy” out there is going to think exactly this about this guy and his girlfriend. He’s going to see that his politeness is superficial, that he has a murderous controlling rage, that he’s patronizing and overprotective. And then he’s going to lament that she doesn’t go out with one of the good guys.

But I want you to know—it’s not easy, and it hurts to see you fall.

Give the good guys a chance to help you be less afraid of the world.

And there’s the problem. By “good guys” the author evidently means himself. But he’s quite plainly not a good guy. He starts talking about politeness and pleasantness, not as basic presumptions of human interaction, but as a quid pro quo. If he offers a pleasant evening’s chat, or walks a woman to her car, or carries her groceries, or holds open the door—well, to him, that isn’t a basic humanity that would be expected of anyone. That’s something to trade. He’s kind to a woman so a woman will go out with him, like him, etc.

And that’s a pretty shitty attitude. You don’t get to pat yourself on the back for not being an asshole. The only thing you can expect in return for basic human decency is basic human decency.

Wasted Bullets, episode 4

Before I start with the fourth episode of Wasted Bullets, I’d like to focus on the end of the third. (The fourth episode begins with a continuation of the last scene from the third episode, so it’s kind of appropriate.) This is what I initially thought was the most egregious example of lazy writing and disrespect for the audience found so far.

There are many things I could discuss. How does Deadshot avoid burning his hands with his wrist mounted machine guns? Where do those guns get their ammo? Did Deadshot really lace with a rare (and presumably expensive) poison every single one of the eight dozen or so bullets he fired at Oliver? These are the sorts of questions you’re not supposed to ask.

But the big one for me is: how did Diggle get to the place where he gets hit by one of Deadshot’s stray bullets? Let’s go through the timeline.

37:10: Oliver tells Diggle to get Moira and Thea out of the Exchange Building.

37:15: Detective Lance notices the laser pointer targeting Walter.

37:18: Deadshot fires his first shot.

37:35: We see Oliver running up the stairs.

37:42: Oliver retrieves his mask from the garbage can.

37:50: Deadshot continues to fire at the Exchange building, hitting the woman who I believe was his second target. (This woman has her back toward Deadshot and appears to be getting champagne. Why?)

37:55: Diggle climbs the stairs Oliver went up, notices the opened trash can.

38:00: Oliver’s arrow forming the end of the zip line between the Exchange building and Deadshot’s location secures itself to the concrete of the second building. (Oddly enough, the arrow is angled upwards, which to my mind would prevent the zip line from working, but I’ll give this one a pass.)

38:04: Oliver infenestrates the room from which Deadshot was shooting.

A couple notes at this point. One: I’ve made up the word “infenestrate” because I need a word that means “being thrown through a window into a building” and because I think it’s funny. “Defenestrate”, which means to be thrown through a window _out_ of a building, is one of my favorite words and I think it needs a counterpart, especially for this series.

A second, more meaningful note: Presumably there is some lapse in time between 37:42 and 38:04 to give Oliver the time to put on his mask, aim and fire his arrow, and zip line across the building. It might be a few seconds, and it might be a minute or longer. It’s not going to be too long, otherwise Deadshot will escape, and it probably is between the 37:42 and 37:55 mark, otherwise Diggle would catch up to and confront Oliver before the 38:00 mark. But—and this is the key point—there doesn’t seem to be any similar opportunity for a similar lapse time with Oliver and Deadshot in the same room. I mention this because there’s actually a reasonable way for Diggle to get to that room, but he simply doesn’t have time.

38:20: After a flurry of gunfire and arrow-shooting, Deadshot begins to approach the pillar behind which Oliver hides.

38:32: Oliver clubs Deadshot from behind, beginning a melee combat sequence.

39:00: Oliver tells Deadshot to drop his guns.

39:07: Deadshot asks Oliver to extend him some professional courtesy.

39:12: Oliver tries to guilt trip Deadshot.

39:24: Deadshot fires his last flurry of bullets.

39:27: Oliver fires the arrow that knocks Deadshot out.

39:49: Diggle grunts, standing in front of a doorway behind Oliver.

So, let’s run through some numbers. The final battle starts at 38:04. It ends at 39:27. It is more or less a continuous scene, and although we cut several times for different points of view, those cuts are sequential, and do not offer any opportunity for time to pass. Thus, we’re working with one minute and twenty-three seconds, perhaps one minute and thirty tops if Diggle just missed Oliver as he started to zip line between buildings, but more realistically one minute and twenty seconds, between the time Oliver crashes into the room and Deadshot fires his last flurry of bullets.

There are two possible ways for Diggle to get into position to be shot.

First, he could have used the same zip line Oliver did. He certainly has enough time to do so, but I’m dismissing this possibility for several reasons. First, Diggle doesn’t have the equipment for it—he wasn’t expecting to zip line across buildings and Oliver would have no reason to leave him the things he would need to do so. Second, I think we would have noticed Diggle crashing into the room if he did this, even if incidentally at the last moment. Third, he would have had to move from the window to the doorway, which seems implausible. For these reasons, I think he must have run through the doorway.

Second, he could have seen Oliver zip line over, run down the stairs to leave the exchange building, cross the street, climb the stairs to get to Deadshot’s room, and arrive while Deadshot begins shooting in the final sequence after Oliver tries to guilt trip Deadshot. (While this seems like a minor point, Diggle almost certainly wouldn’t open a door behind which he hears active gunfire, although there is the possibility that one of Deadshot’s bullets ricocheted off the fire door to hit Diggle as he ascended the stairs.

Let’s focus on that second scenario. We know from establishing shots of the Exchange building that the auction was on the ground floor. We know that Deadshot was firing at a downward angle, putting him on at least the second floor of his building. We know that Oliver climbs at least two floors up to zip line down to Deadshot’s location. (We’ll ignore the problem of Oliver needing an open location from which to fire his zip line for now.)

So, can Diggle, in the one minute and twenty seconds there is between Oliver entering Deadshot’s building (representing the first possible moment Diggle has to know where to go), run down two flights of stairs, cross a busy street, figure out a way to enter a presumably locked building, and then climb another floor’s worth of stairs to arrive in time to be shot?

I suppose that’s theoretically possible, which I didn’t expect to be true when I started this analysis, so I leave the analysis here for posterity. I don’t think Diggle would do this—I don’t think he could do this, given the navigation problems he certainly would encounter. I don’t think Diggle would charge up into a room with active gunfire. I think it’s far more likely for one of the officers surrounding the exchange building to get to Deadshot first. But, while I think it stretches credulity, I do have to admit it’s at least theoretically possible and therefore doesn’t break it, in the same way that any coherent analysis of Deadshot’s wrist mounted machine guns would.

Anyway, on to episode four, entitled “An Innocent Man”.

This might be nothing, but at the 8:50 mark, Oliver reveals that the Queen mansion is 20 miles from the city. Later in the series, I become baffled at the geography of Starling City, so I thought I’d note it here.

At the 9:20 mark we learn the topic of the episode. A man named Peter Declan is on death row for the murder of his wife Camille. Moira is watching the news and the announcer notes that Camille’s former employer, Jason Brodeur, released a statement about the execution. Jason Brodeur is on the list Oliver obtained from his father—the list containing the purported criminal organization behind a conspiracy, the exact nature of which is unknown at this point. From this, Oliver posits that Peter is in fact innocent and Brodeur killed Camille. In fact, we immediately cut to a scene where Brodeur and one of his honchos confirms this very thing: Brodeur killed Camille and framed Peter in order to get rid of them both. If only the members of the jury could have been as prescient as Oliver, who—we should remember—hasn’t been back in Starling City for more than a couple weeks.

At the 10:25 mark, we have another tiring scene where Joanna reminds Laurel that she’ll never meet anyone if she doesn’t abdicate her lawyerly responsibilities and go out drinking with her. Joanna is not a very good friend.

At the 11:00 mark, Oliver, mask on, has broken into Laurel’s apartment. He uses a voice changing magic gadget to disguise his voice. Oliver tells Laurel of his theory, apparently acquired from information off-screen, that Camille was going to blow the whistle on Brodeur so he had her killed and Peter framed for the murder. If this sounds familiar, it’s because it’s more or less what the bad guy did two episodes ago, when Martin Somers had a man killed by the Triad for threatening to blow the whistle on him. Except this time we have a frame job thrown in. I don’t know how often the “killing whistleblowers” schtick is used but twice in four episodes cannot be good.

The next scene shows Laurel talking to Peter, Oliver’s little pep talk apparently convincing Laurel much more than it convinced me. (There is, of course, no information as to Peter’s current attorney, so anyone with a bit of knowledge of the criminal defense system recognizes that the Arrow writers have swept about one month’s worth of procedural difficulties under the rug, but, eh, it’s camp.) Of this scene I’ll just note that Peter—a man sentenced to be executed in less than two days—is allowed to wander a large room without restraints or any handcuffs while Laurel sits in a chair and accuses him of the murder for which he has been duly convicted by a jury of his peers.

Yeah.

At 13:50, we learn of a side plot that unfortunately never goes anywhere. $2.6 million is missing from a Queen Consolidated subsidiary. Walter brushes this off, claiming a bookkeeping error. On this bit I actually want to praise the Arrow writers for getting some things right, but the exact praise will have to wait for later. Walter says “I’m sure it’s nothing,” which I suppose puts Queen Consolidated squarely in the Fortune 100 for treating $2.6 million as a paltry sum. Later in the episode, Moira admits it was her investing in a friend’s startup. Billionaires really don’t think there’s anything wrong with embezzling $2.6 million from a public company to invest in a friend’s startup. But Walter, to his immense credit, tells Felicity Smoak to look into it, which is an example of the law of economy of characters. There’s no way Felicity would be the right person to do such a thing—she’s in IT, not accounting—but, eh, it’s camp.

At the 22:40 mark, Oliver hits a man named Matt Istook with a tranquilizer dart and, under threat of being run over by a train, coerces a confession that he perjured himself when testifying against Peter. (As a geographic note, we learn that a suburb of Starling City is called Bloodhaven. Wouldn’t you like to live there?) Matt tells Oliver of a file of evidence in his desk which Camille was going to use against Brodeur.

At 24:45, Oliver delivers the file to Laurel. I’ll just note for the moment that the moment Laurel produces that file as evidence, she’s likely to get arrested for trespassing, given that she obviously didn’t obtain the file using legal means. But, eh, camp.

At 27:40, we see something more praiseworthy! Laurel presents the evidence to a judge in the judge’s chambers. Now, there’s about a million nits to pick about Brodeur suddenly arriving in those chambers surrounded by a legal team (they would have been there already), and there are undoubtedly other problems with it. But the one thing that the writing team gets right is that the unauthenticated file itself is insufficient to justify a grant of habeas corpus. Good for them, although really Laurel should have known this earlier. I feel like this is worthy of praise.

At 28:05 we see Brodeur whining to his lawyers like a little crybaby, because Laurel’s going after him. We learn that he’s guilty of “dumping”, presumably pollution of some sort, which means that he’s the only guy in the world who does such things without making himself the target of environmental lawyers looking to squeeze a civil settlement out of said people.

At the 29:10 mark, we learn that Moira lied to Walter, and that the $2.6 million was just flat out embezzled by her and used to purchase a warehouse. Food for later thought. Still no bullets yet, although Laurel did draw a gun on Oliver some eighteen minutes earlier.

At 30:20, Oliver attempts to force a confession out of Brodeur. This is kind of funny to me. Eventually Brodeur tells Oliver of the plan to kill Peter before he can be executed. This is funny to me for two reasons. First, the judge just denied a habeas writ—why would anyone be afraid that Peter would be released after such a denial. Second, and perhaps more importantly, if they had the means to kill Peter in prison, why wouldn’t they have done it already? But, eh, camp.

At 31:20 Oliver begins his assault on Iron Heights prison, which might offer us the first wasted bullets of the episode. Laurel is there talking to Peter. Suddenly Brodeur’s thug hands a guard a wad of cash in order to open the cell doors, and, well, here we go.

Laurel is told to stay in the interview room, which of course she ignores and runs straight for the cell block for reasons unknown. Oliver—dressed in a guards uniform and a ski mask, rescues Peter and Laurel before they get killed. There’s another fight, and Oliver pulls a prisoner who intent on strangling Laurel off of Laurel. Laurel gets a good look at Oliver’s eyes and, in my mind, Laurel really should have recognized him at this point. But, eh. Still no bullets fired.

At 34:00, Laurel and Detective Lance join each other in a frantic “thank God you’re safe” hug. We learn that, for reasons unknown, Brodeur’s bodyguard just confessed to Camille’s murder. Presumably the reasons for that were left on the editing floor.

At 36:20, Walter goes to visit the warehouse identified by Felicity. There’s a keypad there which is protected by the password “Robert”—evidently, Moira’s just as bad as most people at coming up with strong passwords. We learn, surprise surprise, that the warehouse contains the remains of the Queen’s Gambit! Perhaps Moira’s duplicity will catch up to her!

Some might wonder, based on my writing so far, why I bother to watch Arrow or continue to watch it given how much I have nitpicked it or complained. To give credit where credit goes, this episode probably did a lot to answer that question. It’s a really good episode in setting up future conflicts and storylines. We see a complicated relationship developing between Laurel and Oliver—and we think Laurel must at least have a strong suspicion that Oliver is the Arrow. There are no wasted bullets here. Even though it can be nitpicked like crazy, the writers avoided the quick and easy solution of the file freeing Peter. We see that Walter is a man of integrity, and are teased with a conflict between him and Moira.

There’s more to it, too. I must confess that the biggest reason I continued to watch the series was the actor in the limousine Moira gets into at the 39:40 mark. It’s not a spoiler to reveal it, but I trust I don’t need to.

There’s not a single bullet fired in this episode, which I suspect makes it either rare or unique in the history of this show.

Cumulative total bullets wasted/fired: 368/381

#arrow #wastedbullets

An unfortunately titled episode

So I was thinking about the Oregon shooting as I considered whether to continue this little project. In case you missed it, a 20 year old man opened fire at a community college in Oregon, killing at least ten people and injuring twenty more. By the Boston Globe’s count, this was the 294th mass shooting in the U.S. this year, an average of more than one per day.

There are two reasons why I decided to continue this.

First, as President Obama noted when speaking about the incident, as a nation we have become numb to gun violence. There’s lots of gun violence on Arrow, but the specific aspect of that violence that concerns me is how little impact that gun violence appears to have on anyone meaningful. By presenting a world in which guns are essentially firecrackers that rarely hurt people or hit targets even from point blank range, does Arrow desensitize someone as to the actual harm and violence imposed by these guns? I don’t know the answer to that, but I think it’s a question worth asking.

The second, and perhaps sadder point, is that gun violence is so prevalent in the United States that if I chose to suspend writing this series now, I’d never be able to pick it up again. By averages, tomorrow there will be another mass shooting, and we’ll likely have six to eight more by next Friday. So either I stop this project altogether—and thereby pass up the opportunity to ask the real question about how gun violence is normalized and trivialized by shows like Arrow—or I accept that I’ll have to do it in an environment where it might be considered insensitively timed.

As many people have pointed out, if it’s unacceptable to have a discussion of gun violence after such tragedies, we’ll never have that discussion. It’s far too common.

So, to be clear, I don’t mean any disrespect to any of the victims of today’s shooting, or any other shooting. I think it’s high time to have a discussion about all aspects of gun violence.

In any case, onto the third episode, entitled “Lone Gunmen”. I wish it weren’t called that.

The opening sequence provides our second exception for bullets hitting people: when the bullets are fired by Deadshot. He’s an assassin and supposedly never misses his target. The first shot fired by him hits Oliver’s target for the week, James Holder, in the chest, presumably killing him. Oliver turns and fires a few arrows blindly. Deadshot then fires five times at Oliver. Later, Oliver sews up a flesh wound, so presumably one of those bullets hit.

That’s when Oliver discovers that Deadshot laces his bullets with poison, which gives the writers the opportunity to introduce one of their magical get-out-of-jail-free cards: Oliver has an apparently limitless supply of herbs that will counteract any poison. Undoubtedly this will come in handy later.

A few moments later, Oliver, using his expertise gained from his vast zero days of being an actual parent, lectures his mother on her parenting choices with regards to Thea. I only mention it because it’s Oliver’s most loathsome quality. Moments later, in a monologue, Oliver explains how his methods of killing are righteous and how Deadshot’s are without morality. What a fucking hypocrite. So Deadshot becomes Oliver’s new target.

As much as I hate Oliver, I feel compelled to note a surprisingly good thing that happened, one that gave me hopes for Oliver. At the 20:30 mark, Oliver confronts Thea in a nightclub where Thea really shouldn’t be (but the law of economy of characters demands that she should be). Thea, in an effort to tweak Oliver, tells him that his BFF Tommy and his ex-girlfriend Laurel have had sex. Oliver, of course, has no right to be mad about this—he was dead, he had effectively broken off his relationship with Laurel by boffing her sister, and in any case Laurel’s a big girl, not some piece of property that Oliver owns. To Oliver’s credit, he doesn’t seem to be fazed by this at all. It really gave me high hopes for Oliver, hopes that would be dashed a couple seasons later, but that’s well down the road. (Unfortunately, Tommy seems to think it was wrong but did it anyway.)

At the 27:00 mark, Oliver confronts Deadshot in Deadshot’s hotel room. Here we learn that Deadshot has more than just a sniper rifle; he unloads about fifteen shots in Oliver’s general direction. None hit. Several seconds later, Deadshot takes cover behind a mattress and fires about fifteen more shots from a custom wrist mounted automatic weapon. None of those shots hit, either. Deadshot then defenestrates himself, leaving Oliver free to search his hotel room.

Worth noting: at the 27:50 mark, we meet Felicity Smoak for the first time. Felicity Smoak represents yet another get out of jail free card. If there’s anything that has anything to do with computers, she can do it. (Sometimes, though, she might have to consult her “Javascript for Dummies” book helpfully located in her cubicle.) Why she is working as a mundane IT grunt in Queen Consolidated rather than hacking for the Russian mob or alternatively making a fortune with several iOS apps is anybody’s guess.

Felicity provides the information to Walter that Deadshot was working for a man named by Warren Patel.

The final confrontation begins at the 37:20 mark. Deadshot has Walter lined up for a shot, but for some reason he’s decided to use a laser finder which marks the target with a red dot, utterly useless for Deadshot at his range but allowing Detective Lance to see that Walter’s about to be shot and to play the hero. Deadshot’s shot misses as a result. Deadshot then fires a second shot, hitting some random white guy in the shoulder, who for the moment I will assume was his second target.

While Oliver is changing into his outfit, Deadshot fires two more shots, one hitting a woman who looked to have been his second target, with the random white guy having jumped in front of her unexpectedly at shot two. We’ll call one of those a hit.

Oliver fires an arrow and ziplines over to Deadshot’s location. Deadshot fires about twenty-five shots from a range of about fifteen yards as Oliver ducks for cover; none of those shots hit. A few moments later, Oliver gets into hand to hand combat with him—seemingly not a good idea against someone with a wrist mounted machine gun, but tactics have never been Oliver’s strong suit. Deadshot unloads about eight more shots, but fortunately for Oliver they’re during the five second window when Deadshot’s arm isn’t pointed directly at Oliver, so all the shots miss.

There’s then a bit of moralizing by Oliver, explaining to Deadshot why his brand of vigilantism is better than being a contract killer. Deadshot seemingly has no response for this other than to unload twenty five or so shots at the pillar providing cover for Oliver. After the shots cease, Oliver emerges from the cover and fires an arrow that goes right through Deadshot’s eyepiece.

After Oliver seemingly confirms his kill, he turns around to find that one of Deadshot’s bullets hit Diggle, who was chasing Oliver up a staircase. Evidently the writers forgot that Oliver ziplined between buildings in the interim, something Diggle would have had absolutely no reason to do—this selective lapse of memory allowed them to further the plot. Oliver treats Diggle with the magic cure all herbs, after which Diggle discovers Oliver’s secret identity. Yay plot. Thus ends the third episode.

Bullets fired: 98 Bullets wasted: 95 Cumulative total bullets wasted/fired: 368/381

#arrow #wastedbullets

Wasted Bullets: Honor Thy Father

Here’s the second installment of “Wasted Bullets”, in which I take a look at the absurd inaccuracy of guns within the show “Arrow”.

I suppose I should start by explaining the greater criticism at play here. Bullets never finding their targets isn’t just some random quirk in the Arrow universe that makes it charming. It is probably the biggest sign of the laziness of the writing in the series. This laziness manifests itself in many, many different ways, but the inaccuracy of guns is perhaps the most obvious.

An example from the pilot will demonstrate this point. In the episode, Oliver is targeting a man named Alan Hunt. He has given Hunt a 10:00 deadline to pay extortion money, with the explicit threat that he would cause Hunt harm if he didn’t. Hunt holes himself up in his office, protected by at least seven guards, most of whom are armed with machine guns.

Having not understood at this point the apparent rule that bullets cannot hit their targets, I was legitimately curious as to how Oliver could pull this off. I was expecting something clever. Instead, Oliver just comes up the elevator and basically does a solo assault of Hunt’s makeshift fortress. Oliver’s plan succeeds—and can only succeed—because bullets don’t hit their targets, and Oliver seems to know this. So, rather than a clever sequence that might have shown Oliver’s tactical acumen, we get a scene that only succeeds if you assume the bad guys are firing blanks. Seriously, you could probably go down to the Lazer Tag at the closest megamall and pluck eight tweeners who could stop Oliver, provided they were given guns with actual bullets.

The opportunity for an exciting scene vanished.

Now, this laziness manifests itself in other ways. In the end, Oliver achieves his goal of robbing $40 million from Hunt. How does he do this? Apparently, by firing an arrow that contains a microcomputer that—by itself—hacks into Hunt’s network and initiates the transfer. Can you imagine a world where such devices actually existed? It’s essentially magic, and a major dodge by the writers. Wave their hand and the protagonist wins. Everyone’s happy, as long as no one peeks behind the curtain to wonder how it was done.

In any case, let’s move on to Episode 2, entitled “Honor Thy Father”.

There’s an opening fight sequence where Oliver confronts Markus Redman. Redman was guarded by at least six and probably seven people. One of them had a gun, but he didn’t fire it before being disarmed by an arrow from Oliver. So no wasted bullets here.

Just for reference, Oliver adds perjury to the list of crimes for which he could be accused at the 3:10 mark. Spoiler alert: not only did his father and one member of the crew survive the crash, so did his amour du jour, Sara Lance—and as we’ll see in season 2, Oliver knows this.

At the 6:30 mark, we learn that Starling City has a port. I’ll come back to this later.

At the 8:30 mark we see Starling City at night. This is definitely Boston; the clock tower on the right half of the screen is the dead giveaway. This doesn’t mean that Starling City is DC’s equivalent of Boston, in the same sense that Gotham is not New York and Metropolis is not Toronto. But I just like Boston.

At the 10:30 mark, Oliver gets all paternalistic with Thea. I mention this only because I hate Oliver and this is the biggest reason why.

At the 23 minute mark we get to see Laurel’s apartment. She’s the daughter of a cop and works for legal aid. There’s no way she can afford something this nice unless her dad’s on the take.

Another reason to hate Oliver: he eats directly from a half gallon tub of ice cream. Not sure how he can do that and maintain the body necessary for the frequent homoerotic porn we see in the series, but this is Wasted Bullets, not Wasted Calories.

At the 25:40 mark we have our first wasted bullets of the episode. A guy busts through Laurel’s front door and unloads about twenty shots in two or three seconds from a distance of about five feet. None hit, although he is obviously aiming too high.

A few seconds later another five shots are fired. None hit.

At the 26:00 mark, the badass platinum blonde Chinese woman—whose hair, by the way, just screams badass—confronts Oliver. One of her associates shows up at the other side of the room. We hear the click of a gun getting ready to fire, and then five shots. The surprise here is that the shots don’t come from the bad guy; Diggle has arrived to protect his charge and pumps the anonymous goon full of lead, with several shots hitting. I’m marking Diggle here as five for five because that’s what it looked like to me, though you are free to disagree.

In any case, this provides the first exception to the rule that bullets don’t hit anyone:

Bullets fired by guns aimed by “good guys” can hit their target. Not always, but quite frequently.

Diggle then confirms this rule by shooting another anonymous goon twice. So far Diggle is seven for seven by my count. He then gets into hand to hand comment with the badass Chinese lady while Laurel and Oliver spectate. Finally, Oliver saves Diggle with a well placed throw of a kitchen knife, thrown with far greater accuracy than any bullet fired by a supposed bad guy pro.

At the 30:40 mark we get more gunshots. We don’t see who fired them, where they were aiming, and some of them sound to be too far away from the action to be anything other than people celebrating a wedding or something. In any case, I’m going to assume they were intended for Oliver and none of them hit. In about a twenty second sequence, I counted fifty five shots, at least a quarter with a clear line of sight from less than thirty yards away. None of them hit.

At the 33:10 mark, Detective Lance has Oliver dead to rights. He threatens to shoot if Oliver twitches. Oliver twitches, launching a dart so accurately that it goes through the trigger of the gun as Lance holds it and pins it to a shipping crate behind Lance. Oliver’s gone before Lance can react, but thankfully for Lance the dart contained a recording of the confession Oliver coerced from Somers (something that would never hold up in court, by the way, but lazy writers wouldn’t know that).

This doesn’t have to do with bullets, but it’s another pet peeve I have about the show. At the 34:20 mark we see that Laurel is attending the opening of Queen Consolidated’s new Applied Sciences building. Why? Doesn’t she have work to do? As a plot point, it’s obviously to see Oliver embarrass himself with a fake drunk act of disavowing his father’s legacy, but there’s no way for her to have known that would happen. So why are she (and Tommy, for that matter) there? More lazy writing. It’s probably the second most obvious sign of lazy writing: people being places they have no reason to be for the sake of plot.

As if to press that point, at the 37:00 mark, Detective Lance pays his daughter a visit. Apparently neither of them are busy enough with their work.

No further shots are fired during the episode, which seems to make it a light episode in comparison to the pilot.

Bullets fired this episode: 87 Bullets wasted this episode: 80 Good guys accuracy: 7 for 7 Bad guys: 0 for 80 Season total: 286 bullets wasted

#arrow #gunsdontkillpeople #wastedbullets

Wasted Bullets: Pilot Episode

The following is the first installment of “Wasted Bullets”, which is my absurd attempt to chronicle the number of bullets fired on the show “Arrow” that miss their targets. One of the most prominent absurdities of “Arrow” is that anyone firing an arrow from a bow almost always hits the target, while bullets almost never hit their targets.

It wouldn’t surprise me if the only person who could fire a gun accurately on the show is Deadshot.

Anyway. Here goes.

The pilot starts out well enough. Shortly after the 15 minute mark, Tommy and Oliver are cornered by men wearing red masks. Two tranquilizer darts are fired, and both hit their mark! Tommy and Oliver fall unconscious. A man with a machine gun then unloads about ten bullets at more or less point blank range at an unlucky man who opened an alley door to investigate. The man falls to the ground, and even though there’s no actual blood seen, I presume that’s a goof, and as a plot point at least one of those bullets hit.

Sure doesn’t look like it, though.

My overall goal here is to catalogue the absurdity of the inaccuracy of guns on “Arrow”. But I don’t think I should let other absurdities go by unannounced. Tommy Merlyn is driving a Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren. This is a car for people for whom Ferraris are too pedestrian; its retail price was about $500,000. So why did Tommy park it in a back alley in a bad part of town? (For what it’s worth, what happened to the car after Tommy and Oliver got knocked out by the tranquilizer darts? Remind me to check.)

At about the 17 minute mark, after Oliver has inexplicably broken free from his zip-lock cuffs, one of the guys in the red mask fires his machine gun indiscriminately at Oliver, who is using one of the other guys with a red mask as cover. I count nine shots total, none of which hit Oliver.

Oliver inexplicably then chases after the guy with the machine gun, secure in the apparent knowledge that the guy in the red mask couldn’t hit the side of a barn from the inside with his gun. Indeed, after a short chase, Oliver runs through a doorway and the red mask guy stands about ten feet away from him and unloads the machine gun for about three seconds. I counted about thirty shots. None of them hit.

Twenty seconds later, we’re on the rooftops, and the guy unloads about thirty more shots from a range of about twenty feet. None hit.

Another twenty seconds and we’re in some sort of warehouse. Here the red mask guy takes off his mask and then unloads his gun for a full five seconds or so at a running Oliver. After forty or so shots, the guy checks the gun. Maybe he’s out of ammo? In any case, none of those shots hit.

Mercifully, Oliver then catches the guy and breaks his neck with his bare hands.

(Amusingly enough, at the 18:30 mark, Detective Hilton remarks that the three kidnappers were “real pros”, presumably at things other than shooting automatic weapons.)

As a note of the inherent superiority of bows, at the 23:30 mark, Oliver throws six tennis balls and proceeds to hit each of the moving tennis balls with an arrow.

At the 24:20 mark, Oliver fires two arrows. One hits the light he was aiming for, and the next hits one of Adam Hunt’s goons in the chest. Hunt’s other good then fires about seven shots from a handgun. Admittedly, he seems to be firing blind, so it’s no surprise that none of the bullets hit. Oliver then fires four arrows. By grunts and broken glass, we can infer that he hit his intended targets.

(Another aside: I know that in later episodes, the show uses Boston for the Starling City shots. It doesn’t seem to be that case in the pilot; I don’t recognize the city shown at the 25:30 mark.)

The final confrontation sequence between Oliver and Hunt’s goons begins at around the 33:40 mark. Here’s a recount of the gunplay in that sequence.

In the initial room, there are four goons, ready to face Oliver who arrives by elevator.

As the elevator door opens, one of the goons at the far end of the room is hit by an arrow. He fires three shots reflexively as he falls to the ground. None hit anything.

Oliver takes out two goons near the elevator in hand to hand combat.

Finally, the goon at the far end of the room recovers from his shock at being attacked by the guy they were supposed to be guarding against, and begins to fire his weapon. He fires, by my count, ten shots before Oliver is forced to take cover in an alcove. None of those shots hit. (There may have been two guys firing shots, since there are two different gun noises, but I only saw the one guy.)

The remaining goon unloads about thirty shots while Oliver has his back turned and pressed against the wall. None hit.

After a dramatic pause, the scene shifts to the next room. The last goon comes crashing through the very expensive frosted glass door, where one of the goons in the room unloads about thirty shots. Presumably at least some of them hit the body of the other goon, but none hit Oliver.

He stops shooting for long enough to allow Oliver to hit him and one other goon with an arrow. Oliver then fires an arrow that seemingly misses Hunt. Hunt mocks him, Oliver mocks him back.

At that moment, Constantine Drakon, the guy Hunt hired specifically to guard against Oliver, surprises Oliver with a punch. A novice to these sorts of series might wonder why he didn’t just shoot Oliver when he obviously had the jump on him, but a more experienced viewer recognizes that such a seemingly sensible action would have ended the series with five minutes left in the pilot, which is a big no-no in television.

Oliver and Drakon scuffle, during which we learn that Drakon has brought a knife to a gunfight. Presumably he didn’t get the memo on that one. Hunt calls in the cops and makes his escape while Oliver subdues Drakon.

Finally, at about the 35 minute mark Drakon picks up an automatic weapon which, if he had earlier, would have ended the fight a long time earlier, and fires about fifteen shots at Oliver, who is at the time about five feet away. Oliver jumps back behind a desk and throws some ninja stars or something at Drakon. The scene ends with Oliver seeming to fall unconscious, presumably because he hit his head as he fell or something.

When we return from the commercial break, Oliver wakes up groaning as the police approach. He rolls over and fingers a bullet that he seemed to have picked up off the ground; there’s no sign of any blood or the like that would indicate a hit.

The cops threaten to open fire, and whatever pain Oliver was in disappears as he fires his arrow at something that produces sparks when hit. (Maybe it’s a special arrow.) Detective Lance fires six shots as Oliver defenestrates himself out of the tricky situation and ziplines back to his party. All of those six shots presumably miss.

Indeed, at the 36 minute mark, Oliver shows up looking dapper in his suit, without seeming to have suffered a scratch.

At the 39 minute mark, in a flashback to the yacht wreck, Oliver’s dad pulls out a gun from his shirt and fires twice, once hitting the other person on the life raft, and the second shot hitting himself. By my count, these are the second and third bullets that have actually hit their intended targets.

At the 40 minute mark we learn that Tommy has regained possession of his $500,000 automobile and once again has parked it in a dark alleyway in a bad part of town. Will he ever learn? Meanwhile, in a fire escape above them, we learn what a creepy stalker Oliver is.

Episode Summary:

Total bullets fired: 209 Total bullets wasted: 206

#arrow gunsdontkillpeople wastedbullets

The Dragon Kaseraak Giveaway

Keen followers of this tumblr know that I’ve written five books. They are all available at Blurb for a limited time for the low price of $5.99, and if you act before August 18 you can get a 35% discount off of that price using the code GATHER35. The first book, The Dragon Kaseraak, is also available at the Kindle bookstore for $2.99. It should be available on the iBookstore soon, and I intend to make the other books available in both places as soon as possible.

The books tell the tales of the fire mage Jana Aliston and her new apprentice Jamie Wheaton as they struggle against the forces of the kingdom of Westvalia. The kingdom has banned magic and Jana is on the run for her role in the assassination of King Escalis. The stories also obviously involve dragons as well. If you have any questions about it, feel free to ask.

Also, I’m giving away a copy of the entire series on Goodreads. If you’re at all interested in my writing (and honestly, if you’re reading this, you probably are), go enter!

#PoisonIvyLeague

Among a few of the people I follow on Twitter, there’s been the hashtag #PoisonIvyLeague going around. The basic point of it is that we’d all like to see DC Comics put out a Poison Ivy solo book. Up until now, Poison Ivy has been a pretty prominent figure in the Batman universe; she’s appeared as part of a team in Gotham City Sirens, is set to appear in Suicide Squad (I don’t know if issues with her have come out yet; I’ll have to check). She’s a regular in Harley Quinn’s solo comic (which is my current favorite). Gail Simone did a fantastic story with her effectively driving the narrative in Batgirl Annual #2. She’s probably the subject of more fan art than anyone in the DC Universe, with the possible exception of Harley Quinn. Her merchandise sells like hotcakes; her stuff is harder to get than just about any other character.

Yet she’s never had a solo series.

Way back when the Comics Code was still a thing, that would have been understandable. She was a villain in the Batman universe, and the comics had to uphold “traditional American values”. But as the comic medium has evolved, it’s now possible to tell more nuanced stories. Harley Quinn has her own comic. Suicide Squad and Secret Six both star some pretty questionable leads. I’m sure there are more examples someone with a broader love of comics could give. So that’s no longer an excuse.

I think a Poison Ivy solo comic would sell. But why do I want it? Why would I want to see her in her own book?

First the shallow reasons.

One: she’s a gorgeous redhead, a femme fatale to match any other. Undoubtedly this is why her merchandise sells well. I don’t think comics or any medium can possibly have enough of these characters.

Two: she stands for a political message that’s sorely needed at this point. Poison Ivy is at her core an environmentalist and her message really needs to get out there; it’s important that people know we have the responsibility to be caretakers for the Earth if we want to continue to live on it.

Maybe you think those are fantastic reasons. For me, though, they’re pretty shallow and they wouldn’t be enough to sustain anything. I never bought Red Sonja comics until Gail Simone gave them new life. I don’t buy environmental propaganda, even though I know it contains important messages and advocates for policies I agree with.

The deeper reason Poison Ivy should get her own book is because she’s a fantastic character. The Batman universe is full of one trick villains with shallow personalities, not to mention that their heroes often come off as flat too (cough cough, I’m looking at you, Bruce Wayne). But Ivy? There’s a depth to her that can sustain stories and sustain interest. There’s a conflict with how far she should go to push her causes. There’s a conflict within her as to her loyalties to the nature side of her and the human side of her. And as she’s shown in her more recent depictions, there’s a complexity in her personality that you don’t find in many characters. She’s flirty with Harley, and mischievous (leaving her certain berry bearing plants in a wonderful Valentine’s Day issue). She can also be deadly serious (as in Batgirl #2). There are untold complex stories that could be told with her at the center.

One example that often pops up is the relationship between Ivy and Harley. It is continually shown from Harley’s point of view—Harley owes her life and powers to Ivy. I like the relationship quite a bit, but it’s kind of tiring to hear it always from Harley’s side. I’d like to see Ivy’s side written with more depth.

I suppose the strongest argument for a Poison Ivy book is that, no matter who does it, it will likely sell like hotcakes. I think, though, that in the right hands, it can become a tremendous work of art, up there with the best comics to date (e.g., Watchmen, Sandman). DC should really give it a shot.

#Poison Ivy #comics

My books are now available! Go check them out. If you have any questions, feel free to ask here!

The Dragon Kaseraak Series

Here’s what I’ve been up to the past few months. As some of you may know, between 2007 and 2012, I wrote a series of books, ones that I thought my daughters would like. The first one, The Dragon Kaseraak, was originally published by PublishAmerica (now known as AmericaStar Books or something like that). For various reasons I think that was a mistake, but I don’t want to get into that.

The second book, Runaway Necromancer, was self-published through Lulu Press. I have no complaints about Lulu; they were great.

One of the things I had been wanting to do for a while in my RISD-CE Graphic Design Certificate Program was to redo these books and give them new covers. At some point this spring I made the crazy decision that I wanted to actually publish all of the books. This time, I’m using Blurb Books, and the only complaint I have with them is that, in my experience, they wildly overestimate the shipping times for the books. These books I ordered after 8PM on Friday, May 1; I was promised that they would arrive before May 21. They arrived this morning, four business days after they were promised. Not bad for self-publishing!

Blurb’s books are fantastic in quality, equal to or better than any other trade paperbacks I own. The paper is fantastic, 50 pound weight, which although being labeled “economy”, is in fact far higher quality than most of the books I own. These are quality paperback books.

The books generally follow the fire mage Jana Aliston and her newly acquired apprentice Jamie on adventures through the land of Greater Westvalia and beyond. While I wrote them with a young adult market in mind, I think anyone over the age of 12 could enjoy these. They are pretty fast reads at about 50,000 words each.

The Dragon Kaseraak tells the story of Jana’s pursuit of the Pendant of Solanche. The Pendant of Solanche is guarded by the ancient dragon Kaseraak (go figure!). Also pursuing the pendant is Jana’s treacherous former apprentice Isabella, on behalf of Westvalia’s tyrant King Tybilt.

Runaway Necromancer tells the story of Jana’s attempt to inspire a revolt against Tybilt’s rule in the formerly independent city of Hockessin. She gets assistance in her pursuit by the fearful necromancer Sycosina Soulbane, although that help comes at a cost that may be too dear to pay. The book also provides a long backstory for Sycosina. Based on feedback from people who have read one or both of the published books, she may be the most popular character in the series.

Dying Cry of the Ursidae tells the story of Jana’s further attempts to inspire a revolt against Tybilt’s rule. Jana and Jamie uncover a brutal plot against them that shakes Jana to the very core — and the way that plot is resolved reframes the entire series up to that point.

The Taconite Problem tells the story of Jana’s investigation of the sabotage of mining operations in the inaptly named outpost of Jimburgh. Jana uncovers a plot that may lead to war between humanity and the ancient dragons. She finds herself questioning her loyalties to magic, her kingdom, and humanity itself.

Return of the Flutterbee tells the story of Jana’s quest to return flutterbees, insects that radiate magical energy, to their native home in the southwestern plains. Doing so may avert a war between humanity and dragonkind, but it requires confronting the dangers of a lost and hostile civilization.

At times I’ve thought about these books rather humbly, thinking that they couldn’t possibly be any good because of how I was feeling at the time I wrote them. In reading them again for this project, that belief went away. I really like these stories, and I’m proud that I wrote them. I think if you like casual fantasy, you’ll find these quite engaging.

Now to the business part of this.

Blurb charges me a certain amount of money for each book based on its page length. It also allows me to sell these books to the public at a markup through either their private bookstore, or through public book distributors. Blurb is very generous about the former; it requires no additional fees to sell the books, which allows me to sell them relatively cheaply on their site. The problem is that it’s a private bookstore and no one goes there to look for them.

The other option is to sell it through a book distributor. This would make it available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or any bookstore that wanted to order it. For obvious reasons, I’d like this. The distributor, however, charges 55% of the list price for their service. (I am not complaining about this.) The upshot is that the absolute minimum price I could set for these books when distributed widely is $10 — a little more than $4 would go to Blurb, about $5.50 would go to the distributor, and I’d get about forty cents profit for each book. Another downside of this route is that once I activate it, Blurb has to match that price on its bookstore; I can’t offer it at a less expensive price on Blurb.

So here’s what’s going to happen. I have a few more edits to make on these books, but I’m confident that they will be ready in about a month. (The due date for the RISD-CE assignment is May 28, and June 2 is my graduation.) At that time, I will make them available on Blurb for $5.99 each. I think that’s a fantastic deal for some really good books. Fair disclosure: at this price point I will be making about $2 profit on each book, and my hope is that I’ll sell enough books to make back the money I’ve explicitly spent on this project, which so far totals around $300, which does not include anything for the thousands of hours I’ve spent writing and editing the books. I have no explicit hope that this will turn into a profession rather than a hobby.

A couple months later, I will then set it to be available to the distributors. At this point the price of the books will rise to $11.99. I still think that’s a fair price for what a person gets, but it’s obviously not the great deal that $6 would be. And my personal profit will drop at that point, so I’d much rather people buy it at the lower price, but there’s only so much exposure I can get from the Blurb Bookstore.

I am hoping to be able to make the books available in e-book format, but I’m not sure how complicated that would be or what price I would set there. I haven’t looked into it.

This project has been a lot of fun and I hope that, if you do decide to buy one or more of these books, that you enjoy reading them and tell your friends.

Edit: One month? Ha, I meant two days.

#fiction #fantasy #blurb books #RISD-CE

The Apple Watch

It's been a while since I actually finished a post. I'm going to try hard to do that here.

Quick hits first. HBO’s offering is very tempting. ResearchKit is a fantastic offering that I think will have unseen benefits for Apple’s bottom line. If you don’t think that improves Apple’s brand image or that isn’t valuable, well, let’s just say that you and I differ and move on.

The new Macbook is certainly an interesting beast. It reflects the notion that at some point, processors got “good enough” and that the more important developments in processor technology aren’t speed increases but energy conservation and miniaturization. The Macbook likely isn’t going to be any more powerful a machine than some of the laptops released six or eight years ago, but for most people it doesn’t need to be. I wouldn’t want to play games on it, or do design work on it, but other stuff should be fine (particularly as the speed of the other components of the computer has continued to develop).

There’s been a little gnashing about there being only one port on the machine, and it being a completely new port. I can’t believe that there are people who follow Apple yet don’t understand the wisdom of this move. Back when the iMac was released, there were USB ports on PCs but no one used them because all PCs still had inferior serial ports. Ditching the ADB or whatever it was that Apple had at the time forced peripheral makers to make USB connections to serve that market. Eliminating legacy ports is necessary to create a market for the new stuff. Painful at first, but now I suspect there will be a market for USB C offerings and, frankly, the USB C connector looks a hell of a lot more appealing than the connector it replaces.

It was the Apple Watch, however, that took the main stage and rightfully so. I don’t have too much to say about that other than to talk about the pricing of the Edition watch. A lot of people made the mistake of assuming that Apple would set the price to something accessible, like $2000 or even below $1000. Smarter commentators rightly looked at the actual price of 18K gold watches in the market and knew the price would be much higher. It was just a question of how much.

Kirk McElhearn had an interesting idea in defense of a low Edition price. (http://www.mcelhearn.com/apple-watch-pricing-my-predictions/) His take was that the Edition version wasn’t a “luxury watch” because it had the same internals as the other two collections and the same level of craftsmanship and the like. My feeling before the event and now was that he got this exactly backwards. The Edition is, in fact, a luxury watch with all the attention to detail, internals, accessories and such that you would expect from a $10,000 watch. The brilliance of Apple’s process was that they brought this same luxurious approach to the comparatively less costly aluminum and stainless steel watches. Those watches are, in every way other than materials, crafted with the sort of precision and attention to detail as the high end Edition watches. The only thing that prevents them from also getting the “luxury” tag is their price. $350 - $1000 might seem like a lot compared to existing smart watches, but as compared to existing watches, it’s quite competitive.

I’ve also seen a bit of hand-wringing over the Edition watch as being far too expensive, being an ostentatious display of wealth that any reasonable person would better use for things like cars, education or housing (to name just three). In many ways this is correct, but the same could be said of any gold watches. People who buy gold watches, as far as I can tell, have tens of thousands of dollars or more to drop on what is a very expensive hobby. Nobody buys a gold watch because it’s utilitarian; it’s bought for the same reason a woman might wear a diamond necklace or a tennis bracelet or any other sort of jewelry, which is similarly priced and of no practical use.

Will it sell? I have no idea. From what I can tell, tech-first “limited edition” high design products tend not to sell very well. The 20th Anniversary Macintosh was a huge blunder. The G4 Cube sold horribly. The trick is whether the watch will sell as fashion—as a watch, not a smartwatch—and this is something most people who follow Apple just won’t get. I’d trust the opinion of people who follow the watch industry far more than those who follow the tech industry. Even at the low end, the Apple Watch is more fashion than tech, and certainly at the high end people will buy it for fashion primarily.

In fact, I think the howling of the tech press is as much because Apple is taking steps to move away from tech to diversify into other business. This is a smart move for Apple—other than smart phones the computer industry is decaying. But for people who make a living writing about tech, it must be frustrating when the leading tech company in the world decides that the things you love won’t be able to sustain its business for much longer.

This is the beginning of a new chapter for Apple. I have no idea whether it will succeed but I’m sure they have no alternative other than to try.

A Fairy Tale

This is a story I hope to tell in one of my designs for my Final Studio class. If you are in my Final Studio class and don't want the story to be spoiled until it inevitably is, please stop reading now.

I also am not entirely set on the protagonist's name but for now I am calling her Melora.

Once upon a time, in a land far far away, there lived a king and a queen. The queen was very beautiful and the king was very handsome, and for a while, all was fine within the kingdom. But as time passes beauty is known to fade and eyes are known to wander. In this particular instance, it was the king's eyes that wandered first.

Within the kingdom there was a young woman named Melora, whose beauty was unparalleled. It was to her the king’s eyes wandered, followed by the king’s attentions. The queen became jealous and sought to punish both the king and Melora for whatever indiscretions that, up to that point, were solely in her imagination. She went to a witch.

“Place a curse upon this woman,” the queen said to the witch, “so that my dear king’s eyes will never wander her way again.”

"I will do better than that," whispered the witch quietly after the queen left. She had been itching to use a good curse and, like most witches, didn't care for royalty who only paid her mind when they wanted something cursed.

The witch told the queen to bring the young woman to her. With a bit of subterfuge involving peppermint hot chocolate and a lovely plate of cheese and crackers, the witch lured the young woman into her house.

“The Queen would have me make you ugly to ensure her king’s eyes do not wander,” the witch said, “but I will have mercy on you.” The witch laughed an evil witch laugh that signaled that “mercy” was either not present within the witch’s dictionary or it was horribly misdefined.

Melora, whose only crime was her beauty, looked aghast. “I have offended the queen? Please, tell her I’m sorry. Whatever I did, I won’t do again.”

“I have no doubt that you did nothing dearie,” the witch said, “but this is too good of an opportunity to take over the kingdom, so I’m sorry you had to be mixed up in this.”

This was a lie. The witch was not at all sorry.

“What are you going to do?” asked Melora, now completely ensnared by the hidden toxins in the chocolate, cheese and crackers.

“I will give you eternal beauty,” the witch said. “But to the men who would claim you as their own, I give a gruesome death.”

Melora fell into a slumber, after which the witch cast her spell.

Later that afternoon, Melora woke up in her home. She was able to convince herself that it was a bad dream, though she was as radiant a beauty as ever.

Soon enough the king’s wandering eyes gave way, as they inevitably do in these sorts of stories, to the king’s indiscretions. Melora was summoned to a private room where the king greeted her. The king's lustful intentions were obvious.

“What about the queen?” Melora asked nervously. She thought of the witch.

“It doesn’t matter. I must have you,” replied the king.

Melora, like most, lacked the strength of character to refuse a king that which he wanted, at least not immediately. When the king pulled her into an embrace and planted a kiss upon her lips, she made no effort to stop him. This is not to say that she did anything to encourage him. He needed no such encouragement.

The king stumbled backwards after the kiss. “What foul beast are you?” he said with a choking voice.

Melora watched in horror and dismay as the king died before her very eyes.

In our fairy tale kingdom, like others, one does not kill a king without consequence, even if the act was unintended. The guards took Melora prisoner and locked her in a high tower, as was typical for beautiful young women of the time.

The story of the witch and the queen proceeded interestingly, though our story focuses on Melora. For decades she remained imprisoned in the tower, and soon she came to accept that imprisonment willingly, for her life fell into a pattern that tormented her soul.

Once every month or so, drawn by rumors of Melora’s beauty, a young adventurer was brave enough to try to rescue her. Once every three months or so, that adventurer was strong enough to overcome the physical obstacles protecting her. Once every year or so, an adventurer was clever enough to overcome the puzzles and traps the witch had put in the way to guard the tower.

Such as it was that Melora would receive a yearly visitor. What happened next wasn’t always exactly the same, but it rarely differed in any meaningful way. The adventurer would tell her that he was there to rescue her, and that she was even more beautiful than he could have imagined, that he loved her at first sight, and so on. She would warn the man that she had no desire to be rescued, but one of the flaws of knights at the time was that they could not accept the idea of a woman accepting her own imprisonment.

Invariably the men would profess their true love, and over Melora’s objection, would pull her away in an attempt to rescue her. Upon first contact, however, the witch’s curse did its thing, and the would be rescuer would die a gruesome death before Melora's eyes.

Centuries passed, well beyond the stories of the witch and the queen. Melora’s torment and legend continued. At times she attempted to disfigure herself to dissuade rescuers, but she could never beat the witch’s curse. Inevitably her beauty returned quickly.

For these centuries she remained one of the most beautiful women in the world, trapped in her tower with the knowledge that any man who loved her would die horribly.

One day, an adventurer approached the tower. The adventurer passed through the physical and intellectual challenges (which had only gotten more difficult with time) and soon was standing before Melora.

“I have come to rescue you from your torment,” the adventurer said.

“Please no,” Melora said. “Many before you have come and all have died before my eyes. For your own sake, adventurer, please turn around and leave.” She had said these words many times before.

“I am not here for my sake,” the adventurer said. “I am here for yours. Your tale is well known and your torment is plain for me to see.”

“You are among the most polite about it, but this is nothing I have not heard many times before,” Melora said. “I am cursed, cursed to kill any man that would dare love me. Please leave. I have no wish to see another brave knight fall victim to this curse.”

“I know all this,” said the adventurer. “But I would gladly risk my life for your sake, for I do love you, and wish to end your torment.”

Melora had heard these words before, however polite this adventurer had phrased them. Reluctantly, she extended her hand to the adventurer.

“Many before you have said similar things,” said Melora. “All of them have met their end here.”

“Perhaps I will not,” the adventurer said, taking Melora’s hand and offering a gentle polite kiss. It was unusually subtle, but not unprecedented. Melora deeply regretted the death she expected would swiftly follow.

This time, however, the adventurer remained before Melora, completely healthy. The curse did not seem to take its usual course.

“Can it be?” Melora said. “Centuries ago, a vile witch cursed me with ever lasting beauty that would kill any man who dared show me affection. Have you brought me a cure?”

“Indeed I have,” the adventurer said, sweeping Melora into an embrace and offering a warm kiss to her lips. Still, the curse had no effect and the adventurer seemed completely healthy.

“How have you done this?” Melora said. “How have you managed to survive the curse that has killed every man before you?”

“Because,” said the adventurer, “I am no man.”

The adventurer removed her helmet to reveal a head of long, luscious dark hair that would be the envy of any woman. She was a woman, and Melora realized with delight that the witch's curse applied only to men.

The two embraced again warmly and shared their affection for each other, which is best left to the reader’s imagination.

They lived happily ever after.

#fairytale #risd-ce

robertmoorejr

Guys, I wanted to let you know about a personal decision I recently made. I don’t really feel like discussing it, but I want to put my position out there. Please be respectful. This is a really long post, but please read the whole thing.

I’m taking the brakes off my car. This isn’t a rash...

delightful-absurdity

Anyone with a clue knows it's satire but I do long for a political movement based primarily on snark.

I Respond To E-Mail

Some background: For several months now I have gotten e-mail from Bede's Prep School, At first I thought it was spam but after some investigation I have come to the conclusion that there is, somewhere, a person in England with the same name as me who has a confusingly similar e-mail address, and they got it wrong. As a result, about a month ago I started responding to these e-mails, asking them to check the address they had sent it to. Some of the e-mails seemed a little personal and I didn't want to think that there was a communication problem there.

Alas, this has not resulted in a cessation of the e-mail. I've gotten no response from them at all.

So today when I received an invitation for my child to attend their disco dance, I decided on a new tactic: sarcasm. Here's what I sent, preceded by the e-mail I received:

Bede's Prep School Disco Invitation

Dear Parents/Guardians

We are pleased to invite your child to the Year 6 – 8 School Disco, hosted by the La Manga Tennis players, on Saturday 31 January, 7.00pm – 9.00pm, in the Dining Room, at Bede’s Prep School.

Entry £5.00 (entry to the Dining Room is via the Side Lane)

Drinks £1.00

Sweet Scoop £1.00

Glo Stick Wristband £1.00

If you have any queries, then please do not hesitate to contact Jane Nash, via email, on [email protected].

With kindest regards

Miss (X) Prep School Secretary

Dear Miss X,

I want to personally thank you for your kind invitation for my child to attend your school disco. From what I know, Bede's Prep School is a prestigious organization and it is an honor to even be considered to attend such events. Before I can accept the invitation, however, I would need to have more information.

First and most significantly, which child of mine did you intend to invite? As a parent of triplets I run into this problem frequently, but I understand that you would have no reason to know that whoever you intended to invite would have two siblings of the same age. It would be presumptuous of me to guess which one, and I don't want to be incorrect, as I'm sure you understand it would certainly get their hopes up.

Secondly, there is the significant issue of transportation. I assume you are handling the details as to the flight and lodging? I am unfamiliar with the area and am open to most any decent hotel. She would need to fly out of Logan Airport in Boston; other airports are simply too inconvenient for us. Please let me know what flight arrangements you can make.

Thirdly, you neglected to indicate if there is any further compensation to be given along with the invitation. I'm sure that you would want my daughter to arrive in appropriate attire, for instance, and if it's S---- you wanted to invite (as I suspect it would be), she would undoubtedly claim that she had nothing to wear. A suitable stipend for clothing would go a long way to convincing her to accept, especially because she has been invited to go bowling that night, and I understand that her date would pay for shoes.

Thank you for your e-mail. Once again, it's an honor as a parent for one of my children to be invited to your event.

Sincerely,

James -----

Charisma 24

As of November, I've started playing D&D with a group of friends. Two of them are friends from my graphic design classes at RISD-CE, and two are their friends. It's been fun and I wanted to write a little bit about my experiences.

I've recreated Jana for the purpose of the game. Jana was originally created to be my mage in World of Warcraft back in 2006, and since then she's been recreated four times. The first time was for a series of stories I wrote for my kids starting with "The Dragon Kaseraak", in which a lot of her backstory was stripped and toned down. The next time was for Elder Scrolls Online, in which she was changed to a high elf (because that worked for the gameplay), but never really went much of anywhere. The third time was for what was to be a series of short stories set in modern day Boston, something I hope to get back to eventually but really haven't done much lately. And now, here she is in the land of Faerun, playing in a Pathfinder campaign. (Pathfinder is an offshoot of Dungeons and Dragons, edition 3.75 as my DM has called it.)

Because we're a bunch of adults playing the game, this has freed me to make Jana a more mature character. Jana's talents as a fire mage fit well within the system as her being a sorcerer with an elemental bloodline, with the bloodline passed maternally. I started with the same general story of Jana being in a bad relationship with Jeremiah at a young age, and it developed into something much grittier. Our DM suggested that the relationship incorporate the diety Sune, which seemed to make a lot of sense, so the religious background was moved in that direction. Jeremiah fraudulently described the workings of Sune to Jana as being much more salacious, and the story played out a little differently.

Pathfinder allows for two different traits to define a character's history, so here's where the gritty part comes in. The first trait for Jana was "divine courtesan". I chose this because it fit with her background with Jeremiah and her chaotic neutral alignment. Despite being a goddess of beauty and love, the churches of Sune do not officially have courtesans; this was something Jeremiah deceived Jana into believing, and her youth followed along the path of a such a person. The practical upshot to this trait is that it gives her a +4 to diplomacy and a +1 to sense motive, but I didn't choose it for that; I figured it just fit in with her background well.

The second trait I chose for Jana was killer:

You made your first kill at a very young age and found the task of war or murder to your liking. You either take particular pride in a well-placed blow, or find vile pleasure in such a strike as you twist the blade to maximize the pain. You deal additional damage equal to your weapon's critical hit modifier when you score a successful critical hit with a weapon; this additional damage is added to the final total, and is not multiplied by the critical hit multiple itself. This extra damage is a trait bonus.

In this trait, I decided that a buddy of Jeremiah went a little too far with Jana to be comfortable, and she lashed out with her budding magical abilities. She's been on the run since. Like divine courtesan, I didn't choose it for practical reasons, and in this case I probably wouldn't have chosen it for practical reasons. If Jana is attacking something with a melee weapon, something has gone horribly wrong.

The class of sorcerer also had some rather significant impact on Jana's character. Unlike the traditional wizard class which relies on intellect, sorcerers rely on charisma. So now, for those familiar with D&D, I want to talk about Jana's starting stats.

Because every roll prior to it is "practice", every proper D&D character has an 18 in one stat. Jana's is charisma, of course, because that's what would make her a good sorcerer. Because she's a human, she gets a +2 to one stat, so that gave her an exceptional charisma of 20 to start with. Her basic ability scores and modifiers are as follows:

Str: 15 (+2) Dex: 11 (0) Con: 14 (+2) Int: 16 (+3) Wis: 11 (0) Cha: 20 (+5)

I'll cop to fudging these a bit, but to fit the character rather than for minmaxing. I took a couple points away from wisdom and dexterity and added them to strength to reflect her brashness and size; Jana is still 5'11" and about 180 pounds, and always will be. It fits the character but as a practical matter this makes absolutely no sense. A sorcerer would do much better with a 15 dexterity than strength, because that would give her +2 to her AC and +2 to her ranged attack rolls (required for some spells), while strength doesn't help her practically that often. But then a dexterity of 15 wouldn't fit Jana, and even 11 seems a bit on the high side for her. Wisdom too would help with perception checks more often than strength. My feeling is that you can get away with better ability scores if they match the character as opposed to offering practical bonuses, but in any case Jana's ability scores aren't drastically different from the other characters in the group.

So then it came time to play her. In the first session I found particular joy in discovering ways to play her that just wouldn't be possible in her previous incarnations. In our first encounter involving two guards blocking a door that our group wanted to get past, we succeeded by Jana using that charisma not with a spell but to seduce the pair of them and then the other members of the group dispatched them relatively easily, what with them being naked and all. In our second encounter we succeeded in part thanks to a "burning disarm" spell; Jana made one of the tougher opponents drop his weapon, making him much less of a threat to the monk in the party. In a later encounter, Jana and the monk helped thwart a group of oncoming guards by placing slimy fish on the stairs they would have to run down to get to the group.

To put it this way: we've had some rather unconventional successes and I really enjoy it when that happens.

That isn't to say I'm not having fun with Jana kicking ass in combat. Jana basically killed a hydra by herself with a cone-based fire spell called burning hands, but only after yelling for her group mates to get out of the way. She thwarted a bunch of archers hiding behind a wall attacking through arrow slits by using the same spell cast through those slits, charring three enemies in one blow. Our monk has quite taken to the idea of hitting bad guys with flasks of oil and stepping back, which is quite fun (especially given the mechanic that Jana never misses with some of her fire spells; damage gets reduced with a successful saving throw).

So, as a summary of the progress so far, Jana's succeeded in novel ways, ways that the mechanics of an online game like WoW or ESO really couldn't offer. She unquestionably carries her own within the group. So it's been a lot of fun.

Now for the quandary of this post. Pathfinder has this to say about charisma:

Charisma measures a character's personality, personal magnetism, ability to lead, and appearance. It is the most important ability for paladins, sorcerers, and bards

I've always played Jana as having doubts about herself, chinks in her confidence, vulnerabilities in her persona. Jeremiah hurt her and made her doubt herself. She's always had a weight problem. She's overcome it, but the nagging doubts are still there.

It's not possible for someone like that to have a charisma of 20. I have to play her in a different way.

Our last session ended with a particularly nice bonus for Jana. One of the baddies we killed had a Cloak of Charisma +4. Jana is the obvious choice for such a thing and she now has the most valuable magic item of the group. More notably, her charisma is now 24.

A charisma of 24 leads to some ridiculous results and I'll give a few examples here.

One of Jana's compatriots is named Tomas. He's a level 6 monk, good guy, Jana gets along with him well and they do some awesome things in combat. Tomas has a wisdom of 13 and has trained one rank of Sense Motive, giving him a +5 to sense motive. He is not, in any way, a credulous guy.

Lying to someone in Pathfinder involves a bluff check by the person telling the lie against a sense motive check by the person hearing it. Depending on the nature of the lie, a modifier is added or subtracted to the bluff check. Jana's bluff, powered by her charisma, a bit of training, and a feat or two, is 17. Here are a few examples of how that would work.

Let's suppose Jana told Tomas she loved him (and it was a lie). It's a lie that we'll assume Tomas wants to be true, because who doesn't want to be loved? Jana gets a +5 bonus to that lie, so Jana's bluff check is +22 versus Tomas's sense motive check of +5. A tie goes to Jana, so she'd have to roll 18 less than Tomas for the lie to work. This happens all of 0.75% of the time; Tomas would almost certainly believe this lie.

Let's suppose Jana told Tomas that she was, in fact, the goddess Sune. This is a far-fetched lie, but it's not impossible, so Jana gets a -10 penalty to her lie. Jana's bluff check is +7 and Tomas's sense motive check is +5; Tomas would have to beat Jana's roll by 3 to see through the lie. This happens roughly a third of the time.

Let's suppose Jana told Tomas that she was, in fact, Tomas's mother. Technically this is not quite impossible (time travel and all) but it's as close to it as I can think of something to be impossible. Jana gets a -20 penalty to her lie; Jana's bluff check is -3 and Tomas's sense motive check is +5, so if Jana beats Tomas's roll by 8, Tomas would fall for it. This happens once in six times.

Yes, that's ridiculous, but that's what the numbers imply.

The question for me is: how do I play Jana now? I can't possibly pass her off as uncertain, not with the skills she has. With her diplomacy skill she could walk up to any bartender, ask for a free drink and get it. With her intimidate skill she could, with a minute's worth of conversation, force practically anyone of her level or lower to give up desired information or offer limited assistance. With her bluff skill there's a reasonable chance she could convince any individual that she's a goddess, and even a slight chance that she's their mother.

What sort of effect does it have on a character when she can do these things? Will she ever pay for drinks again? Will she ever be constrained by truth? Will she ever settle for not getting things exactly as she wants them to be?

I don't have the answers to those questions yet.

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